In 2001, Alexia Laroche Joubert was choosy in front of The music by Nicoletta. “Still, it’s a bit old,” she replied to Pascal Nègre who submitted this piece to her for the first season of star Academy that she was about to produce. Yes, imagine that this song of 1967 was perceived as anachronistic – if not unworthy – for the temple of the varietoche that was going to become the telecrochet of TF1. Twenty years have passed and we know the hit that has become of the cover performed by Jenifer, Olivia Ruiz and company, inseparable from the show.
Two decades later, Nicoletta has again become completely frequentable by the youngest: on Cupids & Pianos, which comes out this Friday, the singer performs He died the sun in duet with Marina Kaye, 23 years old. Yet another example that artists in their twenties or thirties no longer have snobbery slung over their shoulder when it comes to assuming their taste for French song and variety.
Other examples? Apple, 25, takes over Disenchanted by Mylène Farmer without hiding behind a pseudo-second degree, Kalash Criminel, 26, says his desires to collaborate with Michel Polnareff and, on the playlists Childhood memories Deezer, Dadju, 30, reinterprets without blushing Of love or friendship Celine Dion when Louane, 24, delivers without apologies his version of All the women in your life of L5.
Clara Luciani is “fed up with snobbery”
Janie, 26, devotes one song, Compile to the soundtrack of his life: Grenadine heart, We are going to love each other, Downwind… “It corresponds to everything I listen to and adore since my childhood,” explains the author, composer and performer at 20 minutes. I think our generation tends to be authentic, so we don’t hide behind fashions anymore. Maybe we were brought up and bathed in French song and that’s what we like, even if at one time it could be a bit old-fashioned. We assume, it’s true. And then, seeing artists around you who advocate that and do not hide it, that also helps. “
Clara Luciani is one of them. When leaving Heart at the beginning of the summer, she confided in us that she was “a little fed up with the snobbery of the French, in particular of certain Parisians, consisting in spitting on variety”. “It’s almost a word that we no longer want to hear about, an old-fashioned word, and that annoys me a bit because these are songs that rocked me, that I find immense,” she explained to the subject of his influences eyeing Michel Berger or Alain Chamfort, in particular. Driving the point home: “There is nothing wrong with variety. I want more than ever to go towards something popular and unfortunately, in the minds of people, you have to choose between the popular and the elegant, I find that absurd. “
“The trendy also want to be popular, and vice versa”
“When Clara Luciani told me, the first time I met her: ‘I only listen to music that is not today’. This had challenged me, reveals Adrien Gallo. At 32, the BB singer presented in September Where the willows don’t cry. This intimate and melancholy solo album reminds in places Anne Sylvestre or William Sheller and testifies to a love for song to text. “There are so many beautiful things in the past, that going there looking for things is a bit inevitable,” he said, breaking away from his rocker label.
“We are no longer in a sort of entrenched camp, with the bearers of intelligent and learned music on one side against the supporters of popular music on the other. It all mixes together much better, we are much less on postures, analyzes Christian Maugein, director, programmer and founder of the Festival les Primeurs de Massy, dedicated to young talents. Trendy artists also want to be popular, and vice versa. “
It is no longer incompatible to be celebrated both by media perceived as cutting-edge and prescribers and by the mainstream press. This year, Clara Luciani also did well on the cover of Telerama that of TV 7 Days – certainly Technikart dezinced it, a sign that an irreducible elitism remains. Barbara Pravi is a guest on RTL and RFM as well as on France Inter, and even to talk about Eurovision.
“Each song is made of so many others”
Rather than take offense at those who compared, with a form of contempt, Here is to Edith Piaf, the 28-year-old artist, considered it a “huge compliment”, and assumed the rolled rs as much as the interpretation embodied in the manner of its elder. “I call it” old French song “because these artists are dead, but their songs are not” old “for all that: the lyrics remain extremely current and the melodies timeless”, she told us in January about of these influences from the classics of the repertoire.
Feeding on the past in order to make music today is also the process claimed by Janie: “Even if I have inspirations inscribed in the heritage of French song, I am a woman of my time and of my generation, with my way of telling the world, I think that this mixture makes that I do not stink of dust. “
“I still have the impression that it is also very beautiful to be in the footsteps of a certain history of music and that there are bridges between idols and young people, that makes sense” , supports with 20 minutes Juliette Armanet. The author, composer and performer is back this Friday with the album Burn the fire speaks conscious inspirations and innutrition: “There are passages, transmissions and the music is made only of that. It’s a giant fluid. Each song is made of so many others. There is a certain beauty in telling yourself that you are influenced by people who themselves have been influenced by others. And then we will influence some of them. If in twenty years someone says [au sujet de la chanson de quelqu’un d’autre] “Ah, it’s a bit like Armanet”, it’s flattering, it’s cool! “