Quebec music is going through difficult times, when we learned this summer that barely 23 French-speaking songs from here appeared in the ranking of the 1000 most listened to titles in Quebec on the platforms. No one expects 2024 to be the year in which the trend reverses, but things will end up getting better one day or another, believes Mario Lefebvre, who was one of the industry’s top figures. musical. “Music is cyclical. It comes and it goes,” likes to recall the man who was one of the architects of Celine Dion’s international career. Who knows, Quebec could perhaps soon produce the new big global star?
“This is not the first time that Quebec music has gone through a crisis. Also in the early 1980s, we had difficulty connecting with the public. Record sales had plummeted. Then MusiquePlus arrived. There was excitement with Mitsou, Les BB… At the end of the 1980s, Quebec music was doing much better,” notes Mario Lefebvre, who has 45 years of experience in the industry.
Mr. Lefebvre was first a music journalist before joining the Warner record company, then the CBS label, which became Sony. As he rose through the ranks, he rubbed shoulders with the biggest international stars, from Michael Jackson to the Rolling Stones, including Leonard Cohen. He also contributed to making Francis Cabrel “the most popular French singer in Quebec”, in addition to propelling the careers of Quebec artists abroad: that of pianist André Gagnon, but also, of course, that of Céline .
“I was lucky. I have always been in the right place at the right time,” he admits, aware of having experienced the best years in the industry. It was at the time when albums were being sold by the shovelful. The record companies he worked for had the luxury of being able to spend lavishly.
Then, the arrival of illegal download sites completely destroyed this economic model in the early 2000s. Today, everything happens on the platforms. Even music radio stations have lost their luster. Since CD sales have been reduced to nothing, it is no longer the major record companies that call the shots. there in the industry, but big show promoters, like Live Nation. Concerts have become the main source of income for artists, if not the only one.
“They say that things are not going well in Quebec, but things are not much better elsewhere. It is said that shows have replaced records. But shows perhaps provide a living for 5 or 10% of artists. There are many who previously made their living with records, and who today cannot do so. It has also been said that copyright is the future, but companies that have purchased artists’ catalogs are now experiencing difficulties. The reality is that copyrights don’t bring in that much,” underlines the man who headed Distribution Select, which was the main CD distributor in Quebec, during the 1990s.
Fighting against the ephemeral
However, Mario Lefebvre is not nostalgic. He doesn’t know how precisely, but the industry will bounce back. “The only thing that really worries me for the future is that artists have been getting a lot less engagement from their fans over the past decade. It’s normal that Bono no longer excites the crowds as much as before, but it’s not normal that no group has replaced U2 in terms of popularity. Taylor Swift is the exception that proves the rule at the moment,” he observes.
It must be said that it is difficult for new artists to develop a feeling of belonging in the current context. “Before, the promotion of an album could stretch over a year or two thanks to radio samples. Today, once the album is released on the platforms, if the buzz lasts three or four weeks, it’s great,” illustrates Mario Lefebvre, who was honored last fall at the National Assembly.
The former impresario continues to closely follow all musical releases around the world. But for the past year, he has regretfully had to stop working after being diagnosed with incurable bone marrow cancer. “Until last year, I was driving at 140 in the left lane. It was hard to stop. I am 65 years old, but in my head, I am still 18 years old,” he confides, serene about the future of things.
The next Céline
Behind him, the walls of his office are adorned with a plethora of gold and platinum records. In particular those of Roch Voisine, of which he was the manager for several years. “There are three great mysteries of life: the Sainte-Madeleine campsite, the caramel in Caramilk and why Roch Voisine has not made it internationally,” he always jokes.
Garou was also one of his foes in the early 2000s, when he was number two at Productions Feeling, the company run by his lifelong friend René Angélil. Eight years after the death of Céline Dion’s pygmalion, Mario Lefebvre says he still thinks of him every day.
“René was a great unifier. He was someone who had a clear vision and was able to express it well so that everyone converged in the same direction. This is why he succeeded in doing what no one in Quebec had succeeded in doing before, and what no one has succeeded in doing since. That being said, he had in his hands the hardest working artist I have known in my life,” he recalls.
Will we one day see a Quebec singer again reach the same heights as Céline Dion? “If it’s going to happen, it will be with Charlotte Cardin,” says Mario Lefebvre, who acted as a consultant to the latter during the launch of her first album.
“She has everything it takes to get there. She has the look, the voice, the writing… What she offers artistically does not exist anywhere else on the planet,” he emphasizes.