“When we don’t laugh anymore, it’s because we don’t live anymore,” sings Ferland, who worries that we forget his head and his songs in The cat from the artists’ café. It’s a bit what awaits our music if it no longer reaches our ears. Because the day when we won’t hear her anymore, she won’t live anymore.
The misfortune is that our screens – small, large and digital alike – are already struggling to impose their voice above that, thunderous, of the American sirens. However, we learned this week from the pen of Étienne Paré that, even with powerful incentives, Quebec music is struggling to make its way to our own television series! Our creators and producers are going to have to stick together better if we don’t want to be swallowed up for good under the weight of Americanization.
In two years, the Production Value Enhancement Program of the Cultural Business Development Corporation (SODEC) has not drawn a blank. As proof, revenues from “synchro”, these titles sold to be synchronized with images, increased on average by 28% each year from 2019. The problem is that we could have done remarkably better. , with less than 40% of targeted TV projects benefiting from this program.
Without advocating for the establishment of quotas whose prescriptive nature is a foil, there are chips to shake in the industry. Certain preconceived ideas must be dismantled, first and foremost that claiming that Quebec songs appeal less to a television audience that is, moreover, greatly underestimated. Skeptics need only look to giants like Dolan and Vallée to be convinced. Our music can hit right and right. She can also strike far: it is a Montrealer, Cristobal Tapia de Veer, who signs the music of the phenomenon The White Lotus.
In 1990, by Leloup, a song, that of the DJ, has the power to save a soul. One song alone won’t save the soul of our culture, but many won’t hurt to keep it alive. A common popular culture is built — and maintained — by accumulation. That we fight against the erosion of our common referents by promoting the interconnection of disciplines makes perfect sense. The more our music invites itself into our guts, the more likely it will be to last. There are therefore only advantages to taking advantage of the sesame of the screens – by far the most popular vector – to make it flourish in turn.
But let’s be ambitious. Let’s not just promote this program to be used to its full potential, let’s expand it. Limiting it to series showing potential for exploitation abroad is short-sighted. The next generation, the margin and the independents also have their role to play. Cultural transmission has never been so fragmented, especially among young people, who are shaping a tailor-made culture, alone, family and friends having lost their influence to the benefit of social networks and algorithms.
The digital factor is crucial in this transformation. Online cultural migration is very advanced among 15 to 34 year olds. The Culture Observatory shows almost universal rates for online music (93%), video sharing on sites like YouTube and Vimeo (91%) and streaming on platforms like Netflix or CraveTV (87%). 15-34 year olds are also much more fond of podcasts and video games than the rest of the population.
This is also where our music should resonate.