Unless they are called FouKi or Charlotte Cardin, Quebec artists struggle to introduce their new songs to the public in the absence of tours and festivals.
And for good reason: 7 of the 20 most popular Quebec plays in the last months of 2021 were released before the pandemic.
This is the first time that a ranking has been established based on the listening habits of Quebecers on online platforms, such as Spotify and Apple Music. It emerges a ranking of the 20 most listened to titles, surprising to say the least, where we find only 3 of the 10 songs nominated for the last Félix, but in which the rapper Loud manages to climb to 17and standing with All women know how to dancea radio success that dates back to 2017.
These data compiled by the Observatoire de la culture are all in all quite summary, as they only take into account the plays carried out between October 15 and the end of the year 2021. There is no comparison with the previous years.
Conclusions of ADISQ
However, the figures are sufficient for the Quebec Association of the Record, Entertainment and Video Industry (ADISQ) to draw its own conclusions: firstly, the absence of shows has greatly harmed the artists who arrived with new material in the last year; second, the algorithms of digital platforms put Quebec music at a disadvantage, a fortiori new Quebec music.
“I don’t think there is a lack of interest among young people for Quebec music, I just think that we have to be able to make music better discovered”, argues the director general of ADISQ, Ève Paré, which welcomes the tabling of Bill C-11. Presented last week by the Trudeau government, this piece of legislation aims to subject digital platforms to the Broadcasting Act, and thus to force them to promote a minimum of Canadian content.
In the same vein, ADISQ is also campaigning for commercial radio stations to be forced to play a certain percentage of new Quebec songs, not just classics. The industry is also relying heavily on the return to normal and the resumption of shows to give a boost to artists who offer new compositions.
Questioning
However, the trend is heavy and could take a long time to reverse.
We already knew that Quebec music represented only 8% of listening on the platforms — 6% when we talk about French-language Quebec music. But now the publication of the first data specific to Quebec paints a picture of the situation that is perhaps even bleaker.
If we put aside the ranking of the 20 most popular songs and look at the 20 most listened to Quebec artists on listening apps, we see the names of Daniel Bélanger and Jean Leloup appear. Their longevity is a credit to them, but some worry that singers who haven’t released a hit in a few years are more popular than artists pushing for a new album.
Louis-Jean Cormier, Hubert Lenoir and Vincent Vallières, to name a few, all three enjoyed media coverage in 2021 thanks to their latest album, but none of them appeared in the artist rankings most popular Quebecois on listening platforms in the last months of the year.
“Who will be able to fill the Bell Center in 10 years? It worries me to see that Cormier, Lenoir and Vallières are not there. Is it just because they haven’t done a show this year? I do not think so. It’s as if their repertoire doesn’t reach the people who listen to their music in streaming says Pierre “Bill” St-Georges, consultant in the music industry.
The latter notes a certain discrepancy between the Quebec music scene and the tendencies that prevail in practice among young people. Bill St-Georges does not fail to point out that the industry here has been slow to grant a place of importance to hip-hop, while this style has dominated the charts in the United States and France for more than two decades. Today, rap imposes itself. Seven of the top 20 songs on platforms at the end of 2021 fell into this category.
The controversial rapper Enima may have had trouble with the law to the point of losing his permanent residence, he was the most popular Quebec artist at the time, ahead of Charlotte Cardin and the Cowboys Fringants.
“Rap, with a few years of delay, has come to become essential here too. And I don’t think we’ve yet seen the full richness and breadth of this style,” adds Eric Parazelli, spokesperson for the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN).
Little surprised by the success of rap on the platforms, Eric Parazelli is more surprised by the impact of instrumental music. Pianist Alexandra Stréliski ranks seventh among the most listened to Quebec artists between October and December 2021. Her piece Earlier was ranked 19and place of the most popular songs.
“It’s something we wouldn’t have seen a few years ago. […] Maybe during the pandemic, people were stressed and needed to relax by listening to instrumentals, ”suggests the SOCAN spokesperson.