Mixmania broke the ice and took its place

Without mixmaniathere would have been no Star Academy. Without mixmaniathere would not have been eight chapters of The voicelet alone editions of The junior voice. Without mixmaniathere would have been no earworm like You’re leaving (and that’s good for me) !

Twenty years ago, in August 2002, Vrak launched one of the first musical reality shows in Quebec, which brought together eight teenagers – the famous Mix – in a huge colorful loft. Split into two groups, No regrets (girls) and Urban defense (guys), these young people learned to sing and move in the eye of the cameras. And they performed in a 100% French-speaking candy pop.

No one could have predicted the stratospheric success of mixmaniawhich nearly caused a riot at the Galeries de la Capitale in Quebec City, where 12,000 fans shouted the lyrics to the play Touch the sky. “You and me to the top, you and me, we’ll never stop!” »

Let’s go back to 2002, a period beforeStar Academy where cannon shows like american idol thundered for only a few weeks. It was the time when purists vomited over this television subgenre doomed to disappear in shame with the butterfly clips in the hair and the streaks in bands of color “ketchup chips”.

Yuck, reality TV! These “artists” do not manufacture art, but indigestible sausage with a commercial flavor.

How wrong those killjoys were. How they lacked vision.

Twenty years after the take-off of mixmaniatwo of its former participants, William Cloutier (Mixmania 3) and Krystel Mongeau (Mix 4), have won the last seasons of Star Academyand VAT. Claudia Bouvette Mixmania 2 progressed very far Big Brother Celebrities on Noovo and released an excellent electropop album titled The Paradise Club.

If you follow The voiceyou’ve probably seen a string of former Mixes including Krystel Mongeau (her again!), Redgee (winner of Mix 4), Gabriel Forest (Mixmania 3) and Tommy Tremblay (Mixmania 2). Ah yes, Anne-Sophie Demers (Mixmania 2) also moved to XOXO’s cardboard condos, but let’s not open this still painful case, thank you.

To measure the strong impact of the oldest musical reality show in Quebec, Crave launches the documentary on Wednesday Mixmania: 20 years later, which shines the spotlight on the 2002 cohort, the original Mixes. It’s very good, although a bit short at about forty minutes. There was here a film subject of at least an hour and a half, easy.

In a convent setting vintage, Annabelle, Julie, Ariane, Frank, Emmanuel and Pierre-Luc tell Bianca Gervais – who is also directing the documentary – the advantages and disadvantages of having been fed at such a young age by the shrill cries of the Bell Center and the FrancoFolies. How do you go back to slicing pressed chicken at IGA without feeling like a “has-been” at 18?

Note to mixmaniacs: Caroline Marcoux-Gendron and Benjamin Laliberté refused to participate in the Crave documentary. They have not been forgotten.

At the height of the pop wave, which pushed Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys to the top of the top, mixmania has been able to create accessible idols, with which members of the generation Y could identify instantly. In the episodes relayed by Vrak, the Mix repeated their words, made mistakes in their choreographies and cried if they did not like an item of clothing, which made them more human than a Justin Timberlake, untouchable, infallible and unaffordable.

By exposing their personal lives on TV, the contestants of mixmania cemented their close bond with their admirers, long before the arrival of social networks. Today, popstars spread confessions, promotions or house tours on TikTok and Instagram. In 2002, for everything, everything, to know everything about the Mix, you had to buy the magazine Cool.

In their living room, tens of thousands of mixmaniacs remade the choreographies of No Regrets and copied their Y2K style of clothing, which, strangely, has now been recycled by Generation Z.

The most fascinating in the phenomenon mixmania, it is the place of French. All the songs of the four seasons, effective and catchy, were written in our language. In 2002, tweens were screaming at guys party Where The 5 fingers of the hand. In 2011 it was zero point love Where As long as we love each other.

And today ? There was a rumor about the possible resurrection of the format of mixmania and talks have been started in this direction. Bell Media, however, preferred to buy the documentary by Bianca Gervais, which torpedoed the reincarnation project.

However, it is obvious that a mixmania 2022 would work. As the Season 2 Glamies sang, this show broke the ice and took its place. And if competing reality shows want to renew their pool of candidates, other Mixes need to dance, dance, and sing, sing, hey, oh!