It has become an end-of-year habit for cultural publications: making a top 10 of their favorite works of the year, whether music, books, films, or series, among others. How are these numbers made? Do they sell more than the others? Examples with two magazines: Les Inrocks and Les Cahiers du Cinéma.
It’s the American Caroline Polachek, 38 years old, and her album Desire, I want to turn into you which this year tops the favorite albums in 2023 by Les Inrocks. Carole Boinet, editorial director of the magazine, recognizes that this issue “event” offering the best of the past year is always both exciting and a headache to organize: “Often albums continue to be released, sometimes even by surprise, at the time when we are composing this top of the year, and that can shake up our hierarchyshe explains to franceinfo. But, generally, we try to have a ranking at the top before the beginning of December, and people play the game with pleasure, whatever the category.”
Carole Boinet assures us: in the editorial staff, “Everyone is tackling it with joy, excitement and apprehension, and a desire to find a balance.” “It’s very anchored in the magazine’s habits at the end of each year. For example, beyond my role, I do a top 10 music list, and I really try to do it as sincerely as possible, group my hits of heart but without playing a role or wanting to list what is in trend”, she pleads.
Prescriber before the holidays
A number of Inrocks all the more collector’s item as it brings together four artists on the cover: Justine Triet, Damon Albarn, Etienne Daho and Charlotte Gainsbourg, all of whom, in their own way, marked the year, their meetings, their interviews, and all the articles offering the best of 2023 provide rich and varied content to the magazine, and – hopes Carole Boinet – prescriber, just before the holidays, to give ideas for gifts to make or to give yourself:
“It’s an issue that aims to be both a photo, an assessment, a summary of the year, which is a bit difficult to do, but we also want to highlight things that would have been a little overlooked or underestimated, or even would have gone unnoticed.”
Carole Boinet, editorial director of Inrocksat franceinfo
“It’s all the more important at a time when works – musical or otherwise – come out so quickly, so often, we consume them and sometimes put them down, that we think we have a role to play and help to grow.” ask” a little. What was this year 2023, what did I experience about it and what do I want to discover? I can cite the artists Bar Italia and Clara Jackson, or again Grian Chatten from Fontaines DC who we chose to talk about more specifically, alongside more mainstream artists like Lana Del Rey. We are smugglers, and that’s how I see our job”, continues Carole Boinet
A look at social networks quickly reveals that this trend of the “Top 10” most of the time in music or cinema has become a habit also for cultural journalists.
THE Cinema Notebooks do not deviate from this tradition, they also know that their assessment of the year is particularly awaited by their readers and subscribers, and the creation of this ranking takes place, here too, in a beautiful atmosphere, and via a democratic vote, which is then “balance” by the editors-in-chief, depending on what the magazine wants to highlight.
Bring back to light
So, for 2023 it is the Argentinian film Trenque Lauquen by Laura Ciratella who had the honor of first place, it was released (in two parts) in May, to only 20,000 cumulative spectators in French cinemas.
A not innocent choice therefore, linked both to his qualities and to the bias to put him forward, as explained by Yal Sadat, journalist at Notebooks : “What makes a top 10 interesting and differentiates it from a simple childish or adolescent fad, and sometimes also self-centered, is that we can direct people towards films that they would have missed. is the fruit of collective and democratic deliberation, but also a desire not to express exactly the same choices as the rest of the press or a community of film buffs.”
“We have a legacy at Cahiers consisting of defending what we call the authors’ policy, of clearing the way. Even a film which would unfortunately only be released in one or three theaters. Defending, or even if one might say avenging, the destinies of films that would have been almost forgotten, that’s what gives meaning to this tradition.”
Yal Sadat, journalist at Cahiers du cinémaat franceinfo
The magazine founded in 1951, and which has housed the pens of Serge Daney and Serge Toubiana but also the young Godard, Rohmer, Truffaut, Rivette and Chabrol, has spoken about him several times at this time of the year in the past, in slipping into these famous rankings the reality TV show Loft Story or season three of the series Twin Peaks, among other things. Offbeat choices, both assumed and justified in the text relating to the list, but also driven by a desire to “get people talking”, in an almost political gesture. And as Yal Sadat reminds us, another tradition prevails in Notebookseach year the editorial vote in December follows that of the readers in January.
Finally, it should be noted that these special December “review” issues retrospective on the year have the final quality of generating an increase in sales compared to other months, of the order of 25 to 30% for example for Les Inrocks.