With Aya Nakamura and Charles Aznavour, the export of French music on the rise

Aya Nakamura, export heavyweight, is a hit with her album “Nakamura” (2018), which now exceeds one million copies sold abroad, while her very latest disc “DNK” (2023) is certified Gold .

Thanks to artists of today or yesterday, like Aya Nakamura or Charles Aznavour, the export success of French music has increased by 30% in 2023, revealed Monday 29 April, the National Music Center (CNM).

These are singles and albums produced in France, therefore not necessarily sung in French or by a French artist. : the Belgians Angèle and Pierre de Maere are produced in France, for example.

“Low representation of women despite some great successes”

The CNM, in partnership with the National Union of Phonographic Edition, lists successes outside France according to thresholds crossed by integrating physical sales (CD, vinyl) and digital, as well as free listening, according to equivalences.

The CNM also salutes new locomotives, like Tiakola and Dadju, with their respective albums Melo And Cullinan, which become Gold on export. Soolking and Gazo see their title Casanova Diamond certified for export, just like Bob Sinclar and Fisher with the title World Hold On (2006 title remixed in 2022).

Pierre de Maere is certified Gold with his title One day I will marry an angelwhich has, among other things, more than 60 million views on TikTok.

But Aya Nakamura is the tree that hides the forest for women produced in France. The CNM thus regrets “low representation of women despite some great successes“, with only “20% of titles“entered the radars which include”a female presence (4% solo and 16% mixed)“.

Among the satisfactions, the album Ninety-Five (2021) by Angèle passes the Platinum threshold with more than 100 000 copies sold abroad. And the title Paro de Nej is certified “2xDiamond for export”.

More than 8 years after its release, Makeba of Jain is thus certified “6xDiamond” with 429 million streams worldwide and nearly 60 billion views on TikTok.

Yesterday again (1964) by Charles Aznavour is certified Diamond for export thanks to its use in the series Lupine with Omar Sy and in the megastar’s latest album Bad Bunny.

The thresholds are, for albums, Gold disc (50 000 equivalent sales), Platinum (100 000 sales) and finally Diamond (500 000 sales) with variations such as 2xDiamant. For singles (listened today digitally), Gold equals 15 million streams (1 download = 150 streams), Platinum at 30 million streams and Diamond at 50 million streams.