The nominations for the Victoires de la Musique have just been announced and demonstrate, once again, the laziness of an institution which struggles to honor the diversity of the French musical scene.
Like every winter, the Victoires de la Musique ceremony has not yet taken place but reasons of irritation are already taking over just reading the nominations revealed this Monday, January 13 for the 40th edition, which will be chaired by Alain Souchon on February 14 at the Seine Musicale. “Never happy”, we will be told. Or rather “Hello mom bobo”, they will be told.
Where to start among these nine categories where we are surprised, as every year, by an over-representation of artists cited several times (9 out of 34, including four nominations for Santa, look for the mistake for the former -singer of Hyphen Hyphen) to the detriment of musical diversity in France? Another question, the three nominations of Aliocha Schneider (male revelation, scene revelation and original song) seem at the very least excessive, except to know that the president of the association Les Victoires de la musique, Vincent Frèrebeau, is involved in Local, the label of the Franco-Canadian singer…
-Forgetting, again and again
While the reduction in the number of categories, introduced since 2020, continues to raise questions about a truncated representation of musical styles, the rehabilitation of albums by genre (variety, rock, urban music, rap, world music, electronic music) would allow, on the contrary, to remedy it. How else can we understand oversights, each more blatant than the other? Starting with Vivant, by Malik Djoudi, the best French album of the year. Or what, by Bonnie Banane, who won the 2024 Joséphine prize? Examples unfortunately abound like in Gravelotte, a bit like the defeats on the evening of the annual Victoires de la Musique ceremony.
So, once again, we will bet on a few artist victories ardently supported by the editorial staff of the Inrockuptiblesfrom Philippe Katerine to Zaho de Sagazan, from Clara Luciani to Justice, from Alain Chamfort to Yoa. And if we can rejoice in the nomination of the memorable opening and closing ceremonies of the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games among the concerts of the year and the formidable documentary on DJ Mehdi by Thibaut de Longeville in audiovisual creations, the musical account is still not there for this 40th anniversary edition.
