Release of the album Seven | Marie-Mai can buy her own flowers

She thought about running, saving herself, but her heart ended up telling her again: sing, Marie-Mai! As she launches her seventh album, the first since 2018, a conversation on the future of her career in Music, and on the future of Quebec music in short, with the most serene of young veterans.

Marie-Mai leans towards your journalist, as if to confide a secret to him. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m old school. » Surprising sentence, but not necessarily false. When his first album was released, Stainlessin 2004, Archambault and HMV were selling tons of CDs, while teenagers risked blowing up their parents’ computers by illegally downloading their favorite songs from LimeWire.

Fast forward 20 years later, and a new album is dropped on streaming platforms, at midnight, without much fanfare. Marie-Mai recognizes it straight away: after starting a successful career on TV, she seriously wondered if, for her, music was over. Would there be a 7.0 version of itself? She had never maintained such a long silence as since She and Isixth entry in his discography, released in 2018.

“I think it’s healthy to ask the question,” she says about her future as a singer, about which she has thought long and hard. “The industry has changed a lot. When I make albums, it’s a deep dive, hyper-emotional work that takes a lot of energy. And it’s true that, at times, I can’t believe that I’m doing all this so that it ends up on platforms. The result is sometimes less tangible than before. »

But she is quick to add: “Even if I tried, the music wouldn’t let me leave it.” » Not to mention that her other contracts allow her to consider her life as a musician with a little more lightness, without the pressure of repeating success because there are bills to pay.

Worried about the future of French-speaking song, our veteran? She bursts into a soft, nervous laugh. “I’ve been worried for several years! »

“Fortunately, the young generation that is breaking through at the moment is showing that there is another possible path,” she rejoices. They are super creative in inventing ways to exist with smaller budgets. For me, coming from the old school, this is impressive. »

An “imperfect fairy tale”

Marie-Mai describes Sept as a sort of assessment, as she celebrated her 40th birthday in July and underlines the 20th anniversary of her first record. True to her reputation as a dogged explorer of the darkest corners of her heart – she has always been our most popular pop star. emo –, the ex-academic chronicles her “imperfect fairy tale”, as she describes it at the end of the album. A fairy tale which “gave her the most beautiful refrains”, but because of which she also often cried alone in her bath.

“I sometimes wonder what my life would be like / without my name rhyming with jealousy / I hate only believing in what hurts me,” she murmurs in the opening, in Black on blackbefore adding, a little further, that every evening, her demons cradle her in their arms.

“No, that’s not what I sing!” », Corrects Marie-Mai, amused by the confusion of her interlocutor. “It’s me – me!” – who cradles my demons in my arms. » A nuance that is indeed essential, as this new record paints the portrait of a woman who has learned, like Miley Cyrus, that it is sometimes better to buy your own flowers. Especially since it is undoubtedly the best way to avoid receiving the pot, which has happened to him more often than not.

As a fervent pop lover, Marie-Mai is fascinated by the American supernova Chappell Roan, who is currently going through a major media storm, with which she is well placed to sympathize. What advice would she give him?

“Chappell is very intelligent and I think she will eventually understand that you have to learn to stop justifying yourself. It helped me a lot to no longer feel the need to set the record straight every time someone said something unfair or negative. »

Read “Chappell Roan pulls out of festival to ‘prioritize his mental health’”

Champagne in hand

With her new studio partner, composer and director Lucas Liberatore, Marie-Mai has created an album in tune with the sound of current world pop, bomb Not planned until the very Taylor Swift No effect. In a rare and salutary burst of humor, the Quebecer congratulates herself, a glass of champagne in hand, that karma, her great subject long before Taytay, got the better of her enemies.

Karma will, conversely, be generous with those who do things for the right reasons, she believes. When talking about the artists who play on repeat at her house, Marie-Mai first names FouKi, her daughter’s pref. “She met him on Canada Day and she said to me: ‘Mom, I have chills in my heart.’ ” Cute.

Then Charlotte Cardin. “Charlotte started her career in a very difficult time for the industry, she found new ways to be creative, without being in the race for success. It’s super inspiring to follow her. »

A burst of admiration allowing us to conclude that Marie-Mai has taken good care of her inclination for jealousy? She laughs. “My jealousy has never translated into envy towards other artists. When Coeur de pirate arrived, I was very excited, I was a megafan. But I didn’t think I was cool enough. I always felt like I wasn’t enough. »

She laughs again, as if touched by this version of herself which now belongs to the past. She finally seems to have assimilated what she proclaimed in 2003: sing, Marie-Mai, and forget what others think of you.