LES VICTOIRES DE LA MUSIQUE 2022- REVIEW

 On Friday Les Victoires de la Musique had place in La Seine Musicale (Paris). 

Les Victoires de la Musique are France's most important music awards. They are considered the French Grammys and  they usually award artists from the critic's point of view. Even though they're frequently compared to the Grammys, they are better like the BRITs, for the shortage of the categories. The dearth remains in the number of nominees too, with only three nominees per category (!), meanwhile there were categories at the BRITs with 15 nominees. Neither too much nor too little- I would say. 

There are only 10 categories and 6 of them make reference to the artist's genre (male or female), letting only 7 'pure' categories: Artist Of The Year, Song of the Year, Album Of The Year, Best New Artist, Best Concert, Best Visual Art (or Music Video) and the new category: Album le plus streamé (The most Streamed Album). This category tries to attract the youth to the Victoires and give space to genres or artists that aren't usually nominated in the main categories, benefiting the urban genre. The thing about this category, also divided in male and female, is that the winners were announced at the same time as the rest of the nominees. There was no mistery and no waiting. The winners were SCH with JVLIVS II and Aya Nakamura's latest record. This move shows what I've been saying: On the one hand, it makes people watch the gala (SCH performed) and , on the other one, it calms down part of the French rap listeners, who claim that they're not seen in a country where rap is the most listened genre on Spotify.

Just as I started this post, Les Victoires are essentially the critic's awards and , almost as every other awards ceremony in the recent years, they have had to deal with the end of the melodic pop's popularity and the  debate of how to embrace rap or afrobeats. The Victoires created a rap category in 1999 -it doesn't exist now- and , since then, the category modified its name several times trying to embrace the changes in popular music, jumbling R&B, Reggae and rap in the same category. 

Because of all of this, the controversy still exists nowadays and the criteria of what makes a rapper be nominated is debated and vague: The sexist lyrics? Orelsan was reported in 2016 (later dismissed) for provoking discrimination against women. Trying to balance the Victoires with the popular rappers, SCH decided to name in his speech other rappers who, in his opinion, should have been nominated, like Ninho or Soso Maness, creating one of the most memorable moments of the night. 

Returning to  the palmarés, Barbara Pravi, who represented France in Eurovision 2021, won the prize for Best New Female Artist -it seems that in France the Eurovision contestants have better future than in Spain-. OrelSan took home 3 awards (Male Artist of the Year, Best Music Video and Song Of The Year) . Juliette Armanet won the award for  Female Artist Of The Year and Clara Luciani, one of the most important of the night, Album Of The Year. Angèle went empty handed singing for her beloved Brussels. 


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