A career in music isn’t planned on the back of a napkin, and implementing strategies with a plethora of details doesn’t happen like magic. That’s where a manager becomes necessary for an artist. But is a manager really necessary to have a successful and prosperous career? We asked Idir Aissani, who manages the band Ragers.
Photo by courtesy of/courtoisie d’Idir Aissani
The Weeknd creates a new record: more than 52 weeks in the Billboard Top 10
Story by Howard Druckman | March 11, 2021
The Weeknd has broken a world record. His omnipresent song “Blinding Lights” is the first single ever to spend a full 52 weeks in the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100.
The song has also been recognized by global record industry trade group IFPI as the winner of its 2020 Global Digital Single Award, saluting the world’s best-performing single of the year across all digital formats.
The acknowledgement of “Blinding Lights” as the world’s most successful single of 2020 comes on the heels of his half-time Super Bowl performance to almost 150 million viewers, achieving 2.72 billion subscription stream equivalents, and selling almost a million tickets for his recently announced 2022 world tour.
SOCAN congratulates The Weeknd and his team on this stunning success!
Photo by courtesy of /courtoisie de Francouvertes
Francouvertes announces programming for 25th Anniversary edition
Story by Marie-Michèle Bouchard | March 10, 2021
Valence, winner of the 2020 edition of the Francouvertes competition, kicked off this 25th Anniversary edition of the annual event with a short but explosive performance at Montréal’s Lion d’Or club. Due to the health measures still being enforced, the seven evenings of the preliminaries of the 2021 edition will be held without an audience and live-streamed on lepointdevente.com. Thanks to a brand-new integrated voting platform, the audience will not only be able to view the performances, but also read the lyrics of the artists’ songs, consult the program, vote, and comment on the performances.
Once again, SOCAN will be part of the event by presenting the “Skátne” series of performances. The purpose of this series is to give greater prominence to First Nations and Inuit artists and their languages. The guest artists will be:
- Laura Niquay (March 15)
- Anachnid (March 16)
- Sylvia Cloutier (March 22)
- Kanen (March 23)
- Sandrine Masse-Savard (March 29)
- Samian (March 30)
- Willows (April 5)
- Matiu (April 26)
- Dan-Georges McKenzie (April 27)
- Scott-Pien Picard (April 28)
SOCAN will also present the Prix Paroles & Musique SOCAN, a $1,000 cash prize to be awarded to one of the semi-finalists, in recognition of the writing talent behind the creation of their song. The cash prize also comes with a one-week writing residency at the SOCAN House in Paris. These prizes are part of a plethora of rewards, grants, and concert opportunities to be handed out this year.
There will be seven preliminary evenings held at the Lion d’Or every Monday from Feb. 17 to March 30.
The contestants of the preliminary round are:
- Bermuda, Lampion, Super Plage (March 15)
- Mada Mada, Douance, Phil Bourg (March 16)
- Mayfly, Issa Karim, Vendôme (March 22)
- tremble, Perséide, oui merci (March 23)
- FIDÈS, A.M., Calamine (March 29)
- Sandrine St-Laurent, Ambre ciel, Étienne Coppée (March 30)
- Malaimé Soleil, Sylvie, BAIE (April 5)
The Francouvertes hope to be able to present the semi-finals (April 26, 27 and 28) and the final at Club Soda (May 17) in a hybrid format, live with an audience, and streamed online.
To find out more about the 25th edition of the Francouvertes, visit francouvertes.com (French only).