L’ADISQ Gala Night

As blogged in an earlier post, Sunday evening saw the 35th edition of the ADISQ Gala, held at the Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier de la Place des Art in Montréal and broadcast "en direct" on Radio Canada. With no dodgy internet feed available yours-truly ended up following "en-ligne" via Twitter (and with a list set to filter #ADISQ and #GalaAdisq, Tweetdeck was spinning like a Vegas slot machine - thankfully I don't follow #LNH...) 

I'm not that conversant with the Quebec music scene (although I know what I like) and I tend to use "French-Canadian" and "Quebecois interchangeably" (apparently a big "non"), so perhaps it was hoping for a little too much that this Blog's favourites would all scoop awards (then again, with Les Soeurs Boulay, Forêt AND Hôtel Morphée all nominated in the Breakout Artist category - short of me hedging my bets - someone was going to be disappointed).

Then again - and to accentuate the positives - just to make the shortlist means that someone, somewhere took notice. Right?

So lets get this Blog's excuses in first...

Now I know absolument rien about Louis-Jean Cormier - but seeing as he waltzed off with four Félix awards (Félixii???) for Rock Album, Composer (with Daniel Beaumont), Best Show and the Critics’ Choice - may be I should?

But then again he isn't a fille fragile. Which may not be the case with Marie-Mai. She picked up a matching pair of awards for Best Female Artist and Pop Album. It would be easy to dismiss her as just another manufactured "Star Ac'" clone (think "Pop Idol" or "American Idol"...), but then again so was Emma Daumas, who didn't even win the French version, yet whose first two albums, "Le saut de l'Ange" and "Effet secondaire" were (and if I say so myself) pretty fine and certainly a cut-above the usual manufactured-pap offerings associated with the genre.

But I digress...

So anyway how did this Blog's choices fare?

Unfortunately Ingrid St-Pierre, whose album "L'escapade" was my 2012 francophone album of the year, was up against Céline Dion in the "Adult Contemporary Album" category... Now I can't comment on Ms. Dion's winning album "Sans Attendre", but purely for her English-language offerings alone she deserves to be up before the International Court of Justice in the Hague for crimes against popular music...
 
Regarding the Breakout Artist award, as hinted above, Les Soeurs Boulay, Forêt AND Hôtel Morphée were all nominated - so I guess the winner was... moi(!?!) 

Stéphanie and Mélanie get to fight over another Félix...

Actually Gaspésie's finest - and this blog's favourite adopted sisters (sorry, real sis) - Les Soeurs Boulay, deservedly picked up the award, which means that now Stéphanie and Mélanie have a Félix apiece to dust...

Of course, no awards gala would be complete without complaints about it's relevance... For instance, Alain Brunet of La Presse on the dearth of French-Canadian indie bands, compared to their Anglo-cousins... 

"Pour la suite des choses, en tout cas, on souhaite des auditoires plus considérables à Forêt, Hôtel Morphée, Ponctuation, Gros Mené, El Motor et autres groupes francos en phase avec la période actuelle – avec tout le respect qu’on doit aux sélectionnés de l’ADISQ. Le Québec et l’Amérique francophones ont cruellement besoin de nouveaux bands et artistes de cette trempe. On n’a qu’à lire les nominations dans la catégorie «groupe de l’année», remportée par Mes Aïeux: Les 3 Accords, Kaïn, Les Cowboys Fringants ou Loco Locass !!??!! Comparez cette brochette à ce qui est valorisé à Montréal côté anglo, bien au-delà d’Arcade Fire et Pat Watson: Suuns, The Besnard Lakes, Thus Owls, Godspeed, The Luyas, Half Moon Run, Miracle Fortress, Esmerine, Stars, Land of Talk, Jerusalem in my Heart, Thee Silver Mt.Zion, Mozart’s Sister… À l’évidence, la sélection de l’ADISQ fait pic-pic… et ne supporte pas la comparaison..."

"For the future we need larger audiences for  Forêt, Hôtel Morphée, Ponctuation, Gros Mené, El Motor and other French groups (who) are more contemporary - (and) with all respect to those selected by the ADISQ. Quebec and Francophone America desperately needs new bands and artists of this calibre. One only has to read the nominees in the category "group of the year", won by my Mes Aïeux: Les 3 Accords, Kaïn, Les Cowboys Fringants ou Loco Locass !!??!! Compare these to those from the English side of Montreal, beyond Arcade Fire and Pat Watson: Suuns, The Besnard Lakes, Thus Owls, Godspeed, The Luyas, Half Moon Run, Miracle Fortress, Esmerine, Stars, Land of Talk, Jerusalem in my heart, Thee Silver Mt.Zion, Mozart's Sister ... On this evidence, the ADISQ selection doesn't support comparison..."

And being Canada, where the linguistic and cultural divide is even wider than Switzerland's rostigraben, the awards gala appears to have been greeted with a wave of indifference by the Anglophile community. Indeed a quick (and - yes - not totally exhaustive) trawl of the Canadian English-language dailies would appear to confirm this, although there's an interesting couple of articles in the English-Language Montreal Gazette; here - not passing up the chance to have a dig at the French-language Le Journal de Montréal, and here - having a dig at French-Canadians for watching "Le banquier" ("Deal or No Deal") on TV in somewhat larger numbers than tuned into the Gala).

Fortunately, my faith was restored when the collective at Indecent Xposure recommended that Anglos "should give a shit" about a vibrant French-Canadian music scene...

Me? I'm with them...

And for those interested, a complete list of nominations and winners can be found here... You'll most probably be reading about some of them in the future.