Winning lap for Benjamin Biolay. their tenth album holy clear it went straight to the No. 1 spot on the Top Albums chart on Friday, a week after its release. An expected success after the box of Big prizehis previous work: this album released in 2020 had sold more than 100,000 copies and equivalents and had earned him two awards at the Victoires de la Musique the following year.
With this triumph, Benjamin Biolay has become a benchmark for the FM band. In recent years, his successes How is your pain? Where like a car volley resonated on all general radio stations -it received the RTL Album of the Year 2020 award-, and the first excerpts from holy clear – Give me back the love! Y (A) Ravel – Follow the same path. Enough to end up making him one of the main faces of French pop… a thousand leagues from what his beginnings foreshadowed.
Because for years, Benjamin Biolay has seduced a smaller audience. More accustomed to the praise of the nerdy press than to Michel Drucker’s red sofa, the 49-year-old singer has long embodied a more reserved, and certainly more Parisian, music scene – even if that means suffering some commercial flops, despite a criticism that never disavows. And to convince new fans, he had to go find them.
In search of recognition
A simple glance at Benjamin Biolay’s discography reveals the metamorphosis that has taken place. After a first success in the year 2000, when he signed songs from the album Room with a view for Henri Salvador, he released a first album under his name in 2001, rose kennedy. The public is at the rendezvous and makes this first attempt a gold record, that is, 100,000 copies sold, the equivalent of a platinum record today.
Some would call it beginner’s luck. Because Benjamin Biolay will have to wait no less than 15 years to obtain a new certification (with palermo hollywoodin 2016), despite five albums released in the meantime. Negative, to the origin, trash yeye, the proud Y Revenge they only manage to convince an audience of insiders.
But they allow the singer to plant the seeds of greater notoriety. Benjamin Biolay invites much more popular artists (Vanessa Paradis, Françoise Hardy or even Orelsan) and multiplies collaborations with stars from all walks of life: he produces an album for Élodie Frégé, winner of the star academy, works with CharlÉlie Couture, signs a duet with the BB Brunes, produces an album by Isabelle Boulay and puts her voice on albums that pay homage to two figures of French song, Alain Bashung and Renaud. These forays into the popular scene make Benjamin Biolay a recurring and recognizable face, as well as a safe bet for his colleagues.
From a new face to “New Star”
The success of palermo hollywood shuffle the cards. With greater influence, Benjamin Biolay opens new doors: at the end of 2017 he surprises everyone by joining the jury panel of New Star, the great tele-hook audience of M6. Difficult, for an artist looking to rework her character, to find a better showcase:
“My image with the general public is not good, I am aware of it,” he had frankly declared at the time to Télé-Loisirs. “I started 20 years ago with very dark records, and I accompanied that with an image that went with those records but froze a character that was supposed to be me but didn’t really look much like me. I think with New Star), on the contrary, people will see me as I really am in life.”
Visibly moved by this television experience, he reiterates his regular participation, a few months later, in the cult hamburger test by Alain Chabat. During this period, she continued to work with singing stars: she opened the 2017 Cannes Film Festival singing a duet with Louane (revealed by The voice), participate in the disc We all have something Johnny… More recently, we saw him make friends with the new generation of French artists signing duets with Hoshi, Clara Luciani or Adé, former member of the successful group Thérapie Taxi.
Her movie roles help change her image. If we have seen him shine essentially in auteur cinema, like his music (with Agnès Jaoui or Christophe Honoré, to name a few), Benjamin Biolay mischievously enjoys appearing where we do not expect him at all. like in comedy divorce club by Michaël Youn in 2020, or in an episode of Capitaine Marleau, the police comedy that triumphs on France 3.
speeches in the media
Finally, the recent political rants of Benjamin Biolay have undoubtedly resonated, in a France exhausted by repeated confinements. In the midst of the Covid-19 crisis, when performance halls remained stubbornly closed, the singer had become one of the voices of discontent among artists deprived of activity. A speech that took the stage of the Victoires de la Musique, the following year, on the night of her consecration:
“We are well aware that this pandemic is frightening and that the measures put in place were necessary,” he declared, before lamenting the “quite dizzying silence” of public authorities in the face of the demands of the music world. “I’m hoping that people will listen to us a little bit. We are serious people, we will not do anything.”
Far from having done “anything”, Benjamin Biolay patiently knew how to evolve his image. Time will tell which trajectory you will know holy clearbut it already seems to be following in the footsteps of its predecessor.
Source: BFM TV
