“Historically, fall has always been a big period for releasing records,” says Emilie Darveau, director of records and marketing for the record label Bravo Musique (Cœur de pirate, Evelyne Brochu, L’Isle, Gab Bouchard). . “September and October is a very, very, very busy period,” adds Kevin Anocque, label director at Ensoul Records (Dominique Fils-Aimé, Hanorah, Eddy).
It is therefore generally not surprising to see many albums offered during this period favored by most artists for all kinds of reasons (we will come back to this). However, the industry professionals that La Presse spoke to agree that the deluge of releases on the calendar this fall is somewhat unusual.
On the local side, Karkwa, Allison Russell, Elisapie, Evelyne Brochu, CRi, Chilly Gonzales, Dominique Fils-Aimé, Marilou, Aliocha Schneider, Émile Bilodeau, in particular, will all release their records in September.
Internationally, James Blake, Olivia Rodrigo, Doja Cat, Kylie Minogue, Kid Cudi and many others are added to the list, only for this month.
“We have several new signings,” continues Emilie Darveau, “but we had fewer first records before that. There we again have more room for novelty. »
Added to these new releases are all the other, more established artists, who also waited until the moment was more opportune. An album release is accompanied by promotional campaigns, launch shows and tours, ideally. During the pandemic, all of this was greatly limited, or even impossible for a while.
“We stopped releasing records for a while because it was very complicated to market them,” explains Kevin Anocque. It’s the same thing for shows. We saw many releases postponed for a while, in the hope that the pandemic would end. This meant that we ended up with a lot of albums for post-pandemic releases and that continues a little. »
“Autumn is the start of the cultural season,” says Alixe Hennessey Dubuc, label director at Audiogram (Fanny Bloom, Aliocha Schneider, Elliot Maginot, Matt Holubowski, Marilou). At home, we always release a dozen albums a year, divided between the two strong periods, that is to say autumn and spring. »
“Summer is festivals, it’s holidays, we’re not going to release an album when cultural journalists are on vacation,” she explains.
Then you have to think about the shows. Local and international artists share the bill in our large venues without interruption this fall. “The life cycles of the album and the show are closely linked. For example, for Dominique [Fils-Aimé], it’s been a year since we planned the period when we would release the album, says Kevin Anocque. To have time to communicate with our show booking partners, programmers, broadcasters, tour operators. »
Festivals are also taken into account. “In the fall, all the big festivals have just ended, but there are still some, like Coup de coeur francophone, with which we can align ourselves,” says Alixe Hennessey Dubuc. Then comes spring and the submission period for summer festivals, emphasizes Kevin Anocque.
“After a release in September, if an artist’s album is successful, festival programmers, at the beginning of the following year, will be able to take it for the following summer,” adds Emilie in this regard. Darveau.
Again (in part) due to the pandemic, a lot of launch shows and tours are happening at the same time. Some concerts logically follow recent record releases, others have been postponed until today since the pandemic has prevented good turnover. “We’re coming out of this period of postponed tours a bit, but it also means we have plenty of artists who can’t wait to present new shows,” says Alixe Hennessey Dubuc. Many come out of the creative period and arrive with new material. »