Beauregard Festival 2024

 Over the holidays we had details released of the lineup for the 2024 Beauregard festival in Normany in July, with some very interesting names on the bill.

While anglophone acts like Massive Attack, LCD Soundsystem and Bring Me The Horizon are big names that grab the headlines, there's much more than just that going on, with a strong representation of French home-grown acts.

Rappers Bigflo and Oli are probably the biggest commercial concerns, but the likes of Etienne Daho, Yodelice and Veronique Sanson broaden the range of acts and styles on offer. Etienne De Crecy teams up with Boombass, formerly of electronic legends Cassius, and L'Imperatrice is one act we've featured here in the past that's gone on to well-deserved success.

We're particularly excited to see Justice make an appearance and can't wait for their new studio album that's expected this spring, their first in seven years.  A snippet was previewed by the band in their New Year message.

As always, France is home to some of the best music festivals in Europe. Events like Beauregard fill the summer months across the country, with some of the biggest names internationally as well as French acts playing to massive audiences. 

We'll have more details throughout the year.

Victoires de la Musique 2018 nominations

Details have been released of the nominations for the 2018 Victoires de la Musique awards, the French music awards that can be compared to the Brit awards or the Grammys.

It's a big annual event, a high profile showcase for French music, and it always gets significant media coverage. It also, significantly, focuses on French acts. This year sees the 33rd edition of the Victoires de la Musique awards.

As is all to often the case with this kind of event, there are few surprises, but as always, the breakthough artist and breakthough album categories are the ones that interest this blog the most. Nice to see Fishbach and Petit Biscuit get some recognition. Events and awards like this can give major exposure to developing artists, introducing them to a farn wider audience and help them take their careers to a new level. It wasn't that long ago that Christine and the Queens were playing at small festivals and in nightclub sized venues.

Orelsan leads the nomination, with three mentions - best male artist, best urban album for La fête est finie and best video (or best audiovisual presentation, as it likes to be called by friends) for Basic.

There are two nominations each for Louane (best female artist and best original song) and for BigFlo & Oli (best urban music album and best original song.)

Best male artist
Bernard Lavilliers
Orelsan
Soprano

Best female artist
Charlotte Gainsbourg
Louane
Catherine Ringer

Breakthrough artist
Eddy De Pretto
Gaël Faye
Fishbach

Breakthrough album
Aliose - Comme on respire
Juliette Armanet - Petite amie
Petit biscuit - Présence

Best chanson album
Brigitte - Nues
Albin de la Simone - L'un de nous
MC Solaar - Géopoétique

Best rock album
BB Brunes - Puzzle
Lady Sir - Accidentally Yours
Shaka Ponk - The Evol

Best urban music album
BigFlo & Oli - La vraie vie
Lomepal - Flip
Orelsan - La fête est finie

Best world music album
Amadou et Mariam - La confusion
M - Toumani et Sidiki Diabaté - Lamomali
Oumou Sangare - Mogoya

Best electro album
ALB - Deux
Dominique Dalcan - "empérance
Fakear - Karmaprena

Best concert
Camille
Gérard Depardieu - Gérard Depardieu chante Barbara
Julien Doré - & Tour

Best audiovisual creation
Orelsan - Basique (Greg & Lio)
Gauvain Sers - Pourvu (Jean-Pierre Jeunet)
The Blaze - Territory (Jonathan et Guillaume Alric)

Best original song
Dommage by BigFlo & Oli
Ton mec by Kyo
Si t'étais là by Louane
Roule by  Soprano

I'll give more on my thoughts about who the likely winners are going to be closer to the actual event.

The 2018 Victoires de la Musique ceremony takes place at la Seine Musicale on Friday February 9.