A recent french initiative called “Je veux signer chez AZ” has been lately launched. At a time when the French “Nouvelle Star” is being requestionned, this new type of musical casting show is taking a new face. TV is dead, the web killed it!
No need to build a website, Facebook and Social Media have been prefered. Why complicate things? This “virtual casting” is based upon some rules though. Each candidate has to upload two videos via a youtube account, and publish it on the Facebook Page: one English song and one French song. Let’s buzz it with your friend in order to maximize the audience!
If the casting was over last week, this week end was the time for the selected participants to get on stage at L’Olympia, in Paris. To remain trendy, the auditions have been live broadcast via Allomusic. No videomontage but pure live: very dark image and bad sound quality, let’s not forget that this is the first time for virtual audition!
However, more than the tools used to build the casting, I’m still wondering about the quality and legitimacy of the casting itself.
And you pretend to be an artist ?
Watching the live audition, I was shocked by the poor level of the participants. Of course, and don’t get me wrong, some of them had a really nice voice. But my question is, does it make them becoming an artist though? If the casting is giving the chance for everybody to be heard by professionals like Valery Zeitoun, it does not make you become an artist even if you win. This artistic democratization is not only a bad thing for it helps unknown talented people to be discovered. But how many will get through ? What happens if you disagree with the Label when it comes to make your CD ?
A new chance for faded artist to catch up again with music
Upload your video on Youtube and post it on the Facebook Page. Easy as 1 2 3 ! You failed on TV reality shows? Take your chance on virtual casting! No need to mention that among all this untalented people, you will have your chance to shine as a superstar. But still you failed once, did you ?
Will Valery Zeitoun’s dream come through?
Just like the French Nouvelle Star, this casting has been made to discover the next french artist who will signed with the label AZ, as Valery Zeitoun explains it in this interview:
From what I saw on the different videos posted on Facebook, I was not impressed by any single one. Thus I’m wondering how this winning artist will shine next to worldwide famous artist such as Amy Winehouse or even the french famous slam artist Grand Corps Malade. Anyway, it take all kinds to make a world.
Virtual casting or not virtual casting ?
I’m not sure popular casting is the best way to find emerging talented talents. The first reason is that the new bands who are talented enough don’t believe in the “casting power”. Popular casting is suffering from a disinterest and is often being criticized by talented musicians. The result is logical. The majority of people who subscribe in this kind of casting is probably not here to revolutionize music. Still is it what people are asking for ? Once again I do think that the majority of people are happy listening to simple french traditional pop music. Nice melody, nice voice, what more do you want ?
Saying this, I do understand that Label such as Label AZ won’t necessarily swim counterflow. Too risky I guess ?!
MUSIC MEETS THE WEB 