The Scrapbook Civilization d’OrelSan becomes the best-selling in France in 2022, while Jul is the most listened to artist with seven solo records in the official Top 200 unveiled on Friday.
Two crowns for one kingdom. Civilization d’OrelSan is the best-selling album in France in 2022, while another rapper, Jul, is the most listened to artist with seven solo records in the official Top 200 unveiled on Friday. Civilization was already at the top of sales for the year 2021. “It’s not systematic for an artist to stay in the lead two years in a row, it’s a reference”, comments for AFP Alexandre Lasch, director general of the National Syndicate of Phonographic Publishing (Snep), who reveals this classification. We have to go back to Stromae (2013 and 2014 for Square root) and Adèle (2011 and 2012 with 21) to find such a performance.
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With seven solo albums in the Top 200, the prolific Jul has 582,635 cumulative sales (not counting collective albums 13’Organized and The Classico organized which he initiated). He too is accustomed to the fact (549,000 cumulative sales for his 8 albums in the Top 200 in 2021). His secret? The 32-year-old Marseillais, by releasing an average of two albums per year, maintains a constant stream of listening on platforms between new and old records (none more than three years old is counted by Snep). “Before, we bought a CD and it was frozen, whether we listened to it a lot or not”analyzes Alexandre Lasch.
But, in terms of visibility, the big winner in 2022 will have been OrelSan, 40 years old. Released in November 2021, Civilization totals 406,837 sales in 2022 by combining physical copies – CDs, vinyls -, downloads and listening on streaming platforms, according to Snep. The Norman rapper reigns on a podium completed by the Ile-de-France Ninho (283,242 copies for Jeff) and the Belgian Stromae (242,224 sales for Multitude).
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The smell of gasoline
author of the tube Basic five years ago, OrelSan was talked about this time with The smell of gasolinea piece denouncing the polemical/extremism/excessive cocktail served up in the debates around the presidential campaign. “I don’t follow the news too much but, speaking with the people around me, I see that it is becoming a theme of the campaign”he modestly advanced to AFP in November 2021. In 2022, he will in any case have made the title of his first album lie, Lost in advance (2009). In February, he won a hat-trick at the Victoires de la Musique in the male artist and song categories (The smell of gasoline) and audiovisual creation for never show that to anyone. This documentary series (on Amazon Prime Video) created the event thanks to a richer raw material than that of the competition. About twenty years filmed by his brother have been exploited, reinforcing his closeness to the public. We see in particular the first years of hardship, between a small job as a night watchman in a hotel or even this “battle” (duel of rappers at the microphone) failed in front of a jury of sizes where Diam’s and Booba sit.
“Bercy all week long»
The success even spawned a season 2, on a tighter timeline, around the painful childbirth of Civilization. The defense of this new opus on stage, on the other hand, went like a dream, with a tour that brought together 1.2 million spectators in 2022, between headlining concerts and festivals. “Paris, thank you, thank you, I put a Bercy all week” does he sing in Shounen. He will have done it with five sold-out evenings in a row at the Accor Arena, another name for this hall, at the start of the year. Without forgetting three evenings at Paris La Défense Arena at the end of 2022. With a particularly well-articulated show, between modest intro – mirror of the first years -, nod to the culture of video games and final mastery of visual effects. And now ? OrelSan has the choice between writing music for himself, for others or writing for the cinema, a field already frequented by How far is it (2015), which he had directed.