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With his well-crafted promotional stunt in the newspaper La Une Sunday evening, the star singer and the editorial staff are further confusing the tracks of infotainment.
On October 15, the Culture department of Release was forced to wonder about the relevance of relaying the announcement, taken up everywhere else (from the site of World to Figaro), the release of the new single from Stromae, Health. Relatively absent from the media light since the end of his world tour in 2015 and following serious health concerns, the Belgian announced with this song the upcoming release, in March, of his new album, titled Multitude. Rather than essential news for culture, we were therefore dealing with promotional communication, as dozens of them land every day in the mailboxes of journalists in the service; also the decision was taken not to devote any working time to ensuring the marketing of the people of Brussels through our intermediary.
Decision that other editors, no doubt hoping to take advantage of the popularity of the artist to increase their audience of the day, had refused to take because, what is it that separates, journalistically speaking, the announcement of the release of a record, a book or a film, a press release? So the media wave did happen, before evaporating as quickly as it had arrived. As to whether it was a success (for the dizzying number of plays that …