“I imagined it was hard to continue in music, I didn’t think to that extent”: Benjamin Biolay’s anger against the labels

No artificial staging or faked selfies, but publications that he hopes are sincere. Benjamin Biolay has free use of social networks. His subscribers were able to realize this by discovering his alarmist reflection on the profession of artists at the time – precisely – of social networks and record labels “listed on the stock exchange”. A position that resonates like a cry from the heart or, depending on your point of view, a rant.

“I admit that I haven’t just had the easiest eleven months of my life. I imagined it was very hard to continue in music, but I didn’t think it was that hard.”, begins the 53-year-old songwriter, who released his eleventh studio album, The Blue Disc, in October 2025. Since then, Benjamin Biolay has performed in concert to defend this double opus of 24 songs. According to Le Figaro, his best album since The Superb, in 2009.

The “maddening” place of social networks

After this rather dark preamble, Benjamin Biolay expresses his grievances: “The moments of bliss are on stage or in the studio but they are, over time, fewer in number and permanently swallowed up by non-musical activities. The concept of a record company as I knew it no longer really exists. Listing on the stock market is absolute nonsense (…) Young creators are wary of it like the plague and they are right. Social networks have taken a major place, truly maddening”.

The one who co-wrote Winter garden for Henri Salvador engraved The Blue Disc at Virgin, which belongs to the giant Universal Music Group, listed since 2021 in Amsterdam. The Bolloré group holds 18%, the Vivendi group, 10%. Other major labels, Warner Music, Sony Music and Believe are also listed on the stock exchange.

Support from Clara Luciani

Should we also see the origin of his anger there? Benjamin Biolay affirms that, in this new era of record companies, “people are fired unceremoniously and we, the artists, are always the last to be informed”.

This musician attached to the texts, to Brassens and to the sun of Sète, struggles to find himself in a generation where talent is measured by the “trends” on social networks. We won’t make him a TikToker.“I don’t want to sing 30 seconds of my single, with a deep air, in different settings, to the point of nausea. Neither do you. I’m too lazy to do choreography because I’m not a choreographer. I’m too lazy to do sketches because I’m not a comedian. I don’t want to ask you to ask me questions that I will only answer if they are useful to me.”, castigates Biolay. So it simply counts “continue writing [s]our next album while thinking of all the extraordinary moments” that the public brings him to life.

This concern found an echo in the hearts of other singers, if we judge by the signs of encouragement aroused by his publication on Instagram. “Well said.”, comments Clara Luciani, when Jeanne Cherhal affirms “think the same thing”. For them, we must separate the artist from the influencer.