La Fabrique des Tubes

The mechanisms and transformations of television are explored, from its origins to the current changes linked to the internet, digitisation and the evolution of production and broadcasting methods.

Within the sometimes complex relationship between music and success, the hit song remains the key element. Its mechanisms and key players are hardly new, and we still form special bonds with it, leaving an indelible mark on the lives of individuals and groups.

However, throughout its history, the hit song has undergone numerous changes, both in the ways it is produced and distributed, and in the ways it is consumed. In the age of the internet and digitalisation, the hit song is becoming less and less comparable to a finished work of art: ‘a few notes, a few bars of a sequence that moves us, a soundtrack from a TV series or film, a jingle in an advert, a mobile ringtone, a jingle, a sample, and so on’. Having gradually become an almost omnipresent ‘gaseous’ entity in the spirit of the times, the hit song is also subject to the dictates of imagery, but this does not prevent it from reconnecting with some good old-fashioned media or formats of yesteryear (vinyl and singles) or from incorporating new ones (streaming and playlists). On the ‘production’ side, the legendary ‘songwriter-composer-arranger’ trio is giving way to ‘beatmakers’, ‘topliners’, ‘hookers’ and other ‘atmosphere creators’.