Almost three years ago, the record label Sony Music France created a department specially consecrated to the creation of Internet websites. Today, rare are the artists on the Sony label who don't have web pages or sites. From absolute beginners to the biggest stars the Sony artists are on the cutting edge of communication. But according to Vincent Gresser, director of the multimedia section at Sony Music France, "the degree of implication is different according to the artists. It is a new means of expression and those who are interested in it take full advantage of it like Dany Brillant or Francis Cabrel."

To Create

In the case of Francis Cabrel, not only is he interested, but the plan for his site "Chemins de Traverse" "Comes from him and has for a long time", explains Benoît Cotte, executive producer at Studio Métamédia and project head of Francis Cabrel's website. "He is really turned on to the Net. One day he came upon some sites about the making of string instruments and it triggered his interest. He understood what his interest was of going further." Mad about guitars, Cabrel, in fact, finds what he needs to feed his passion on the Net. Why not let his own fans take advantage of this via an Internet site?

"The idea had been abandoned", continued Benoît Cotte, "but with the prospect of a new album planned for March '99, the project reappeared." In fact all of the elements were united for the creation of a website around Francis Cabrel's work: the desire of an artist, the will of a record company, and the current events which gave a pretext for a forthcoming birth. "We answered a tender offer made by Sony Music thanks to a photographer friend, Maxime Ruiz, who did most of the album covers and clips for Francis Cabrel. He wished to propose a complete package for the release of the album "Hors Saison"(Sony/Columbia). We were in competition with three other companies but it was our editorial approach that led us to win the bid and also the implication of what we wished to give Francis Cabrel in the project. It all happened very quickly. It was in October '98 and the first version of the site came out on March 4th '99."
To Write

Métamédia's great achievement was to have succeeded in thinking up a project that fit Francis Cabrel's personality on the first try. "We didn't know him. We could only speak with Maxime who knew him very well. So we arrived with an open project without trying to fit Francis Cabrel into a mould. It's true that the initial project remained as it was. Nothing was changed. Maybe we were visionaries."

And what was Sony's role in setting this up? "Sony Music France is our direct client. The site is on their server. But for the content, they rarely intervened. Rather there was supervision of the tone, of the editorial content and supervision by the people who take care of Francis and by Francis himself who reread all of the texts put on the site."

The editorial approach mentioned above by Benoît Cotte, is a priority set about the content and in particular about the text. The best example is the quasi-journalistic following of Francis Cabrel's work during the recording of his album. From day to do since March '99 until the final days of July the Internet surfers could follow and see the stages of the birth of a record (almost in real time), the studio sessions, then the making of the video clips and no doubt later, on the tour. Sound, video, photography and text extracts, the general presentation was impeccable, precise and welcoming.

"Francis Cabrel worked with us on several parts of the website. He also allowed himself to be filmed during the recording of the album. So, all of the ingredients were united to achieve the logbook of which we had the idea from the beginning. We were lucky that everything went well and to have all of these elements to integrate them on the Internet."

To Be

Francis Cabrel could only be seduced by this medium that allows you to communicate while staying hidden. "The goal was to open a door so that he could express himself through this medium" , continued Benoît Cotte. Everything is done by tacit agreement, little by little without imposing ourselves on him."

This is how Francis Cabrel confides in us, page by page by little keystrokes, little clicks. He talks about his village, about music, Internet, his travels and his daughters. One part of the text was especially written by Francis Cabrel. The links are numerous and give all its meaning to the name of the site, "Chemins de Traverse".( shortcuts ) Obviously Francis Cabrel's wish is to open his site to singers that he produces on his label Cargo Music (Vincent Baguian or Michel Françoise websites), to the string instruments makers (with entire pages consecrated to guitar makers) and even to the fans' sites consecrated to him. Cabrel wants to be a discreet host who lets his friends have their say.

A balance between a strictly promotional site and a more intimate journey into the individual. Maybe another type of promotion?
To Listen

Videos, sound extracts, the site of course lets you dive into Francis Cabrel's past and present repertoire but unfortunately in the frustrating limits of 30 seconds per song. On this issue, two schools of thought clash. On Sony's side under the guise of protecting the quality we're looking to protect the artist's rights. Vincent Grasser: Neither the law nor technology allow us to be assured about the protection of our artists' work. So we try to cover ourselves in advance. We know very well that present technology doesn't allow rapid downloading or to have good quality so we prefer to put extracts so that the songs aren't distorted by a modem connection." Finally the real fear is pirate copies: "In fact the danger of piracy comes from a tiny segment of the population. Few people are active but we cannot control the broadcasting which could be enormous from just a few copies.
For Benoît Cotte this problem "doesn't seem very logical. We were disappointed not to have full access to the songs in their entirety. It is in fact a bit irritating when you put yourself in the shoes of the Net surfer. This should change a lot in the near future. The record companies should study what they could do with this audio and visual potential. But on this site, there would be too many people involved to agree upon it."

To Continue

In all evidence, "Chemins de Traverse" is destined to endure beyond the promotion of Hors Saison. "There will be footage of the tour so we will maybe continue in the spirit of the logbook by transforming it into a travel diary" advances Benoît Cotte. "Beyond that it depends on everyone's wish to continue."

Creating a site is one thing but to assure the maintenance and updating is the weak point of many sites. It's from the beginning that you must foresee what comes next: "Having the means to create a real project with updates of the things that happen, an open channel requires total involvement by the artist. What's interesting is to train the artists to maintain the sites themselves."

A point of view which is without a doubt a bit utopian but Francis Cabrel is among the artists who don't look down upon getting their hands dirty if they had the time. As he says on his site, he sees Internet as a "planetary village, the web to which the whole world is connected… There is a magical and amazing side of it that really blew my mind.

Village? For the resident of Astaffort that Francis Cabrel is, it's a vision of the phenomenon that you find, and it's not by chance, throughout the long pages of warm colours, to recreational links, to happy photos to welcoming information. Few sites consecrated to artists have won the bet to reflect a personality and temperament so closely.

Photos: Maxime Ruiz (from FC's Website)
Francis Cabrel will be on tour in France from September 14, '99.