No artist in France, if not in the world, has pushed the concept so far.
Pascal Obispo is launching a revolutionary application this Friday, “Obispo All Access”.
On this platform accessible via a subscription of 5.99 euros per month, the musician, who presents himself as a "little craftsman", makes all his old studio albums available (except the last, for contractual reasons), and it undertakes to regularly feed it with new content, both audio and video.
Feeling too cramped in the traditional system, that of record companies, he freed himself from it in order to be able to touch all styles of music.
Meeting without language of wood.
How was this crazy project born?
PASCAL OBISPO.
It comes from a frustration of not being able to offer people all of my artistic desires.
I'm not made of just one thing, and in Pascal Obispo's overall concept, we only remember one thing: the romantic songs, the composer, but I also like a lot of other things.
If I had had to embark on a new album, I would have restricted myself.
I don't know how much I have left to live but, at the rate imposed by a record company, I would have been granted three projects because it's me, while waiting for the end.
And then ?
I am 56 years old and I am going to retire?
You are crazy !
So I was scared.
I enjoyed myself with the record companies, I do not deny them.
But music is not my job, it is my source of life.
Did you want to touch all styles?
I like to quote George Lucas with "Star Wars".
Like him, I won't have enough of a life to realize all my ideas.
I work like a painter who produces a lot.
If tomorrow I say to a record company
I want to make a jazz album or for meditation
, they'll say to themselves
That's it, he's gone crazy
.
I like pictures, films, documentaries, poetry and, in music, the jazz of Count Basie, the ambient music of Brian Eno, Daft Punk and Moroder, and classical music.
And there, I will deliver new products every Friday.
VIDEO. New album by Pascal Obispo: a royal cast around the singer
Like the rappers?
The urban environment has been a source of inspiration in its way of doing things, of delivering a lot of things.
I said to myself
Why not us?
Why do we have to make an album every two or three years?
I admire Jul's career
(Editor's note: who has published 15 opuses since 2014!)
You are one of the first artists in the world to launch an app dedicated to your world.
When did you make this decision?
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5 years ago, I started by doing a lot of covers of songs, I had recorded lives that were not released for commercial reasons.
What frustration!
And I am resilient, as soon as I have a problem, I turn it into a positive.
I was called sub-Polnareff, it gave me the idea to pay him a tribute, and I filled a tour just with that title.
I even had to make an album afterwards.
When I messed up, I always found a plan B. My favorite movie is “Raging Bull”, a boxer who is never KO'd.
I love platforms, but it lacks humanity, videos… I prefer to be in my own little house.
And I do not forbid myself to release albums in physics too.
Are you afraid it won't take?
This is not the point.
I am like in Christopher Nolan's film “Interstellar”, I am in another dimension, no longer industrial, but of freedom.
Whether it works is a matter of the era before.
I want to resist in the face of a system that no longer allowed me to be me.
How much did it cost you?
You have to ask mom that.
Before launching my app, I asked her and mom said
yes, son, go ahead…
(laughs).
I put the whole recipe from my last 100 date tour in it, that's all I know.
Since I started, mom has been managing the finances and I don't want to know anything, because money affects creation.
VIDEO. The Voice. Amel Bent and Pascal Obispo: "There are no battles between us"
You are leaving "The Voice" where you have met many young artists.
Don't you want to launch some on your platform?
I just produced something not at all in tune with the times.
A rock group
(Editor's note: with two former candidates of the show)
called Neo and there will be three singers in it which is very rare.
Last time it was the Beach Boys or the Beatles.
How do you see concerts in the current context?
For me, a concert without an audience does not exist.
We would like so much for it to come back, to prove that we are essential.
We will only get by with the vaccine that will allow us to regain our former life.
I'll get vaccinated.
I had it, the Covid, I know what it is and it's scary.
I spent 17 very hard days, including a week of fever at 39.5 ° C.
There are friends who left, like Christophe, and I was almost hospitalized.
We need the vaccine so that we can leave.
We tested the Obispo All Access platform
“A pleasure machine.
This is the formula with which Pascal Obispo sums up Obispo All Access, which we were able to test in preview.
Once the application has been downloaded to your smartphone, the first steps are quite simple.
In a sober black and white universe inspired by Tidal, the platform launched by Beyoncé and Jay-Z, ultra-easy and well-thought-out menus allow us to quickly access the cornucopia.
A first observation is obvious: there is an abundance of audio and video content all dedicated to the career of the singer of "Tombé pour elle".
First, new products… in all styles, but in the Obispo version.
As of this Friday, there is already a single, “My Generation”, accompanied by his music video, the live album never released from his tour “Captain Samourai Flower”, extracts from his electro album “Electrobispo”, his remixes, and there too a making of, as well as "Obispo sings Christophe", covers of the singer who died as a result of the Covid last year.
"In a record company, I would never have been able to do it", comments the artist, explaining this crazy initiative in the first part of "Obispology", a documentary series of 14 episodes around this pharaonic project.
New features will be unveiled regularly to subscribers.
With entire albums sweeping through all styles: "Obispo reggae et cetera", "Obispo jazz pinto", "Obispo unplugged", "Obispo orchestrales maneuvers" (from film scores) ... and "Zen meditation" ...
Interviews, a podcast, zen ...
Without forgetting a last one for the road, “Obispoésie”!
And of course, all his old studio albums which have been withdrawn from streaming platforms but which are, for a time, in free access on Obispo All Access ”.
A podcast, “Les Histoires d'O”, tells the story behind the creation of his greatest hits.
On the videos side, there are interviews conducted by his wife Julie, in particular on the journeys of people who have changed their lives such as Jonathan Lehmann, author of the bestseller “Diary of a tourist of happiness”, and questionnaires from Proust to collaborators or friends called "23 questions to" (and starting with Vianney).
Finally, subscribers will also find a manga of their hero, “Captain Samourai Flower”, or a “mook” from the last tour.
History of opening its universe to people other than its fans, finally, a first film accessible from this launch launches a musical series of 7 parts of 20 minutes devoted to meditation called "Zen".
All for "the price of a concert ticket" and without commitment, as the main party likes to repeat.