It was the hit that rocked Bob Sinclar's career. Love Generation, released in 2005, became the soundtrack of the theme song of "Star Academy" in the fifth season broadcast the same year. Invited in "Le Figaro la nuit" on Figaro TV Île-de-France Monday night, the DJ aged 54 today returned to the history of this title. Initially, the producer was reluctant for any of these tracks to be associated with the TF1 show.
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When Pascal Nègre, former boss of Universal Music France, asked him at the time for his moral authorization to use his song as the theme song of "Star Academy", Bob Sinclar refused. "He calls me on July 15, 2005, I'll remember it for the rest of my life AND he tells me we have a crazy opportunity, my title is going to be number one. And I'm like, 'Star Academy? But you're a madman! No way! Where I come from, I can't. For a reality TV show to use my music, I say no, it's impossible,'" recalls the artist, whose fame was relative at the time. The man is only known in the world of "underground" clubs, as he describes him again in the excerpt.
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Pascal Nègre, who did not give up, insisted and Bob Sinclar finally gave in a month later, on August 15, 2005. In the first week of "Star Academy" broadcast, his song topped the charts. "That's the key to turning my success around today," he admits. Iknew that in 2005 we had to take a turn, Martin Solveig had already released some songs, David Guetta was doing quite commercial songs at that time. I could feel the electro scene changing. Everything was getting a bit commercial," he says.
Even if this song remains one of the biggest hits of his career, still used in "Star Academy" by the way, it is not the one that brings the most money to Bob Sinclar. Having not negotiated any starting fee, the latter "only" receives the royalties for each time the music is shown on television. "It's not a huge amount because the music is split, they only usethirty seconds out of the three minutes of the song," he insists to Thibaut Gauthier. One of the representatives of the French Touch estimates that this track has brought in 150,000 euros since 2005. A sum of money to be divided into five, to correspond to the number of songwriters who participated in the creation of the song. "It's not the jackpot, it's not the lottery. At the end, we are left with 20,000 euros each. Every time it's on TV, I'm told I'm very rich... I'd love to!" he concludes.