Sylvain Cormier publishes 35 years of chanson writing
Sylvain Cormier has turned 35 years at Le Devoir into Des oreilles au bout des doigts, a book built from his best texts on chanson. The collection gathers work written from 1990 to today, pulling nearly 5,000 articles into one volume and making his long run as a critic easier to measure than to miss.
At 65 years old, he presents the book as the record of a journalist who stayed close to the music as it happened. He described himself as a “fan avec une job,” which is a sharper frame for the project than any tribute language would be.
Louise Dugas pushed the book
The book came together after the insistence of his friend and journalist Louise Dugas, who appears to have understood the value of gathering decades of criticism before it disappeared back into the archive. That kind of compendium gives readers a single place to trace how one writer followed Quebec chanson across changing generations and changing tastes.
Cormier said his interviews were marked by “groupism, exchange and complicity with artists,” and he summed up the result in one line: “Cette proximité fait qu’on a fini par me dire des choses, je dirais… quasiment malgré moi.” That closeness runs through a book that is not just a best-of reel but a map of how access, trust and repetition shape music journalism over time.
Michel Rivard to Les Cowboys Fringants
Among the artists named in the book are Michel Rivard, Safia Nolin, Jean-Pierre Ferland, Jean Leloup, Renée Martel, Charlotte Cardin and Les Cowboys Fringants. The range matters because Cormier has spent years writing about performers who were often ignored or dismissed in elite cultural coverage, giving the book a broader sweep than a simple career retrospective.
He also included a chapter on artists he criticized strongly, including Garou and Claude Dubois. For Cormier, the line was never between praise and silence; it was between artists who deserved attention and artists who had to live with his judgments, including his blunt phrase “la pingrerie du cœur.”
Céline Dion and René Angélil
One of the book’s sharpest complications is his account of Céline Dion, whom he called his “princesse Tupperware.” He said René Angélil barred him after he tried to explain his reservations about her, then reflected on that break with: “J’ai transgressé un interdit, malencontreusement, sans trop m’en apercevoir. Si c’était à refaire, je m’expliquerais mieux.”
That is the point of Des oreilles au bout des doigts: it does not sand down the conflict that comes with writing about popular music for a serious paper. Cormier spent 35 years making judgment public, and this book leaves readers with the judgments intact, the alliances visible and the archive finally bound between covers.
