How is a music scene built?

Article written in French and available in its original version at this link.

Erika de Casier, Smerz, Fine, ML Buch, Elias Rønnenfelt, Astrid Sonne, Molina, Snuggle and Clarissa Connelly have, in recent years, been featuring on the most discerning line-ups, from the Bourse de Commerce to festivals such as Rewire in The Hague and Variations in Nantes. This visibility extends online, a phenomenon perfectly illustrated by the success of the Cph+ playlist curated by the teams at Spotify. This initiative, combined with the numerous articles published in the international press¹ ,² reveals the keen interest of the public and the industry in the Danish alternative pop scene and, by extension, in all artists sharing the same musical sensibility.

Whilst Danish cinema established its reputation as early as the late 1990s, driven by films such as Lars von Trier’s The Idiots and Thomas Vinterberg’s Festen – both screened at the Cannes Film Festival in 1998 – or Nicolas Winding Refn’s Pusher trilogy, the music scene followed a more underground trajectory. Its identity was first forged in the wake of Peter Peter, a central figure in the Danish punk scene, to whom we also owe the soundtracks for Winding Refn’s first feature films, before truly taking shape from 2005 onwards under the decisive impetus of the Escho label founded by Nis Bysted. This transition from an alternative culture to an organised scene illustrates what sociologist Gérôme Guibert calls the ‘paradox of a scene’.³ In his view, a scene only truly exists once it has gained external recognition, and it becomes sustainable when a dynamic—initially sparked by a ‘leading group’—is subsequently ‘carried forward and nurtured by other artists’ within the same community. It is precisely this process of passing the baton that we are seeing today. The scene now relies on established local organisations such as Escho and 15 Love, whilst also expanding internationally through signings with leading international labels, such as Erika de Casier on 4AD, Smerz on XL Recordings, and Clarissa Connelly on Warp. This vitality, which combines self-production with high-profile collaborations (think Erika de Casier with Blood Orange, Dua Lipa, and more recently with the K-pop group NewJeans), extends across a multitude of cross-genre projects, such as the collaborations between Fine or Elias Rønnenfelt and Dean Blunt.

The ubiquity of this small group of artists, despite coming from a very close-knit ecosystem, is certainly striking. Is this a happy coincidence linked to the enthusiasm of a small group of discerning programmers, or the culmination of a cultural policy that has been patiently built up? In reality, career success often hinges on a synergy between public support and industry backing. Whilst the industry naturally takes over as soon as public interest emerges, such a breakthrough would be far more precarious without a prior institutional foundation. In this case, these artists have much in common: they all come from the same music school and have all benefited from the same institutional support, both for creation and for export. This structure illustrates the capacity of public policy to stimulate a collective dynamic, turning it, as Gérôme Guibert suggests, into a ‘scene built’ through a proactive strategy.

Building a scene

Far from being a matter of chance, this vibrant scene stems from a particularly robust ecosystem for a country with a population of just over six million. Its effectiveness rests on a tripartite institutional framework comprising the Rytmisk Musikkonservatorium (RMC), the Statens Kunstfond and Music Export Denmark.

At the heart of this system, the RMC plays a central role, as virtually the entire alt-pop scene has cut its teeth there. With a budget of around €6.37 million for just 192 students, this free state school sets itself apart from other national conservatoires by focusing exclusively on so-called rhythmic music. This term encompasses pop, rock, jazz and electronic music. Originally a jazz school, the institution underwent a major transformation in 2009 with a radical reorganisation focused on what its director, Henrik Sveidahl, describes as ‘radical diversity’.⁴ This change had, in fact, sparked fierce outrage within the local jazz scene at the time. Today, the RMC welcomes self-taught musicians without requiring proficiency in music theory and promotes total aesthetic openness, bringing together all styles, from Charli XCX to Ryoji Ikeda.

Founded in 1964, the Statens Kunstfond complements this foundation with a model of direct support for artistic creation. It currently subsidises over 6,400 beneficiaries through 65 programmes. This institution plays a pivotal role through its ability to centralise multiple disciplines whilst also supporting associations and cultural enterprises. The foundation’s 2021 annual report⁵ details a total budget of approximately €83.1 million allocated to creative work. The music sector receives total support of nearly €34.5 million, including a budget of €2.45 million specifically dedicated to working grants and commissions. Many figures from the current scene have benefited from this support for their projects, such as Erika de Casier, Astrid Sonne and Fine Glindvad, as well as more established artists such as Vladislav Delay and the composer Simon Steen-Andersen.

Finally, the MXD complements this framework by acting as the driving force behind the export strategy. Founded in 2005, this association’s mission is to support the internationalisation of Danish artists and labels through an annual grant from the Ministry of Culture of approximately €689,000 in 2024. This funding must be supplemented by self-financing from the music industry of at least an equivalent amount. The MXD’s approach is particularly agile, as it combines the awarding of grants for market development with the management of its own strategic projects, such as themed songwriting camps in South Korea or showcase events at festivals like SXSW.

Can we learn from the Danish model?

Whilst it is not a question of comparing France to Denmark, the Scandinavian example nevertheless highlights a shortcoming in our national system, namely the absence of a public school of excellence dedicated exclusively to contemporary music. Whilst France relies on the CNSMD for instrumental studies or IRCAM for computer music, it has no real equivalent to the Danish RMC.

The absence of such an iconic institution in France can be explained primarily by a deep-rooted historical divide. As Philippe Teillet,⁶ a senior lecturer in political science at Sciences Po Grenoble, explains, the creation of the Ministry of Culture in 1959 established a binary separation between cultural action (the realm of ‘scholarship’, professionalism and legitimate creation) and popular education, relegated to the socio-cultural sphere (the realm of leisure and amateurism). Contemporary music has long found itself caught in this limbo, perceived as a “transgression of the boundaries of cultural action”. Whilst Denmark chose, as early as 2009, to remove music theory as a prerequisite for the RMC in order to promote ‘radical diversity’, France has long attempted to assimilate this music into traditional academic structures. This integration, often deemed ‘ornamental’, has encountered major cultural obstacles. The French contemporary music scene also suffers from what Teillet calls the ‘overcrowding’ of cultural policies, which manifests itself in multiple, poorly coordinated, even competing initiatives that public authorities attempt to regulate, whilst often feeling unable to deal with them satisfactorily. Training in this field is thus spread across a wide range of organisations, including specialist bodies such as the Studio des Variétés – established in 1983 by the Ministry of Culture and Sacem and now affiliated with the CNM – as well as the thirty or so institutions that make up the Fneijma network of associations.

The career of French artist Oklou perfectly illustrates the tensions inherent in this model. Operating within a music scene very similar to that of Erika de Casier, she is one of the leading figures of an aesthetic whose success is now being exported on a massive scale. Yet, whilst the two artists share the same musical sensibility, their career paths reveal a stark contrast in terms of musical training. Although her international career is now flourishing, her journey bears witness to the difficulty of reconciling academic training with contemporary aesthetics. Having followed a classical course at the conservatoire before joining the Jazz School in Tours, she had to look elsewhere for the freedom necessary for her artistic emancipation. For her, embracing the codes of the Internet wave acted as a liberating turning point, a step she describes bluntly as a way of “giving the finger to a certain cultural elitism” that prevails in schools, particularly at the conservatoire, and which, in her words, “really pissed her off”.⁷ This experience contrasts with that of Erika de Casier, who was able to present several tracks from her second album, Sensational, as her final project for her Master’s degree at the RMC.

Another key point concerns the role of the Statens Kunstfond, a genuine one-stop shop that centralises funding for all artistic sectors. Whilst this Danish model simplifies access to state-funded resources, the French system of support for creative work remains fragmented across a multitude of specific schemes and organisations. On the one hand, sector-specific bodies manage substantial but targeted budgets, such as the CNC, the CNM or the CNL, which carry out primarily industry-focused initiatives in their respective fields. On the other hand, the Ministry of Culture maintains individual grants via the DGCA and the DRACs, creating a paradoxical overlap of responsibilities where the state ends up taking the place of the operators over which it is supposed to exercise oversight.

This institutional confusion was particularly highlighted during the health crisis by the Mondes Nouveaux programme. This public commissioning scheme was managed directly by the ministry itself rather than relying on its usual operators. Launched with a budget of €30 million to support 430 artists, it was the subject of severe criticism from the Cour des Comptes,⁸ whose auditors lamented the absence of an independent evaluation as well as a glaring lack of coordination with existing institutions. This episode perfectly illustrates the concept of ‘overcrowding’ in cultural policy described by Philippe Teillet. The proliferation of stakeholders and initiatives ultimately creates a lack of clarity that can undermine the effectiveness of public support. Unlike the Danish model, which relies on the clarity of a three-pronged approach—training, support for creation and export—France operates within a robust ecosystem, yet the dispersion of its resources sometimes hinders the emergence of a national strategy as clear-cut as that of its Scandinavian neighbour.