The province of Quebec in Canada has around 9 million inhabitants, two-thirds of whom speak French. It’s the last major holdout of French in North America, due to Louisiana, the other notable Francophone area, falling to a dismal 4.7% fluency since the US signed the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Quebec constitutes 90% of Canada’s Francophone population. Around 10 million Americans in total speak French, of which the US contributes around 3 million to that number. In all, only around 1.5-2% of Americans speak French at home.
It should, therefore, come as no surprise to you that you’ve never heard of Les Cowboys Fringants. Only a sliver of the continent speaks the Quebecois band’s language, but they remain incredibly popular among that sliver.
The folk rock (Called Néo-trad in French) band is incredibly popular across the American part of the Francophonie (The French-speaking world); Les Cowboys Fringants regularly eclipses not just the 10 million (Francophone Americans) mark in total listens, but they have the unfathomable success of “L’Amérique Pleure” (America Cries). This song has nearly 70 million views across YouTube Music and Spotify, with the average Franco-American listening to it seven times. Compare that to the Billion View Club on YouTube, which has some songs that aren’t popular outside of the USA; those songs would be just under 3 views/Anglophone American.
“L’Amérique Pleure” wasn’t a one-hit wonder, though. Les Cowboys Fringants also wrote “Les Étoiles Filantes” (Shooting Stars), which has been streamed over 30 million times on YouTube Music and Spotify. The recently released “La Fin du Show” (The Show’s End) sits at 11 million plays, and “Sur Mon Épaule” (On My Shoulder) has broken the 30 million view mark as well. “Toune d’Automne” (Fall’s Tune) sits at around 17 million. “Tant Qu’on Aura l’Amour” (As Long as we have Love) is right beside Toune d’Automne in number of listens.
These songs aren’t cherry-picked or arranged in any particular order, either; they follow Spotify’s top six on their “popular” listing. “Marine Marchande” (Marine’s March) is at 18 million, and “Plus Rien” (Nothing More) sits at 16 million.” Le Shack á Hector” (Hector’s Shack) and “Les Maisons Toutes Pareilles” (All the Same Houses) both reached the 11 million mark to round off Spotify’s list.
This all goes to show how consistently popular the band is, adored by countless Franco-Americans. They have for quite a while, too, as Les Cowboys Fringants formed three decades ago, in 1995. Contrary to many other popular bands, the band’s lineup has stayed consistent over the decades. Dominique LeBeau left in 2007 for personal reasons (he has continued a successful solo career), but other than that, the band’s lineup remains constant
That is, until late 2023, when the lead singer, Karl Tremblay, died of cancer. “La Fin du Show”, one of the aforementioned songs, was recorded shortly before his death. Despite the song’s title, the show will go on, as the band has already announced their upcoming tour, Pub Royal, which will run across the Francophone world from April to December (in Montréal) this year. It will be done in Nantes, which is dominated by Gallo (a language related to French) and Breizh (a Celtic language). If you want to learn more about them, you can go to their website or their YouTube channel.
