Pierre Lapointe was born in Lac St-Jean and grew up in Gatineau, on the Québec side of the Outaouais region. In 1999-2000, after starting a visual arts course at Collège de l’Outaouais, he switched to a professional drama program at Collège de Saint-Hyacinthe. After two sessions, he left there to devote himself to singing and songwriting. Returning to the Outaouais, he finished his visual arts diploma at Collège de l’Outaouais and entered the Tout nouveau Tout show competition. He walked away with the award for Singer-Songwriter of the Year, the Coup de cœur Musiqu’en août prize and the Audience Award. He then moved to Montréal and studied arts at the Université du Québec à Montréal.
In September 2001, he was the winner in the Singer-Songwriter category at the Festival international de la chanson de Granby. At the fall 2001 meeting of ROSEQ, he was awarded the Roseq-Rideau Prize.
In November 2001, the Fondation pour les arts, les lettres et la culture en Outaouais presented him with the Upcoming Performer award. Pierre Lapointe spent 2001 writing songs and preparing an original concert.
In December 2002, he obtained a grant from the Conseil des arts et lettres du Québec to prepare for his first commercial album. His 9-track demo disc, produced thanks to a Musicaction prize he had won at Granby, was already playing on the radio and available in stores, in the independent producers section at Renaud Bray, Archambault (Montreal and Quebec City) and Sillons in Quebec City.
In November 2002, Pierre Lapointe and his team produced the Petites chansons laides concert in Montreal, at the Stella Artois studio theatre. The critics gave it rave reviews. And when the concert was presented again as part of the Coup de cœur francophone at the Théâtre du Petit Champlain in Quebec City, the critics again greeted it with acclaim.
Europe was part of Lapointe's plans: after the Festival Alors…Chante! in Montauban, France in May 2002, the show was staged at Mars en chansons 2003, at the Chant…Sons festival in Vendée, and at the Festival du Chaînon manquant.
In summer 2003, signing with Audiogram enabled Pierre Lapointe to produce his first CD, produced by Jean Massicotte (Lhasa De Sela, Jean Leloup). He devoted that year to performing live (the Petites chansons laides concert) and preparing the CD.
In June 2004, he received the Prix du jury 2004 at the Festival Pully Lavaux À l’heure du Québec, in Switzerland.
In July 2004, at Les FrancoFolies de Montréal, Pierre Lapointe performed to packed houses for 4 nights at the Monument National theatre and received the Prix Félix Leclerc. Winning this prize led to another appearance in France, at Festival Alors… Chante! in Montauban, in May 2005.
In fall 2004, he presented his new concert, La forêt des mal aimés, in Quebec City at Théâtre du Petit Champlain, and in Montréal at Théâtre Corona. This was an instant hit; when additional performances were advertised for January 2005, they soon sold out. The show went on tour across Québec in 2005, 2006 and 2007.
In March 2005, Pierre Lapointe featured in the radio program Couleurs francophones, broadcast on European French-language radio stations to mark La Journée de la francophonie. In May 2005, he staged his concert at the Alors… Chante! Festival in Montauban, and won the Prix Coup de cœur de l’Académie Charles Cros.
His first videoclip (Le columbarium) topped the charts as soon it was released. His second clip, transposing the song Tel un seul homme into images, revealed another aspect of Pierre Lapointe's talent: he co-wrote the screenplay with André Turpin (Un crabe dans la tête, Maëlstrom, Un 32 août sur terre).
In June 2005, his eponymous CD was certified Gold (85,000 copies sold).
In summer 2005 he was the spokesperson for Musiqu’en Nous and participated in major events including the Festival de la chanson de Tadoussac, Festival international de la chanson de Québec (2 sold-out evenings for his show Le Consort contemporain de Québec reçoit Pierre Lapointe) and Les Francofolies de Montréal, where his Pépiphonique concert played for 2 sold-out nights at Théâtre Maisonneuve, Place des Arts.
In September 2005, Pierre and his team received an unexpected reward: 13 nominations at the 2005 ADISQ gala. He was named Personality of the Week by the daily newspaper Le Droit.
He won six Félix awards: Stage Director and Sound Engineer for La forêt des mal aimés, Production and Arrangement (Jean Massicotte) for the eponymous album, Pop Album of the Year, Discovery of the Year.
On November 24, 2005, the prestigious Académie Charles Cros awarded Pierre Lapointe the Grand Prix du disque Charles Cros in the song category for his eponymous 2004 album, as well as a Prix de l'Organisation internationale de la Francophonie.
Named La Presse Personality of the Week, Pierre Lapointe went on to be named Personality of the Year in the Arts category, at the Gala de l’excellence in January 2006.
He was a La Presse arts team favourite in December 2005. Alain Brunet called him Pierre Lapointe, bionic creator. In Le Devoir, Sylvain Cormier rated Pépiphonique number 1 in his Top Ten list of Québec's best shows of the year.
After taking part in the Charles Aznavour tribute album, he participated in the Salut Joe – Je me souviens project. He sang Dans les yeux d’Émilie on the CD paying tribute to Joe Dassin, which was certified Gold in March 2006.
The daily newspaper Le Droit named Pierre Lapointe its Personality of the Year for 2005.
Pierre Lapointe's second CD, La forêt des mal-aimés, sold more than 28,000 copies during its first week in stores; it was the number 1 CD in Canada and his eponymous album rose to 7th position in the charts; after 6 weeks, sales totalled more than 60,000 copies.
Alain Brunet, La Presse – Though it is still too soon to know for sure whether this album will turn out to be a classic of Québec French music, we would describe it as a major disc, well able to nourish the entire French-speaking world. The quality of the lyrics, the refinement of the music and the originality of the production in La forêt des mal-aimés compare very favourably to material by other nouvelle chanson française artists.
Sylvain Cormier, Le Devoir – This special something in the form of an album is nothing less than a pop masterpiece … This is Sgt. Pepper's two years after Rubber Soul. Polnareff in the land of Steve Reich. ABBA in orbit. An Ennio Morricone soundtrack hi-jacked by Beck. This is the strange yet beautiful child of Thom Yorke and Barbara.
In summer 2006, Pierre received the Prix miroir de la Chanson d’expression française after performing La forêt des mal-aimés at the Festival international d’été de Québec. He was accompanied by 9 musicians on stage and the concert was performed again at Théâtre Maisonneuve, Place des Arts, to a sell-out audience, at the end of September.
When Pierre was acting as spokesperson for the Festival international de la chanson de Granby, les Disques Audiogram seized the opportunity to present him with two certified Platinum CDs (100,000 copies sold - each CD).
In October 2006, he was the winner of 3 Félix awards at the two ADISQ galas:
Arrangements (Philippe Brault and Jean Massicotte for the CD La forêt des mal-aimés), Singer-Songwriter, Pop Album of the Year
The release of the CD La forêt des mal-aimés in France, in September 2006 (and in Belgium on December 18), was heralded by press acclaim, and the concert that ran for 13 nights at the Boule Noire in Paris also received high praise from the critics.
Valérie Lessard, Le Soleil. - Les Inrockuptibles, France's authoritative music magazine, ranked La Forêt des mal-aimés 27th best album of 2006, in all categories, ahead of artistes like Beck or Charlotte Gainsbourg. Télérama called Lapointe "the best thing that has happened to song in a long time"; "the writer of a perfect song" (27-100 rue des Partances). For Le Devoir, Lapointe had produced nothing less than "a pop music masterpiece".
In January 2007, he was nominated in the category Francophone Artiste/Group/Duo of the Year at the 7th gala of the Indies Awards (Annual Independent Music Awards).
In February 2007, he was nominated in the Performer of the Year and Francophone Album of the Year categories at the Juno Awards.
In February 2007, La forêt des mal-aimés was certified as a Gold Ticket concert by l’ADISQ (50,000 tickets sold in Québec).
In March 2007, a year after releasing the album La forêt des mal-aimés, of which more than 100,000 copies had been sold, Pierre Lapointe treated himself and his fans to a CD of remixed tracks from La forêt des mal-aimés, along with a new track – Le maquis. He also released his latest videoclip featuring the song Qu’en est-il de la chance?
In April 2007, Lapointe was informed that he had won the Prix Rapsat-Lelièvre 2007, paying tribute to a Québec performer "for the exceptional quality of his album La forêt des mal-aimés released by Audiogram".
In August 2007, the Québec concert tour of La Forêt des mal-aimés came to an end at Les FrancoFolies de Montréal, where 100,000 spectators attended the big event of the festival: La Forêt des mal-aimés brought together Les Mal-aimés and l’Orchestre métropolitain du Grand Montréal, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin.
Marie-Christine Blais, La Presse.-From just after 9 in the evening, an estimated 100,000 people watched a show that was utterly grandiose from start to finish; so rich and flowing was the music, it could have been originally written for 80 musicians. I simply must pay tribute to arrangers Marc Ouellet, Yannick Plamondon and Philippe Brault, for brilliantly executing such a colossal task and never losing sight of the elusive balance between classical music and pop.
In November 2007, the CD of this concert was finally released, and was acclaimed by critics. The CD and concert ranked in the Top Ten for 2007.
In March 2008, Pierre and his Mal¬ aimés ended the Forêt des mal-aimés tour in Europe.
In February 2008, Les FrancoFolies de Montréal proudly announced that the festival mark its 20th anniversary with the world premiere of Pierre Lapointe's new concert:
Mutantès – The musical event of the summer!
To celebrate in style the 20th anniversary of Les FrancoFolies de Montréal, Pierre Lapointe presents Mutantès, an original and spectacular musical with stage production by the renowned Claude Poissant. Mutantès reveals yet another facet of the multiple talents of Pierre Lapointe. Once again, he surrounds himself with hugely talented creators who have already made their mark in their respective disciplines, to present this brand new concept concert. A multidisciplinary chorus and a few musicians join the singer and his faithful companions to unveil his latest songs in the lavish style typical of Pierre Lapointe. This major, unique spectacular will be a lavish celebration marking the 20th anniversary of Les FrancoFolies de Montréal and the artist's 6th consecutive appearance at the festival. Three performances only are scheduled at Salle Wilfrid Pelletier, Place des Arts. With the creation process now underway, further details will be released in April.
The critics were unanimous, Mutantès was a hit:
Philippe Rezzonico, Journal de Montréal, August 11, 2008:
Bob Dylan wrote Blowin' in the Wind when he was 20 and, like Elvis, created his own revolution by adding folk to electric. He is described as a genius, and rightly so. What about Pierre Lapointe? At 27, Lapointe has already chalked up a long list of achievements that is the envy of veteran performers. After listening to the songs that will feature on his third album during Mutantès, we can fairly say that his star is still in the ascendant. His fusion of different genres and fresh interpretations of his own work probably make him every bit as avant-garde in his own sphere of influence as Dylan was in his.
In October 2008, Pierre Lapointe received a $40,000 grant from XM Satellite Radio to develop his career in Europe.
In November 2008, he received 2 Félix awards for the production with Orchestre métropolitain du Grand Montréal conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin: Album Cover of the Year and Television Program of the Year – song category.
He participated in the third edition of the M pour Montréal festival, which brings together music industry tastemakers and international journalists.
Mutantès: Dans la tête de Pierre Lapointe
On March 20, 2009, at the Festival international du film sur l’art (FIFA), the documentary made by Éric Morin (Mange ta ville, ARTV) was screened to the public for the first time.
The toughest challenge when you are producing anything is to find just the right pace and rhythm to really convey the story you want to tell. Talented film-maker Éric Morin, who works, among others, on the program "Mange ta ville", met this challenge admirably in his making-of documentary about Mutantès. The film examines what was going in Pierre Lapointe's mind, and features a collage of memorable moments during the creation of the musical theatre adventure staged in a very successful premiere at the most recent FrancoFolies de Montréal, last summer. By setting up a camera in Lapointe's home and filming him revealing his innermost obsessions and certain fears (like a paranoiac dream starring Luc Plamondon and an esoteric encounter with Robert Lepage), following the singer and his close collaborators on the job right up to the completion of the project with mobile, incisive camera work, Morin has produced a dynamic, modern, intelligent movie that faithfully reflects its subject, the amazingly prolific Daniel Lapointe, who is also unusually lucid: he even admits he is ashamed to have staged a show that, with hindsight, he feels was not yet complete. - Marie-Louise Arsenault, Canoé divertissement, March 19, 2009.
