Madeon Claims 'Victory' On Latest Album

**Madeon grapples with the reality of declaring Victory on his new album, which explores the realm of hyper-punk.**

In the current social media landscape, it can be easy to assume that people are always living their best lives: influencers posting their fit pics at music festivals, health gurus sharing their perfect sleep scores, finance bros flexing their wealth at nightclubs. Everyone is having a good time. Though every now and then a sad post pops up on one’s feed, because of today’s obsession with curating the perfect image, it can be hard to tell if even that is genuine. Real authenticity, nowadays, is barely at the fore, and in Madeon’s new music era, he explores this facade, too.

In the music video for “Hi!,” the first single of Madeon’s third album, Victory, he’s alone in a photo studio, in what looks like the middle of a cover shoot. He’s dressed in haute couture and takes a call on a transparent corded phone. The star is in agony as he tells the other person on the line what he’s just discovered. “I think we did a bad thing… She’s got a ring on her finger, so it’s complicated,” Madeon sings. Sounds like his romance is in trouble.

The song, with its distorted vocals and brash electric guitars, hits you with a chaotic look-at-me-now energy that the video masterfully captures through its quick cuts and bursts of digital effects. Madeon is struggling to make sense of the situation, but his body language and his environment put everything into question. His telling of the news seems dramatic, and sometimes over the top, and the scenes jump between his photo shoot and elegant CGI models of himself. The high fashion, the studio lights, the special effects, they all serve as props to fabricate his reality as we experience it, so maybe the drama is also made up. He is, after all, in a commercial space.

In 2011, Madeon, at 17 years old, came to prominence with “Pop Culture,” his viral genre-smashing mashup that features almost 40 songs in under four minutes. One of the artists he sampled was Lady Gaga, whom he would later work with on her 2013 and 2020 albums. At the time of the release, Madeon had produced a couple of popular remixes for deadmau5, Yelle, and Pendulum, but none of those tracks captured the innocent, authentic energy found in his hit. The simple setup is something only possible for a musician who doesn’t yet have to perform success — a far cry from the avant-garde It Guy we see in the “Hi!” music video.

Perhaps what many did not know is that during that period, he kept his music success hidden from his parents. In April, Madeon told Apple Music’s Zane Lowe that he was “lying” about attending school and working on music instead. To his parents’ surprise, record label reps from the US and the UK were visiting their home in France, and Madeon revealed to them what he had been secretly doing and that he had eventually dropped out of school to become a full-time musician.

Madeon was discovered for letting his music speak for itself — long before musicians were expected to turn themselves into content creators. In contrast, many young artists today get noticed on TikTok and Instagram by singing in front of a camera, already styled to “look” successful, or by coming up with fun choreography paired with their music. All of this to get their song to trend and be memed to death, doing whatever it takes to appear on your feed.

The French prodigy comments on this commodification of artistic identity on the album’s second track, “Car Crash Baby.” He confesses his insecurities over a buzzing electro synth, singing, “I talk a big, big game, but it’s all a lie / I pray they’re gonna love me, I don’t wanna die.” Yet he recognizes that, as a celebrity, his pain is for sale, adding, “Somebody’s gonna wanna pay for this / I’m gonna be a popstar, hit me like a fast car, baby.”

This pressure to stay relevant while balancing fans’ and executives’ expectations is one that many artists eventually succumb to (they just keep playing the hits). Yet Madeon belongs to a cadre of musicians, like Porter Robinson and Jai Wolf, who are not bound by the limits of their dance genre.

Although Madeon has embraced different music styles, a method that’s also evident in his DJ sets, his songwriting has mainly centered on themes that have a euphoric or uplifting message. Perhaps it’s why, before Victory was released, he felt that this new hyper-punk sound was “forbidden” to him. Placing this album among his others, it stands in stark contrast not only in music production but also in narrative. Whereas Good Faith and Adventure are vehicles for exploring the vast world around us, Victory is one with the intent to discover the self.

On the album’s final track, “Lonely Space Age,” Madeon unpacks the lie that has been haunting him. In this confessional ode, he sings, “I’m an actor in the movie of my life / Is she gonna know to read between the lines.” He doesn’t want to play this part anymore, having to always turn everything — his clothes, his romance, his music — into a spectacle. But the cinematic song is also a realization. He mourns, “It’s a sign of the times we live in.” He can’t quit this ruse — and neither can we.

Give Madeon’s third album, Victory, a listen on Spotify or your preferred platform.