The French electronic music virtuoso has flipped his own script with “Hi!,” an edgy and defiant descent into punk music.
Madeon, the starry-eyed artist behind electronic music’s brightest moments, has officially entered his villain era with his new single, “Hi!” and its music video.
Gone are the luminous synth cascades and prismatic beats that made 2019’s Good Faith feel like mainlining serotonin. In their place are distorted vocals, punk guitar riffs and what Madeon himself calls “urgent laptop rock.”
The track runs roughshod with manic energy as he spits paranoid verses about complicated relationships and foaming mouths, a stunning departure from the pastel-hued escapism that previously soundtracked our daydreams. He’s traded those rose-colored glasses for broken bottles, and somehow the view got clearer.
“I was making a completely different kind of music but then something happened to me and I switched it all up,” Madeon said. “This electronic punk sound became ‘Hi!’ It’s urgent laptop rock. It has to be right now. I love this music so much cause I didn’t expect it, it kind of erupted.”
“Hi!” is out now via Mom+Pop, the same label on which his longtime friend and close collaborator Porter Robinson released his last album, itself a major departure. Check out the music video below.
Following a gap year, Madeon is now poised to launch a “brand new era” October 3rd at Colorado’s iconic Red Rocks Amphitheatre, where fans will experience an ambitious new live show featuring unreleased music. According to a press release, he has been “deeply focusing on his project in a new way, waking up to walls, as he says, ‘covered with concept art and logo designs and instruments and references and records that I love.’”
With its natural acoustics and breathtaking backdrop, Red Rocks seems the ideal canvas. The Nantes-born virtuoso stunned fans at the venue in 2023 with his groundbreaking “Good Faith Forever” production, which blurred the lines between concert, technological showcase and pure artistic expression.
“I can’t wait to show you more and perform it live alongside all my other music, it feels like my universe got wider,” Madeon said.
Tickets to the upcoming show at Red Rocks are available on the venue’s website. You can stream “Hi!” here.
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Instagram: instagram.com/madeon
TikTok: tiktok.com/@madeon
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Facebook: facebook.com/itsmadeon
Spotify: tinyurl.com/2bh9edj8