When the rumors first started circulating that Madeon was going to be throwing a free pop-up downtown for the release of his new single, Hi!, everyone was instantly curious. No details were released beyond a couple of enigmatic black signs with big block text such as “New Madeon?” and “Listening Installation.” What could he be planning?
Madeon, long known as the brightly optimistic brainchild behind songs like All My Friends and Heavy With Hoping, had been teasing a change in aesthetic for the last few months. He referred to his new single as “the new era” and “a whole new sound,” and even shared in an Apple Music interview that he was going in a “forbidden, risky direction.” But even armed with this knowledge, nothing could’ve prepared me for what I would hear from him when we pulled up to his pop up the night of September 22nd.
The venue he chose should’ve been the first hint – a barebones studio in the industrial Arts District neighborhood of downtown LA. We were greeted with black posters with the giant word “Hi!” plastered all over the walls, and the windows were blacked out from the inside. The only lights that we could see were flashing red lights that flickered through for a couple of minutes at a time. We were excited – was this going to be a full DJ set? A sit-down listening party for just one song? The person in front of us in line even asked if this was going to be a haunted house walkthrough.
As we inched closer to the front of the line (over 1000 people showed up!), we started to hear dark, tinny rock music pounding through the door. We all glanced at each other in surprise at this dramatically unexpected sound. “Oh my god, who hurt him?!” one of my friends even joked.
We were separated into small groups and led into the warehouse space, where Madeon was lying on top of a stack of speakers. It was such an intimate setting that I had to blink a few times to remind myself he wasn’t an animatronic or an actor; he was so close to us I could see the creases in his black pleather pants.
The song started with a cacophony of indie-sleazy guitar riffs, and Madeon jumped to his feet and started dancing and signaling us to join him. I was aware that there were lyrics being sung, but the vocals were so overly processed that I couldn’t decipher them. In fact, the only word I could make out was the “Hi!” that set off the beginning of the song. The punk-rock sound and angsty autotuned voice, combined with Madeon’s all-black wardrobe and the concrete warehouse’s flashing red lights, made it feel like Olivia Rodrigo Bad Idea, Right? meets Gessaffelstein/Justice (similarly French?). The exaggeratingly distorted production gave the entire song a grungy, indietronica vibe that characterized the late 2000’s.
Whether Madeon fans like it or not, the comparison to past collaborator and good friend Porter Robinson will be unavoidable. Like Hi!, Porter’s 2024 album Smile! also featured a shift from his shiny Nurture album to an upbeat, pop-punk sound (and even down to the matching exclamation points in the title).
After we rocked out, the song ended and Madeon retreated to his original position on the speakers. As we exited, we were handed an informational pamphlet about the new track in the form of a newspaper layout. On the back were the mysterious lyrics, and for the first time, it dawned on me what (or who, rather) was responsible for turning the happy-go-lucky Good Faith Madeon into Dark!Madeon.
“I think we did a bad thing,” the lyrics lament. “She’s got a ring on her finger so it’s complicated. Why couldn’t you tell me?” The headline read, fittingly, “Who Hurt You?” The vulnerability and honesty behind Hi! will undoubtedly strike a chord with those who, like Madeon, have been wrung through precarious situations and have been left a completely different person. Whatever this traumatic affair was that occurred in Madeon’s past, it’s led him to completely reinvent himself in the form of a maximalist, edgy, angry rockstar. Time heals all wounds – maybe this new era will too!
Check out Hi! below, out now on streaming platforms.