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Madeon: The Boy Wonder !
House | Friday 14th June 2013 | Keshav
Daft Punk, Justice and many others. France has produced some of the finest artists in EDM music over the last few years. More recently a new era of superstar DJ’s have started to break through.
These include David Guetta who is currently raking up chart success and collaborating with just about everyone on the music. No doubt the most exciting producer however comes from the North of France. Brace yourself Beiber because here comes Madeon and he’s ready to launch EDM to new heights! There are many ways Justin Beiber and Madeon are similar but there are far more reasons why Madeon is so much more exciting and talented. Not taking anything away from Justin Beiber (queue angry fan girl response) listening to a young Madeon in a scene which is so difficult to master is quite simply something else. For a start both stars are 19. They were also both picked up when they were relatively young through the exposure of YouTube. In 2011 when he was just 17 Hugo Pierre Leclercq (Madeon) uploaded a clip of him playing ‘Pop Culture’ a superb mash up of chart hits from the last few years.
The young Frenchman was not aware of how his video would propel him to superstardom. Receiving over 7 million hits in a few days and to date standing at 18 million views this is no small achievement for the boy from Nantes. When he was just 15 years old the now superstar DJ recounts how he watched fellow Frenchman Daft Punk’s film ‘Interstella 5555’. He was inspired by this and started to ‘mess around with loops and stuff on the computer’. While every other 15 year old probably played with their toy cars and trading cards Madeon played with a computer and mixing software. This teenager is no amateur. It’s incredible how much self confidence this young man possess and rightly so. Having stopped school thinking he was ‘going to make it’ Madeon has always been dedicated to his craft and his passion for electronic music resonates in all of his releases. It would be wrong to say that Madeon is a breath of fresh air to the EDM scene as we are now seeing more and younger DJ’s break through. However constantly armed with his trusty launch pad Madeon is now a regular at every dance music festival around Europe and sharing the stage with the likes of Tiesto certainly has done him no harm.
It’s also quite amazing to see how well presented the teenager is. During interviews he conducts himself very professionally and one would not have guessed that he self-taught himself English! Madeon got a big breakthrough into the pop industry by supporting Lady Gaga on her tour. Every night audiences became more receptive to the type of music he was playing and his coverage certainly was on the up. With rumours that the two are working together it will be interesting to see what he produces for the pop princess of the moment. One thing is for certain though that the young man will most definitely stick to his roots much like Daft Punk have done over the years. As a teenager you would expect Madeon to be up to his rebellious antics especially with a multimillion dollar music label deal. The description of a traditional pop star does not define this young DJ and his record is quite impeccable to say the least.
It’s all well and good talking about Madeon as an up and coming star but the real question lies in his musical ability. From the handful of releases it’s certainly safe to say that this French star is a simply an astonishing and interesting producer. Songs like ‘The city’, ‘Icarus’ are certainly impressive and contain a fresh new sound. More recently his song ‘Finale’ has been used in computer game ‘Fifa 13’ prompting a surge in people fascinated by this young producer. Only a fool would believe that Madeon is only here for a short time but at this present time the sceptics can be forgiven. With his debut album yet to hit the shelves anxious fans and music critics will wait for its release and judge if the boy wonder can truly live up to the waves of hype created about him. In various interview he has claimed that he will spend most of 2013 working on the album. Success or not the furore that this teenager has created through his mixes for Annie Mac on BBC radio 1 and various live shows seems promising. He is certainly no Justin Beiber and although it will take him many sales to over-come the American superstar Madeon is certainly well and truly on his way to becoming the ‘next big thing’.
Keshav Kapoor
@keshavkapoor15
