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As I alluded to in my last blog, many things have happened, including the unfolding of a new Madeon era. This era has quite a bit of a story behind it, so with two singles already released, and a whole new live show (Spoiler alert), I'm gonna try to the best of my ability to explain what is going on here.
Madeon returned in late 2025 after his gap year in 2024 with a surprising aesthetic change. From bright colors everywhere in the Good Faith era to a more monochromatic look, with muted blues and Times New Roman font for the new era, only known then as the "???????" era. He would then do a performance art piece/listening party for something called "Hi!," presumably the new single. During the performance, he sits on a tower of speakers surrounded by red lights while reading a book. Accompanying this performance was a zine that explained what was happening, but in true Madeon fashion, it was also very vague. The zine had lyrics to the song and a picture of the book he was reading, which was called How to Become a Monster to Survive a Murder, as keen fans found out. There were also a few blurbs of text hyping up his show at Red Rocks later in the quarter, teasing something or someone called "Spikey."
The song was released a week after the listening party, and it was different. Madeon's Tweets about "You'll never guess how my new era would sound" proved to be correct, as Hi!, unlike his previous work, which dealt with happier subjects with more electronic production, leaned more into the electronic punk sound than anything. The song seems to be about dating a woman who is already married:
Oh, what you gonna do?
Oh, what's he gonna say?
She's got a ring on her finger so it's complicated
Why couldn't you tell me?
Baby, I hate the man you force me to be
You set me up to get killed
This is not the first time Madeon has written a song about this subject matter. During his gap year, he was producing and writing songs for other artists. Namely, he wrote and produced Keshi - Kiss Me Right, which is about the same thing that Hi! appears to be about, according to a Tweet. Also, this song is a banger that immediately became 2025 SOTY, beating Umru, underscores - Poplife and Eliminate - Turn it up immediately.
Because of the lead single's punk-rock sound, fans expected there to be a big reveal that there was gonna be a backup band, but as Madeon kept reiterating in tweets, "There is no band." We only had to wait until October 5th, the night of Red Rocks, the night of the debut of the new era.
In a merch drop on the days before Red Rocks, there was merch that had the words "Victory" on it. Fans guessed that, because victory is a 7-letter word, and there are 7 question marks, that this is the name of the new era. Madeon confirmed this not long after the merch drop in a tweet.
We then go to the night of Red Rocks, and there are already a whole lot of cool moments in it (This is where the blog gets kind of spoilery, tread carefully). First of all, the "There is no band" motif got immediately confusing when the words "Meet the band" first appeared on screen. One by one, these zany-looking characters appeared on screen playing instruments, with Hugo (Madeon) on vocals, Red on drums, Juno on bass, and Wolfgang Spikey on guitar. This is the band known as Victory, a band that in-universe Hugo seemed to have made up in his mind. The show revolves around Hugo's relationship with this band, and how they both seem to exist and not exist at the same time. Voices say throughout the show, "It's all in your head, there is no band. Wake up." There is, of course, way more stuff that happens in the show, so I'm just gonna do a hyperlink to the best coverage I can find of it in terms of audio, right here.
During the performance, he teased new songs, one of which was a tune called Car Crash Baby, the second single that would be released. According to a Tweet, it wasn't even supposed to be the second single, but it got such a good reception in the live show that it almost had to be released. The zine for Hi! kind of prophesied this, as it says, "Maybe the fans will get to decide what's next?"
Car Crash Baby is a bit more electronic in sound, but there are still guitars and everything. It's an electronic rock bopper that sounds like it was made in the peak indie electronic rock era, and I love it so much. The song appears to be about some sort of masochistic love drama, all for the sake of fame:
I'm just another crash test dummy
I love you like a car crash, baby
Somebody's gonna wanna pay for this
I'm gonna be a popstar, hit me like a fast car, baby
The song completely changes moods halfway through. From a dark, driving, minor key to a more uplifting major key, as Hugo repeats "Oh, you gotta save my soul" in this part's buildup. Duality seems to be a major theme in the Victory era: The line between dark and light, what's a fantasy and what isn't. There was a zine that released after this song that explained a few things:
"It's a song about success as a form of self-harm. Cynical and bitter until the desperation and vulnerability suddenly peaks through."
That exhausts all information about this album rollout that I have. We fans think that there are more singles to come, and the album is set to drop next year, according to Madeon, so we'll just have to wait. My guess is Q1 2026 release date, but who knows what? First big blog back, and I'm glad to be back!
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