It was late 2024 and Madeon was at home in Los Angeles, nursing a broken heart. His relationship had recently ended, and not well. But within the constellation of emotion the situation conjured, he eventually identified an opportunity.

“I noticed that this distinct moment in the aftermath is one of trying to redefine who you are, so you can perform a new version of yourself to others, but also in a sense to yourself,” the French producer says. “I remember trying to be more cynical or appear stronger or cockier than I truly was… as a defense mechanism. It occurred to me, ‘Oh, this is a version of myself that might be worth taking a snapshot of, because it will transform.’”

And so he got to work on the music that would ultimately form his third studio album, Victory, out today (June 26.) The project comes seven years after 2019’s revered Good Faith and presents not only the emotional arc of a painful split, but a new realm of the Madeon universe.

While his 2015 debut Adventure was tight electronic informed by French Touch and Good Faith was glowing with gospel choirs and rainbow visuals, much of Victory sits more in an experimental electro/punk/pop lane, with songs like album opener and lead single “Hi!” referencing the artist’s longtime interest in and personal memories of the genre. (“I remember having so much fun making it and thinking there was no responsible way it could come out,” he says, given that the song is so different from his normal output. “Then I sent it to Porter Robinson, and he was like ‘That’s kind of awesome,’ so I decided it would not only be a song, but the lead single, which felt bordering on irresponsible.”

Victory is also his most fashion-forward work to date, with the corresponding photography presenting the artist in architectural haute couture. “It felt like fashion was a really good match with some of the album’s themes and the idea of concealment and self-expression and the way you can make yourself look more powerful or aggressive than you are underneath,” he says. It’s a tool he first saw used by Lady Gaga when he was working on her 2013 album Artpop, for which he co-produced three songs. (He also later worked on her Chromatica.) “It felt like this whole other vocabulary that I then didn’t really have any access to, and so it felt like an uncharted world.”

Talking to Billboard on a recent Wednesday afternoon, the artist born Hugo Pierre Leclercq wears smart trousers, a white button down and a maroon tie, looking more formal (or maybe more French), than most of the crowd at this busy Hollywood lunch spot.

Underneath his thick beard, the baby face fans have known since Madeon rocketed into the dance world in the early 2010s remains visible. He arrived to the scene among a cohort of artists like Porter Robinson and Zedd as part of the first generation of electronic producers raised almost entirely on internet culture. Words like “prodigy” were thrown around in his regard, especially after he posted “Pop Culture” –  a mashup of 39 songs he played live on a programmed button controller – to YouTube in 2011. The now-famous clip got six million views on YouTube in six days. (It currently has 68.) He was 17 years old when it happened and had already been making music for more than half a decade.

Now 32, the producer is lovely, engaging, philosophically, astonishingly intelligent and self aware as he talks about his music, his inner life and the fusion of the two. (For lunch he has a falafel bowl and at the end of the meal declares “I would love some kind of pastry or dessert” before ordering and devouring a brownie roughly the size of a roofing tile.)

While he’d spent years on “a different creative journey” while trying to make the Good Faith follow-up, post-breakup inspiration sent him in another direction, and Victory was made quickly at the end of 2024 and in early 2025. (He made a few of the album’s 10 songs in the same week.) This work happened mostly at his home in L.A., with later production happening in New York with collaborators including Mikey Freedom Hart of Bleachers.  

The core idea, beyond emotionally composting his breakup, was to lean into interests and elements that hadn’t thus far appeared in the Madeon oeuvre. “I don’t know that I like when artists do an album that’s the sum of everything they love,” he says. “When I listen to an album, I don’t want to listen to a playlist of somebody’s broad taste. I want them to curate a singular point of view that they’re trying to communicate.”

Victory thus parallels Good Faith in its presentation of a concept where he’s decided “what to exclude from my taste and what to focus on.” (“I love curating arbitrary rules,” he says.) With Good Faith built on R&B chords, gospel choirs and sultry pitched down vocals, none of those elements would be allowed on the new album, “and similarly, I decided to exclude a lot of my taste from this album, so that I could curate a distinct proposition.”

That proposition involves not only the aforementioned fashion and punk elements, but the world building these two elements create in tandem. “I think there’s a real recipe for creativity, which is to combine two elements that might seem arbitrary and not naturally connected,” he says. “If you present them alongside one another enough times, the brain will draw connections and patterns. Good Faith was gospel choirs and rainbow visuals, which have nothing in common, but if you present them alongside one another multiple times, then for people it becomes Good Faith vibes.”

The Victory vibe then is a dark, defiant attitude cloaked in Celine and altogether functioning as a shield for the upset underneath, with each track shedding an emotional layer until the closer “Lonely Space Age” gets to the heart of the matter as Madeon sings “I almost died/ It’s a miracle I made it through the night.” This vibe is bolstered by the presence of Victory’s guests, rapper Erick The Architect, who simply slays on album standout “Super Platinum,” Sam Gellaitry on “Red Jacket” and Slayyyter on “Fire Away.”

This latter artist entered the frame after Madeon decided his solo version of the song needed more tension. “It’s about conflict, warfare, heartbreak, so it felt like it was lacking this other perspective,” he says.  The idea was that he and Slayyyter would work together for a few days at his house in L.A., but they nailed it on day one. “She just killed it immediately,” he says. “She just has so much charisma in her voice.”

Ultimately, Victory is a compelling, satisfying listen, with the previously released singles getting new energy and context when listened to as part of the complete work. Intentionally not falling into any current dance world trends, Madeon wonders if it might alienate people. If so, that might not be a bad thing

“There was something a little rebellious about it, and that was appealing,” he says. “I often say the number one sin of an artist is to be boring and to give people what they think they want, and I think you can recede into the background of people’s consciousness if you just pander. Because of the length of my career, I felt like I had earned the right to be risky, and I wanted to feel courageous, even if it meant risking everything going down in flames. That was appealing to me.”

Madeon is taking Victory on tour this fall, with a 32-date tour crossing North America by bus (a mode of travel he says he finds “energizing”) in September, October and November. (Madeon also headlines Electric Forest in Rothbury, Michigan this weekend.) He debuted the Victory live show at Red Rocks last October and didn’t necessarily intend to wait so long to continue the run, but says factors including “serious family issues” caused him to miss a few deadlines. “I just had to prioritize those things, but I think it’s okay,” he says. “I don’t think anybody remembers the length of a rollout five years later.”

This extra time also created the opportunity to elevate the show from its first iteration, with show creation as a whole allowing him to play within his loves for graphic design, animation, storytelling and magic, a discipline he’s formally studied. Much of the Victory live show was made by him and his three core collaborators, who tucked themselves away in his house, got off the internet and drew from influences found in his collection of books about art, travel, fashion, opera, design and architecture. for him this collaborative process is the “easy reward” for having already accomplished the “the mostly difficult and grueling” (and often lonely) work of making the music itself.

All in all, Madeon in the summer of 2026 seems to have a lot to be excited about and satisfied with. He’s come out the other end of serious sadness with an excellent album, has a big tour on the books and seems genuinely stoked about where he’s at. Recently, he published an Instagram post about sometimes getting on a flight where the seat next time him is empty and imagining talking to a younger version of himself sitting next to him. I ask him what he’d say.

“First of all, you’re a professional musician, and some of your online besties are too. We all made it, which is incredible. It wasn’t a pipe dream. It amounted to something. You found a distinct identity. You got to play Coachella, and that was a dream, and you got to play multiple times. You got to meet a good chunk of your heroes and create those connections. There’s no risk of you having to be an accountant. So much of the music I wrote before becoming Madeon was about fearing a normal office life, so I tell him that you are freed from that fear. Obviously I had to drop out of school very young, so I had no other future possible. It’s a relief that it worked out.”

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