Madeon's real name is Hugo Pierre Leclercq and was born on the 30th of May 1994. He first started composing music at the age of 11 and made a name for himself after he won a competition in 2010 by remixing 'The Island' by the drum and bass band Pendulum. He went on to remix various other artists' songs, most notably his song 'Pop Culture' (video below) which consisted of 39 tracks, some of which are:
- Billie Jean - Michael Jackson
- Raise Your Weapon - Deadmau5
- Aerodynamic - Daft Punk
Deadmau5 and Daft Punk have been said to be very inspirational artists to Madeon and it seems fitting that he would use them in the song that got him over 14 million hits on Youtube. A notable point in this video is his use of the 'Novation Launchpad', an incredible piece of technology which he used entirely to create 'Pop Culture'. Comprising of 64 buttons it enables the user to remix an song with endless combinations.
His first live performance was in Paris in April 2011, where he was a support act to fellow french artist Yelle. His UK debut was at The Nest in London on August 19th 2011 where he performed alongside the french DJ Jacques Lu Cont. He has done numerous live performances since as well as his songs becoming increasingly popular; his song 'Icarus' featured in the US show 'So you think you can dance?' in May 2012, as well as 'Finale' featuring in EA Sports' extremely popular football game: FIFA 13 and in a Sony PlayStation Vita advert. These are all signs of his rapidly increasingly popularity, the fact that companies are using his songs in popular forms of media demonstrates his rising fame - at the age of only 18, he is set to perform many live concerts (image below) across Belgium, Germany, Holland, France, England and Scotland, me and my partners are attending the London date at the Electric Ballroom.
Although he is French, it is interesting that he should play so many gigs around England, which is most likely down to his music being largely in English - e.g. the songs 'Finale' and 'The City' are in English. It is also possibly due to his music being quite advanced in the sense that he is ahead of other music producers in France, England being more advanced in music than France; new, English sung artists are continuously coming up with new and advancing genres, e.g. Foster the People with their unique alternative rock/dance music that is unlike any other band.
Below is his discography. Although he hasn't done many singles and songs entirely of his own content, this can be put down to him being quite young and not having been on the music market scene for that long, only composing 3 songs throughout the whole of 2012. However he has done 11 remixes and mash-ups in total, since this is a lot me convenient for a DJ to do than doing a song used entirely from user-created content; many DJs remix and mash-up other songs as a way to gain popularity and to show how they can creatively turn preexisting songs into their own version of that song. A good example of this is Madeon's remix of Deadmau5's 'Raise Your Weapon' and Pendulum's 'The Island', these are largely how Madeon grew to fame, not forgetting his most popular mash-up on Youtube: 'Pop Culture'.
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