After seeing initial reactions and reading what Hugo has said about the way the album was made, I'm pretty confident Victory will gradually become a fan favorite, especially when new music comes out.
I feel like it'll be similar to Human After All for Daft Punk, but it's much more polished and will stand as a snapshot of Hugo where you can point to and go "He really went there!"
Have you warmed up to it so far?
With all the talk about how Madeon's tracks really shine when played live, what are your favorite edits from this era?
My first pick would be You're On, since it feels like it blends the new darker era perfectly with the EDM pop from Adventure.
Basically, my brother despises, mocks, attacks any sign of me having trauma, acting jumpy, or vulnerable, and it’s making it harder to deal with it.
My brother and I grew up in a house where our dad was extremely unpredictable/volatile and we both went through a lot of violence as kids. Today, it’s like the family has completely moved on from that, but my brother and I still deal with it in different ways.
I’m very easily scared or get fight/flight responses to someone being hostile, and my brother is very constantly hostile. Whether it’s me stopping whatever i’m doing when someone comes in the room, or if I confront him about something he did that was hurtful, he laughs and doubles down, like he found a wound he can keep prodding. If I asked him to stop doing something my dad used to do that makes me react / feel adrenaline and cold palms, he‘ll do it more until i’m in tears, which just incentivizes him to continue. I’ve stopped being open with him altogether, even when he feigns a composed attitude.
If I make the horrible offense of asking how his day was, whatever plans he has this week, he’ll be as passive-aggressive as he can, then respond like im asking obvious or stupid questions, so I confront him, sometimes saying like “Is it really that much of an annoyance for me to ask you about your day?” and he’ll scoff and it escalates from there. He’s quite nasty to anyone who tries to listen to him, especially if you try to do something nice for him, he’ll make sure to throw food in the bin or whatever in a way that makes it clear you’re an idiot for trying.
He’s smart, but it’s like the closer you get him to open up about his own issues, the more violent he can get, no matter who it is, but it’s especially against me who is his older brother by a couple years.
So I’m not sure what to do. I can live without him, but I feel like I’d be giving up on him, and I’d feel like there’s no closure to this.
My dad has a way of chewing that makes it so you can hear every move in his mouth, even with his lips completely shut.
It's especially maddening since he's very easily annoyed by other little sounds and bad manners, so it's just surprising how he doesn't hear himself doing it.
I've wanted to explain to him that if you keep sticking your tongue to the roof of your mouth, it will smack air in like a vacuum, but I feel like he'd just get annoyed.
Prefacing this: I’m a huge fan of Hugo’s art and Good Faith is one of my top 5 albums of all time. I want to see him succeed and this is why I want to explain my concerns.
I love all4 tracks, all of them were on repeat at some point. Warming up to Red Jacket right now.
The thing that worries me is that this is the perfect opportunity to for Hugo to be bold, irreverent or completely self-indulgent, which is reflected in Hi! and maybe Car Crash Baby lyrically, but the 4 singles so far are very, very tame, comercial, and sound like something any other skilled producer could make.
Hi! Seemed to be an introduction to something completely different, but that seems to have been less and less true with every single.
Even with very clear "Madeon" sounds all over the singles, it doesn't really feel Hugo, but it's not exactly shocking or out there either.
Aside from CCB, the singles have been very one-note, with a fairly flat structure.
Even since Gonna be Good in 2023, it felt like he was leaving his very unique sound in favor of something extremely safe-sounding, which is worse when it's supposed to be even more "edgy" with Victory.
I’m sure Hugo is acutely aware of how his music sounds and how it fits in the overall music landscape, so I suppose I’m just confused, bewildered and bamboozled by this direction.
I totally get him wanting to embody some of the biggest pop stars, but now they sound like something Madeon wouldn't make, which is great for experimentation, but it doesn’t sound that interesting either, so what are we doing here?