雨果·勒克莱尔

Hugo Pierre Leclercq (French pronunciation: [yɡo pjɛʁ ləklɛʁ]; born 30 May 1994), better known by his stage name Madeon (), is a French musician, DJ, record producer, singer and songwriter from Nantes, based in Los Angeles. He initially came to widespread public attention at age 17 through a YouTube video, "Pop Culture", where he performed a mash-up of 39 different popular songs in real-time using a Novation Launchpad. It received millions of hits in its first few days of release. Madeon has cited the Beatles and Daft Punk as his greatest musical influences.

Madeon's first EP, The City, was released in 2012. His debut studio album, Adventure, was released in 2015, supported by a 22-stop North American tour. In 2019, Madeon released his second album, Good Faith, as part of the Good Faith Live tour.

Madeon was ranked at number 105 on DJ Mag's top DJs for 2017. In 2017, he was nominated for two Electronic Music Awards with Porter Robinson for Single of the Year and Live Act of the Year. Good Faith was nominated for a 2021 Best Electronic Album Grammy Award.

Early life

Born on 30 May 1994 in Nantes, France, Hugo Pierre Leclercq started composing music at the age of 11.

Career

2010–2014: Career beginnings

Madeon began producing hands-up under the name of "Deamon" and Wayne Mont until 2010 when he began producing house music under his current name, Madeon, which is an anagram of his previous nickname. He won a remix competition for "The Island" by Pendulum the same year.

He went on to remix tracks by other electronic artists the following year. A clip of Leclercq performing his mash-up "Pop Culture", uploaded to YouTube on 11 July 2011, propelled him to international fame. It featured samples from thirty-nine songs mixed together on-the-fly using a Novation Launchpad. The clip went viral and reached over six million views in just a few days. According to a Reddit AMA he hosted in November 2019, he had the idea, purchased the Launchpad, and recorded the song all on the same day.

During live performances, apart from the Launchpads, he also uses Allen & Heath's Xone:K2, Novation's Launch Control XL and Ableton Live. His first live performance was in Paris in April 2011 where he was a support act to Yelle, and his UK debut was at The Nest in Dalston, London where he performed alongside the likes of Jacques Lu Cont.

Leclercq was featured several times on "15 Minutes of Fame", a segment of Pete Tong's radio show on BBC Radio 1, with both his debut single "Icarus" and his remix for Deadmau5's "Raise Your Weapon" given their first full play on the show. His live recorded performance debut was for Pete Tong's BBC Radio 1 gala event in Hull on 27 January 2012, where he played a 20-minute-long set.

A debut EP was scheduled to be released at the end of 2011, but then cancelled in favour of multiple singles. The first single, "Icarus", was released on 24 February 2012 on his independent label popcultur.

Madeon toured with Lady Gaga as an opening act during her Born This Way Ball. He later worked with Gaga on three tracks, "Gypsy", "Mary Jane Holland", and "Venus" on her third studio album, Artpop.