That feeling you have right before you end a relationship is one of the most gut-wrenching experiences. Back and forth wondering if you have made the right decision or if you should go back and reconsider. Thinking back on good experiences, but also on days when you needed to play nice. Madeline plays with this conflict of whether to wake up and end a relationship or to play nice in two songs she introduces ahead of her EP.
Madeline is a Dallas-raised alternative singer-songwriter. With Madeline’s first two releases, “Emergency Snack” and “Guilty Conscience” featured in the Indie Underground and Heavy Dreaming; her new A-B single “New/Wake Up” leads ahead of her debut EP, scheduled to be released later this year.
“Nice”, written by Madeline, Maxwell Musick, and Jack Kleinick, explores the idea of superficiality over a bright, bouncy bassline. The song immediately pulls you in from the start to lead you on the journey of having to play nice with someone you hate. Madeline serves up a relatable and passionate pop hit that challenges the person who made her play nice.
“The word ‘nice’ kept popping into my head, and I thought about how people always just say ‘nice’ as kind of an empty, passive answer. It made me think of people who think the world revolves around them and that it’s nice of them to give people the time of day. The more and more you look at this person's actions, they might not be that nice of a person,” says Madeline.
Accompanying the release of “Nice” is “Wake Up”, also written by Madeline and Musick, an anti-love song that tells the story of a couple infatuated with each other but not in love. The song challenges Madeline to fight her longing to stay with her past relationship. At various points, the vocals erupt and embrace her feelings while recounting her memories leading up to this point. The ending of the song genuinely echoed throughout my headphones and slowed into a calming guitar solo.
“I had been sitting on these chords for a few months and had this idea of writing an AAA song structure with a B/outro part ending with ‘we could’ve called it love’. I imagined a kitschy, almost golden age musical theatre love song, but the lyrics paint a completely different picture. The song is actually 2 years old, but it was the first time I felt like I had something interesting and exciting to me. For a while, “Wake Up” was the only song I would show anyone and so it was important to me that this one came out,” says Madeline.
With her music, Madeline provides what bedroom pop listeners crave, as well as a relatable story people can relate to. Check out Madeline’s new singles on the indie underground out November 16th.
Author: Laura Reyes and Kaitlin McDermont
Photo credit: Caity Krone.
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