Madeline questions false intentions on brand new single “Nice”

Raised in Dallas, Madeline’s been entranced by music as the universal language ever since she was a child. Writing her first lyrics at 16, she realised a passion for songwriting that would propel her from high school stage in Texas to New York City; where she began focusing her skills on writing for other artists. “I had my first “professional” music job at 16 and it let me meet a lot of amazing artists and songwriters” Madeline recalled of her early musical output “they inspired me to start writing. I think I went home and wrote like seven really terrible songs that first week, on guitar and piano. Then I kinda just kept going”.

When the pandemic hit in 2020, Madeline found herself stuck in Los Angeles with her boyfriend and producer, Jack Kleinick. Determined to make good use of their newfound spare time, the pair began working on a collection of Madeline’s most personal work. Combining a distinct sense of warmth and intimacy alongside Madeline’s vibrant personality, underlined by a never-ending fondness for a touch of banging bass, Madeline’s work touches on everything from personal experience to her favourite books and movies.

“The songs I’m most excited about are the ones lived experiences, but with quarantine, there was a time when all I did was sit inside and work on music” Madeline explains, “But that kind of forced me to have more fun with songwriting and look for new ideas. It led me to write a lot of things that I would have never written. I just wrote a song based off of an interview I was watching on this actor and I’m actually really excited about it”.

“Nice”, written in collaboration with Kleinick and Maxwell Musick, is an uptempo pop delight. Its bouncing bass, reminiscent of Sigrid’s early work, provides the backdrop to a playful synth line that punctuates Madeline’s carefree vocals. “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” Madeline recalls of inspiration behind the track, “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”.

As the release of Don’t Put A Dog in Danger edges closer, Madeline is an artist determined to make work her own way; and has slowly come to find her own space with the alternative music landscape. “These songs felt very honest to me” she adds of the upcoming project, “I realized I was writing about all these experiences I had in the past three years that I had ignored, it felt really good to confront those feelings.”