The amount of times a DJ has dropped “Midnight City” by M83 set is almost incalculable at this point. The track originally appeared on the double album, Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming, released in 2011. According to a quick synopsis of the album’s success, “The album placed 3rd in Pitchfork’s Top 50 Albums of 2011 list; the single ‘Midnight City’ was placed 1st on the Top 100 Tracks list. On January 26, 2012, M83 came in at number 5 on the Triple J Hottest 100 with the single ‘Midnight City.’”
It was a massive hit in every way possible, and arguably singlehandedly led to M83’s massive popularity. However, Anthony Gonzalez, the remaining sole member of the group, has stated multiple times in interviews that he laments the song’s popularity. In an infamous 2019 interview with VICE, he said, “[…] these days, I kind of just want people to forget about me and my previous success— Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming and ‘Midnight City.’”
Now, in a more recent interview with Consequence, he has doubled down.
“I mentioned this in an interview before, but it’s almost that I want to keep the fans of ‘Midnight City’ away from entering — which I mean mostly as a bad joke,” Gonzalez said.
“For me, the struggle with being a successful artist with that album, Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming, and especially with that track, ‘Midnight City’, is that all of a sudden, I had this huge EDM following. EDM is probably one of the styles of music that I hate the most. All of a sudden, I have these bro EDM DJs playing my music, and I just can’t even care less. Sometimes I wish that I could erase that fan base but I don’t think it’s possible to do that.”
This isn’t something that EDM fans will necessarily take personally, but nonetheless it’s disheartening to hear that the artist behind a song that popularly shows up in hundreds of sets per year has maligned an entire fanbase wholesale.
The interview comes ahead of M83’s ninth studio album, Fantasy, due out this Friday, March 17. You can read the full interview here.
Photo by Rama via Wikimedia Commons
