At the beginning of 2024, Madison Beer was riding high: her second album, Silence Between Songs, had dropped a few months before to strong reviews, with particular praise reserved for her playful take on dream pop that included a few dashes of the psychedelic. She was preparing for the biggest tour of her career, with 63 shows across four continents. But just before things went into high gear, she decided to take a left turn, dropping the standalone single “Make You Mine” before the tour, accompanied by a stylish, Jennifer’s Body-inspired video. The song saw Beer explore new sonic territory with its pulsing, dark-pop synths and club-ready beat—and became the most acclaimed track of her over-a-decade-long career, earning her a Grammy nomination for best dance-pop recording. (In July of this year, Beer followed it up with another single in the same vein, the standout electropop banger “15 Minutes.”)
In September, she unveiled “Yes Baby,” the first single from her upcoming third album and another exhilarating pop anthem. (It, too, came with a high-octane video, this one featuring, among other things, Beer skipping along a treadmill in a pair of strappy black heels.) But, as Beer tells Vogue from her home in Los Angeles, her dancefloor diva era is coming to a close—at least for a minute.
Instead, the album—which was announced today with the title Locket—is mostly an expression of Beer’s more vulnerable side, charting the end of a tumultuous relationship and the hard-earned wisdom that came of it. “I think the album has such duality—there are songs that are upbeat but still emotional,” she says. “It’s a real rollercoaster.”
You can hear it in the album’s second single, “Bittersweet,” which dropped earlier this week: over rippling, celestial synths and a stomping beat on the chorus, she sings sweetly of a relationship turned sour—“Now that it’s over, you’ll blame it all on me / I know I should be bitter, but baby right now I’m bittersweet”—then launches into a joyous belt on the bridge that sits in delicious contrast with the melancholic tale she’s telling. (The cinematic video that dropped alongside it, co-starring The Summer I Turned Pretty’s Sean Kaufman and co-directed by Beer herself, leans even more playfully into these emotional contradictions, with Beer being dumped by her boyfriend before walking down the street and being confronted by a parade of people celebrating her newfound singledom, complete with bubble machines, confetti, and a marching band.) “It all just kind of wrote itself,” she says, with a smile.
Here, Beer speaks to Vogue about why Locket was the easiest and most instinctive record she’s ever written, why her fascination with film sparked an interest in co-directing all of her music videos, how her love of vintage shopping inspired the album’s sentimental title—and, of course, her starring role in the recent Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show.
Vogue: I was looking at your schedule over the past few years and thinking, Where on earth did she find the time to make this record? At what point did it start taking shape as an album?
Madison Beer: After I completed my tour [in September 2024], I was like, I just toured for six, seven months. I’m going to go home and I’m going to do nothing. Then I very quickly realized I don’t really like doing nothing for too long. After two weeks I was like, okay, I’m ready to go, and I got back in the studio. So honestly it was less than a year, as I completed the album this July. But it was probably only around May when I was like, I think I have an album on my hands.
How do you get back into the headspace of making music again? What does that look like?
Honestly, it’s really as simple as what you just said. I do it when my brain is ready. I really thought that after touring for so long I was going to want no one to talk to me for a year. But writing music is just part of me, and it’s a routine that I’m very used to—either being on tour or being in the studio. But as I’m getting a bit older, I feel like I need to take time off even if I don’t want to. It’s important for me to feel recharged and not burn myself out. This time I only needed a few weeks off to feel ready, and I think that was partly because I felt really inspired after my tour. I was still on a bit of a high.
Was making this album more of an instinctive process than in the past?
Yeah, I think I would definitely say that. I got a lot of inspiration from songs off my last album that really didn’t perform all that well in regards of streams. They weren’t my biggest songs, but I’d have crowds of thousands of people singing every word at me every night while I was on tour, which put things into perspective a bit. We all hope that things take off and become hits, but it gave me more confidence that they will be listening regardless, so there was less pressure to be like, Oh, what if it doesn’t do well? It was really refreshing not to view things in that way.
Over the course of your last few singles—“Make You Mine,” “15 Minutes,” and now “Yes Baby”—it feels like you’ve really nailed this very cool, dark-pop sound that suits you so well. Did it feel that way to you?
It was definitely a happy accident. When I made “Make You Mine,” I didn’t go in being like, I want to make a dance record. I went in being like, I want something upbeat and fun and weird and cool for my tour. It wasn’t even something that I was looking at as a single, I just wrote it for my fans. But it was so much fun, and then I kept going down that path. But “Yes Baby” was kind of the finale for that sound for now. Not that I’ll never make another dancey, dark-synth pop song again, because I love it, but I’m not sure it represents this new album entirely. So it was exciting to close the trilogy out with “Yes Baby” and then, with “Bittersweet,” to start something new.
Having listened to some of the other songs on the record, there is a different feel there—there’s more of an ethereal, reflective quality.
I think so. I definitely wanted to lean into that sort of whimsical feeling that I feel like I captured with songs like “Reckless” in the past. But then it was, again, how do I evolve from that? How do I bring it into the more adult world I’m living in now? I was going through a break-up when I wrote this album, and a pretty up and down relationship that was quite intense. And I get a little bit weird sometimes about writing about people, just because we live in a day and age where people can piece together who it’s about. There was a situation in the past where people pieced together exactly what it was about, and I never even hinted at it. It was so crazy and mind-blowing to me. So I think I’ve tried to be careful, because even if I go separate ways from someone in my life, I try to not go too hard on the lyrics, and I try to toe a fair line, because I’m obviously not perfect either. But, yeah, I think that I had to write about the intensity of my previous relationship. It was such a part of my every waking moment—the good days, the bad days, the break-up—so a lot of it really wrote itself.
On that subject, “Bittersweet” is obviously a break-up song at its core. Is that why it felt like the right intro to the new record?
I will say this with as much love for every song I’ve ever put out as possible, but I’m pretty analytical when it comes to what I release and how, and I always try to think about the bigger picture. And with the rollout of this album, I wanted every song to be better than the last—that was the true goal. And “Bittersweet,” I really believe, is one of the best songs on the album. I love it so much. I don’t want to spill too much, but there might be another single before the album. I want to keep building this house, and then open the door for people to come on in. And I feel like each brick I place is an ascension of some kind. So this just felt like a really exciting step in the true direction of Locket, versus “Yes Baby.” And I was also excited by the fact that people are going to hear this having already heard “Make You Mine” and “Yes Baby,” and be like, What the hell? I have no idea what this album’s going to be like. This is a complete 180.
Tell me a little more about the story behind the music video.
I knew I wanted to cast someone as my boyfriend, or ex-boyfriend, in the video, just because I’ve never really done that before, and it felt like a fun opportunity. So we cast Sean Kaufman, who I’m sure a lot of people know from The Summer I Turned Pretty. He’s such a sweetheart—he was so incredible to work with. He made me feel so comfortable, and I was very nervous to be working with a real actor. But, yeah, I was listening to the song a bunch and I wanted it to be this bittersweet thing where I’m heartbroken and someone just dumped me, but there’s a parade happening and people are showing their support for me. There are fireworks, there’s literally a parade float going through the streets, and people are just trying to uplift me. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was a huge inspiration for that scene—and then, at the end, you get a nice explanation for the album title.
Where did the title of Locket come from? Do you wear a locket?
When I picked the name, I was thinking of things that were just real and genuine to me. And to be honest, I was going through my camera roll a lot, and just seeing the things I photograph most often or gravitate towards. And I really love vintage stuff, I love antiques. I feel like lockets are very delicate and beautiful, and feminine, and they hold important things, and memories, and people, and places, and it just felt like the right title. I actually picked it before I’d even written a lot of the album.
As with the last album, you’ve been very hands-on—co-writing and co-producing every song, of course, but also co-directing all the videos. What is the payoff for you in being that deeply involved?
Honestly, I’ve just always loved cinema, and movies, and film, and directing, and the behind-the-scenes of it all. As much as I’ve been singing and performing my whole life, I’ve also been sitting behind a computer and editing iMovie music videos, or sticking a thousand Post-Its on my wall and making stop-motion videos for fun as a kid. Those were the things that I really enjoyed. So, as I felt more confident in myself and my abilities, I was like, you know what? I could do this. And now I can’t really imagine not being a part of that process and just handing it off to somebody else. I mean, who’s to say that I might not do that one day, but for now, I definitely feel like I’m really enjoying being a part of it. I would love to take that to a real big screen one day.
As a final thing, you spoke about how a lot of the album was inspired by your experiences on the last tour and the support you felt from your fans. Obviously, there’s only so much you can say at this moment, but have you started thinking about how you’re going to bring this record to life onstage?
It’s going to be so much fun. I already can’t wait. I really genuinely love touring so much, and I love performing. It just gives all the songs a new life. It never gets old to think about the fact I’ve written a song in my room, or in the studio when I’m crying and emotional, and to then be like, Oh my God, now I’m looking out at 5,000 people singing it back to me. There’s no other feeling in the world like that. So, yeah, I’m really pumped.
I’m also speaking to you a few days before you perform at the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. How are rehearsals going for that?
I couldn’t be more excited. I mean, I grew up watching the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show every year—it was like my Super Bowl. I was just on the phone with my friend earlier, saying how I can’t believe I’m actually performing—I’m still in shock. I’m also very honored. There have been so many amazing performers I admire who have done it, so to be following in their footsteps just feels very cool.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
