NYC-via-Toronto talent Maddie Regent has been steadily rising since breaking out with her debut EP MISS REGENT back in 2021. Winning over pop fans with her viral hits like “EGO” and “SALT”, Maddie looks set to keep audiences satisified with her new EP Girl of Your Dreams – a shimmery, electro-pop wonderland, where she effortlessly balances dreamy vocals and heart-wrenching lyricism with uplifting pop melodies across the EP’s eight tracks.
To celebrate the release of her new EP Girl of Your Dreams, Maddie sat down with us to run through each track – read on to exclusively hear Maddie’s personal insights and experiences with making Girl of Your Dreams!
“Buy her a drink”
This first track is about that ending period of a relationship, where it hasn’t ended physically, but your mind and heart are already elsewhere. I wanted to open the EP with this song because I think it sets the scene for the story I’m telling about these toxic relationships, and how I’m wrestling with my own self worth because of them. We played around with the image of a club or bar where you’re out and you see your partner (or something that reminds you of them) and you do nothing about it. No guilt, no hurt… just indifference. And we end the song with a fading instrumental, almost as if you’re hearing it from the bathroom or just outside. That’s the moment reality comes back in.
“Prettiest please”
The first track leads seamlessly into the second one. This track is a tribute to my college days, where I dealt with the consequences of my inexperience when it came to dating i.e. that cringe you get when you think about an ex that you wouldn’t give the time of day today, but they really messed with you when you were young and naive, thinking their text “hey” at midnight meant they wanted to really get to know you. Sigh! This song is about feeling foolish and almost begging that memory to go away, haha! The bridge breakdown is my favorite part.
“Butterflies”
I think that this one is so cute. It’s about realizing that butterflies aren’t always a good sign. If that nervous feeling in your stomach stays long after the sparks fade, it might mean something else. This is a feeling I know all too well. We really played with vocal production on this one. Some songs come together really quick and this is an example of that. We made the base of it in a day; it just all made sense and felt different from the other tracks in a good way.
“SIDE FX”
This was the first track I made with my boyfriend and producer, Cade Hoppe, for the EP. It was a departure from my previous work, which was more straight and commercial bop pop. For this project, we experimented with more hyper-pop production. It’s one of my favorite tracks on Girl of Your Dreams. It’s about pretending to be happy with where you are in life, and when you do that for so long you start to question what’s real.
“Deadweight”
This is a song with a sax solo in the bridge, which I think is iconic! It was kind of inspired by alt-pop legends like The 1975 and Rina Sawayama. Artists that turn pop on its head, lyrically and sonically. It’s about being in a healthy relationship for once, or at least having an experience with a good person and questioning whether you deserve it. You start questioning whether they are okay because they like you and you’re struggling with that. This was a super fun song to make, we made it in my boyfriend’s home studio and it was this song that cemented the direction we wanted to take my music and the EP.
“Can’t pretend”
Lyrically, this is my favorite song. It’s where the EP turns the blame for my unfortunate relationship on myself. Maybe I’m part of the problem. We attract what we give out maybe. We played around with a lot of cool imagery with the lyrics of this, referencing fantasy books, magic and war video games. We just had fun with this one.
“Hiding place”
“Hiding Place” is the focus single on this project and is probably the most pop-girl of all the songs, but it’s also one of the most vulnerable, funnily enough. It’s about the very common situationship stage of a relationship that’s ended, but you can’t escape them and kind of don’t want to. The chorus is my favorite part! We had fun with the metaphor of how hiding from that one person is impossible when they know exactly how you play the game.
“ruining”
I think this is the best song on the EP, no question. It’s also, ironically, the most hopeful one for me. It’s a self reflection of where my relationships have left me. Introverted and pessimistic. It lightly touches on how my depression and anxiety have affected my ability to attract good things. But I think being aware is the first step to getting over it, and it’s why writing this song was so important for me.