Mads Langer

Mads Lillelund Langer[1] (née Langer Clausen; born 14 January 1984) is a Danish singer-songwriter, who became internationally known for his cover of "You're Not Alone" by the British band Olive.[2] He is a multi platinum and multi award winning artist in his home country Denmark.

Mads Langer
Mads Langer performs acoustically in Amsterdam, 22 December 2010
Background information
Born (1984-01-14) 14 January 1984
Aabenraa, Denmark
OriginSkive, Denmark
GenresPop, rock
Occupation(s)Singer-songwriter
Multi-instrumentalist
InstrumentsVocals, guitar, piano,
keyboard, Mellotron
Years active2005–current
LabelsCopenhagen Records
Sony Music
Associated actsCarpark North
Saybia
Tim Christensen
The Darkness
Websitewww.madslanger.com

The follow-up to Reckless Twin was a 2016 album featuring his hit single “3AM” which he co-produced with Jamie Hartman.[3] Langer’s forthcoming full-length reclaims a certain unfettered spirit from his first attempts at songwriting. “I feel like I can learn a lot from my earliest material, because it was so pure,” says Langer, who began playing piano at age 3 and writing songs at 8. “With the new album, I made a point of getting back to what I first loved about music: those moments where a song comes together and you don’t really know how it happened, and it just gives you the chills.”

Career

Growing up in the countryside near the small town of Skive, Langer was born to schoolteachers who raised him on singer/songwriters like Neil Young, Rickie Lee Jones, Bob Dylan, and Carole King. From a young age he found his imagination sparked by his surroundings, an idyllic dreamland of forests and farmland and rivers. (“As a child I loved writing all these dark poems and horror stories about ghosts—I was always drawn to the supernatural,” he recalls.) Although he pursued training in jazz piano throughout his school years, Langer decided against attending The Royal Danish Academy of Music after high school, and instead moved to Copenhagen to make music on his own. “For a while I quit piano,” he notes. “I got a guitar and taught myself without theory, and it was so liberating to just play by ear and by my heart.”

Once in Copenhagen, Langer began recording demos in his apartment and later landed a deal with Copenhagen Records, who released his full-length debut Attention Please in 2006. When the album failed to take off, Langer bought an old car and drove all around Europe, stopping in various cities to busk in the streets. “That whole experience really helped me find my direction as an artist, because it was all about building that connection between the songs and the audience,” he says. “I’d be in Barcelona, just playing a song in the street, and all of a sudden there’d be a quite a big crowd—everything happening in this very organic way.”

After returning from his trip, Langer set to work on his self-titled sophomore effort. Arriving in 2009, Mads Langer features “Fact – Fiction”: a platinum single that wholly embodies his sensibilities in its quietly intense vocal delivery, mesmerizing melodies, and storytelling that captures the precise ache of loneliness. Following the breakout success of the album, Langer moved to London and inked a deal with Sony Music, soon setting off on a meteoric trajectory in his music career. Along with putting out three celebrated albums with Sony (including 2013’s double platinum-certified In These Waters), he took on a prolific touring schedule that at one point saw him playing 10 sold-out shows in a row at Vega in Copenhagen (one of Europe’s premier music venues).

For Langer, “Fact – Fiction” serves as an enduring touchstone for his songwriting. “I’ve always had this black hole in the middle of me, filled with a lot of big questions about the world we’re living in, and that’s where I write from,” he says. “Even though I’m where I want to be in life now, my main source of inspiration is all the painful things we go through that are hard to talk about. I think it’ll always be that way, and I really don’t mind—I like going into that dark space, because now it feels safe to me, like home.”

In creating his upcoming album, Langer has traveled to far-flung cities like L.A. and London and Berlin, collaborating with some of the most in-demand producers and songwriters in music today and purposely imbuing that raw-nerve honesty into his songs. In that process, Langer aims to strike a delicate balance between contrasting emotions, possibly giving way to an unexpected harmony. “To me music has the strongest impact when it’s got a melancholic feeling but also gives me hope, and that’s the sweet spot I’m always trying to find,” says Langer. “I’m a hyper-sensitive person and music has always helped me deal with that,” he adds, “so at the same time I want to get through to all the other extra-sensitive people out there. I’d love for them to feel some kind of recognition in my music, and maybe get a little peace of mind.”

Discography

Studio albums

List of albums, with selected chart positions
Title Album details Peak chart positions Certifications
DEN
[4]
Attention Please
Mads Langer
  • Released: 9 February 2009
  • Label: Copenhagen Records
  • Formats: CD, digital download
12
Behold
  • Released: 9 May 2011
  • Label: Sony Music
  • Formats: CD, digital download
2
Behold Deluxe
  • Released: December 2012
  • Label: Sony Music
  • Formats: CD, digital download
2 DEN: Gold[4]
In These Waters
  • Released: March 2013
  • Label: Sony Music
  • Formats: CD, digital download
1 DEN: Platinum[4]
Reckless Twin
  • Released: 18 March 2016
  • Label: Sony Music
  • Formats: CD, digital download
1
[6]
"—" denotes releases that did not chart.

Live albums and EPs

  • Fact-Fiction. Pop – or ??? (EP, 2008), Copenhagen Records
  • Amstrdm EP (EP, 2011), Sony Music
  • Side Effects (EP, 2014), Sony Music
  • All the Time, Sometimes (EP, 2017)

Singles

List of singles, with selected chart positions
Year Single Peak chart positions Certifications Album
DEN
[4]
Other charts
2009 "Fact-Fiction" 17 Gold Mads Langer
"You're Not Alone" 17 AUT #41
BEL (Vl) #29 (Ultratip)
BEL (Wa) #20 (Ultratip)
IT #6
NED #52
SWI #32
2012 "Microscope" 37 BEL (Vl) #29 (Ultratip) Behold
2013 "Elephant" 4 Gold In These Waters
"Heartquake" 17
"I en stjerneregn af sne" 1 TBA
"No Gravity" 35 TBA
2014 "Bringing Back Tomorrow"
(with Tim Christensen)
3 Side Effects
"Fact-Fiction / Silverflame"
(with Tim Christensen)
25
2015 "3 AM" 5[7]
2017 "Flawless" 16
[8]
All the Time, Sometimes
2018 "Tag mig med" 11
[9]

Other singles (charting)

List of singles, with selected chart positions
Year Single Peak chart positions Certifications Album
DEN
[4]
2012 "Overgir mig langsomt" 1 Platinum Toppen af Poppen Vol. 3
"Ikk hate" 15
"København (Fra en DC 9)" 2
"Deep Sleep" 22
"Alle har en drøm" 7

Other singles (non-charting)

  • 2005: "Breaking News"
  • 2006: "Poem with No Rhyme"
  • 2009: "Wake Me Up in Time"
  • 2009: "Too Close" (with Mike Sheridan)
  • 2009: "Last Flower"
  • 2011: "Riding Elevators"
  • 2012: "Something New"

Notes and references

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