A double album from a French band that had never cracked the American top twenty, with unpaid string players hidden behind pseudonyms and a saxophone on a synth-pop record. The project sounded like a gamble, but Hurry Up, We're Dreaming, the sixth studio album from M83, became the group's highest-charting release and a Grammy nominee. M83 released Hurry Up, We're Dreaming on October 18, 2011.
From France to the California desert
The man behind the risk was Anthony Gonzalez, M83's frontman. Before recording began, he had left France for Los Angeles, and the California landscape seeped into the music. He made trips to Joshua Tree National Park, and those desert drives shaped the record's wide-open, dreamlike atmosphere. Gonzalez had spent 29 years in France before moving to California about a year and a half before the album took shape. The move marked a clean break from his past, and the new environment fed directly into the record's mood.
Gonzalez described the two discs as a brother and a sister, with every song having a relative on the other half. The album was built around dreams and how they change from childhood through adolescence into adulthood. Making it a double record was a deliberate nod to ambitious works like Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness by The Smashing Pumpkins.
Unpaid players and 1980s echoes
The sessions ran through 2010 and 2011, and the sound pulled from the 1980s: critics heard echoes of Kraftwerk, Simple Minds, Peter Gabriel, and Harold Faltermeyer. For the first time in M83's music, acoustic guitar, flute, and saxophone appeared. Yet the budget was tight enough that the string and horn players were not paid due to union rules and were credited under fake names. The album also featured guest appearances from Brad Laner of Medicine and the artist Zola Jesus. Their contributions added texture to a record that was already stretching M83's sound in new directions.
The album's lead single, Midnight City, arrived online in July 2011 and became an instant marker of the record. PopMatters named it the best song of 2011, and Pitchfork placed the album third on its year-end list while giving it a Best New Music designation and a 9.1 score.
Chart success and Grammy recognition
When Hurry Up, We're Dreaming was released on October 18, 2011, it entered the Billboard 200 at number 15 with 21,000 copies sold in its first week. That was the highest chart position M83 had ever reached. By March 2016, the album had sold 300,000 copies in the United States, and in 2013 it earned a Grammy nomination for Best Alternative Music Album. The album's closing track, "Outro," later appeared in the extended trailer for the 2012 film Cloud Atlas, as well as in other trailers and movies. Its sweeping, cinematic quality made it a natural fit for visual storytelling.
The record also changed who M83 was on stage. Before the supporting tour, Gonzalez put out a public call on M83's site, looking for someone who could handle guitar, bass, and keyboards. Jordan Lawlor from Sparta Township, New Jersey, won the spot and joined the group for the tour, which began in Mexico City in October 2011 and ended in London that December.
Hurry Up, We're Dreaming did not just revive M83's career; it gave the band a defining sound that connected French electronic roots with American ambition. Two discs, a desert's influence, and a song about city lights turned a risky double album into the most successful moment M83 had ever known.