Madds Buckley is a singer, mainly known for her music based on fiction, most notably manga. She creates original music and covers music from fictional properties. Debuting in 2017, Buckley combines folk, country, and rock stylings, varying depending on the song and album. Her music is often character-driven, whether taking the perspectives of original characters or fictional ones.
Her albums and singles are:
- 2017 - Too Afraid to Say It
- 2018 - The Strings That Tie Us Together
- 2020 - "I Don't Take Insults Lightly" (Single)
- 2021 - "The Red Means I Love You" (Single)
- 2021 - It Started With Hey (EP)
- 2021 - "Ambrosia Wine" (Single)
- 2022 - "St Valentines" (Single)
- 2022 - "Brother" (Single)
- 2022 - Sunset on Summerville
Tropes in Buckley's work include:
- Abusive Parents: The perspective character of "Hawk in the Night," implied to be Hawks' mother, degrading him but genuinely believing that Misery Builds Character.
- Bait the Dog: "Hawk in the Night" opens genuinely tender, but the moment the singer starts commenting on how glad they are that they're tired of Takami's "songbird shit," it becomes clear that the song is from the perspective of Hawks' abusive mother.
- Bloodlust: "The Red Means I Love You" is about drinking the blood of someone you love, no matter how much they try to evade you.The red means I love you!
Tasting your blood means I love you! - Evil Laugh: The ending of the album version of "The Red Means I Love You" has an ominous laugh, clearly reflecting its POV character Himiko Toga's growing madness.
- Hidden Depths: "Little Big Boy" depicts Katsuki Bakugo as being deeply insecure on the inside, desperate to stay afloat in the world and becoming a bully because of it.
- Intercourse with You: Fitting with Midnight's Ms. Fanservice status, "Ambrosia Wine" is deliberately eroticized and has Midnight urging the listener to embrace their lust for her.Leave adoration to the modest
Give into temptation for this fucking goddess! - Lyrical Dissonance: Buckley's My Hero Academia-inspired music tends to feature lyrics that are far darker than the instrumentals around them.
- The original version of "The Red Means I Love You" sounds like a genuine love ballad, but its lyrics are a twisted celebration of Himiko Toga's twisted obsession with drinking the blood of others to express her affection for them. The remade album version doesn't have this element, being much darker and featuring a gradual Evil Laugh developing in the background and ultimately developing into a mad cackle as the song ends.
- "Hawk in the Night" sounds tender and sweet, but is actually from the perspective of Hawks' abusive mother, talking down to him and telling him that misery is the only way for him to grow up in a cynical world.
- "Brother" is a fairly jovial country song about Dabi's horrific backstory, where he compares himself with his younger brother.
- Misery Builds Character: "Hawk in the Night" has the singer, presumably Hawks' mother, taking this perspective and arguing that the abuse the boy goes through has made him a strong hero. At no point does the singer reckon with the notion that the abuse is destroying the boy's sense of belonging and safety.
- Ms. Fanservice: "Ambrosia Wine" is essentially "Ms. Fanservice: The Song," described by Buckley as sexually empowering. It's about Nemuri Kayama, the superhero Midnight, who plays entirely on her eroticized image and beckons the listener to venerate her and seek comfort in her beauty and sexual power.
- Pet the Dog:
- "Child of Ashes," surprisingly enough, serves as a Villain Song for All For One, but has a surprisingly kind tone toward his adoption of his protege, Tomura Shigaraki, with All For One stating he will bring him somewhere safe where everyone will believe he deserves a home.
- "Brother" has a few lyrics in which Dabi genuinely tries to compare himself to his younger brother, Shoto, noting their shared scars.
- Tragic Villain: Just as My Hero Academia features many, Sunset on Summerville features a few.
- "The Red Means I Love You" depicts Himiko Toga as not actually understanding anything, desperate to satiate her love but unable to dissociate her love from her bloodlust, degrading into Mad Love. This element goes double for the album version, where the song begins to pull itself apart by the seams and gets darker in instrumentation, ending with a gradually-built Evil Laugh.
- "Child of Ashes" describes Tomura Shigaraki's horrifying backstory, noting how awful what happened to him was and how ignored he was by everyone who should have come to his rescue.Heroes won't help poor folks like you
Blood on their hands, dust in their shoes
Heroes will hunt you and lead you astray
Don't cry now my child, here you can stay - "Brother" treats Dabi as being a tragedy of his environment, noting that Endeavor's abuse scarred him just as much as it did his brother.
- Villain Song: Sunset on Summerville has a few, fitting for an album based on My Hero Academia.
- "The Red Means I Love You" is a song from the perspective of Himiko Toga, singing about how much she loves to ingest blood and desires to express her love through hurting the people she cares about, all the while not understanding or caring about how much her love hurts them.
- "Child of Ashes" is from the perspective of the supervillain All For One, adopting the young Tomura Shigaraki into his ranks and decrying the heroes that would abandon the boy.We can watch the world decay...
- "Brother" is the villain Dabi explaining his past and comparing himself to his younger brother, noting his desire for revenge and lamenting his fate.
- You Will Not Evade Me: "The Red Means I Love You" is about the protagonist tasting the blood of people she loves. While seeking their blood, she says, "Run as you might, my love will never ever stop!"
- You're Cute When You're Angry: In "Scotch Tape and Cellophane", Buckley sings about the frustrating experience of receiving packages that are a pain to open. She suspects that the sender does this just because she finds her annoyance amusing. (For what it's worth, she is able to have a good laugh about it by the end of the song.)Oh babe, your motives are clear
You just wanna watch me struggle
And you always say, grinning ear to ear
That my frustrated face is adorable
