Madison Beer walks up to an abandoned escape room in the desert. She grins with excitement and determination before putting herself in a self-imposed conundrum she must skillfully will herself out of. The 25-year-old singer’s new music video for “15 Minutes” is perhaps a larger metaphor for how she’s been feeling lately in her life and music career, eager to escape previously held limitations she put on herself.

“I feel like I’m always trying to free myself from things I might have done when I was younger,” she tells PAPER. “My last album was the beginning of shedding those limitations, and now I’m just trying to do that even more. So yeah, it does make me feel powerful.”

The new work feels that way, too. There’s an assurance in the recent songs, “Make You Mine” and “15 Minutes,” that strays away from Beer’s emotional album, 2023’s Silence Between Songs. These new tracks are more dancey and direct. There’s a fire behind them, and it all stems from her obsession with spontaneity and not quite knowing what’s next.

We sit down with Madison right before she heads off on her Australia/Asia tour, and we discuss the state of female pop, being a gamer, and experimentation.

I saw that the “15 Minutes” BTS just came out, and in it you say that it’s already your favorite video you’ve done and you hadn’t even shot it yet. Why is that?

It was just a really fun, different video for me. It felt like a mixture of some of my other videos. It felt similar to “Spinnin” for me because it was a solo thing, but then it also felt a little bit more action-y, sort of like the video for my song, “Good in Goodbye.” So it was cool. It felt like this meeting of worlds, music video wise for me, so I was really excited to be shooting it.

Do you do escape rooms?

Yes, I love them. They’re so fun. I’ve also always wanted to incorporate an escape room into something, and this just felt like the right thing.
I love this new era and the EDM electronic vibe. What kind of space would you say you’ve been in with these past few songs? What’s inspiring you generally?

It’s been something that has always been inspiring and exciting to me. I’ve always loved dance, electronic music, or whatever genre you want to say it is. I just never really knew if it was something I could take a stab at. As artists, we sometimes, not even purposely, box ourselves in. And then we end up at a place where we’re like, “Wait, why did I create this box around me when I could literally do whatever I want?” So I started to be like, let’s just try it. With “Make You Mine,” I just had this idea and I got in the studio and was like, “Just trust me, let’s try this.” And people were super receptive to it. So we tried to do it again with “15 Minutes.” I really love both of these songs. I love the sound. I like making music that makes you want to move. It’s obviously very different for me, from my last record. So I’m excited to see what else I make for this project.

Do you feel more power now in this stage of your career? In the sense that you can walk into the studio and be like, ‘This is what I want to do. Let’s experiment.’ Do you feel more control in that way?

Yeah, for sure, and I feel like it’s also just a personal thing. I’m always trying to free myself from things I might have done when I was younger. I put these limitations on myself and told myself, “Oh yeah, you’re a pop artist who can’t do dance music or anything that seems house leaning, even though it’s music you enjoy.” And I started to shed those limitations during my last album because I was listening to a lot of Beach Boys and The Beatles. I had always told myself I could never even try to do something that was influenced by those sounds, and then I was just like, why not? My last album was the beginning of shedding those limitations, and now I’m just trying to do that even more. So, yeah, it does make me feel powerful for sure.