Melanie Martinez - HADES: THE SACRIFICE

Melanie Martinez is an incomparable, multi-faceted artist that consistently brings innovation and artistic integrity to the forefront of her career. The constantly evolving 24-year old is at once a singer, songwriter, director, writer, and designer. Every creation of hers is another puzzle piece to the bigger picture. Taking story-telling to another dimension in music, she has embodied a character who was born out of her own imagination and subconscious. Though Cry Baby is based off of Melanie’s own personality, she is not a direct reflection of Melanie herself. Cry Baby is actually her outlet for deep introspection and was intended to be a voice for empaths who feel misunderstood and are labeled by society as overly-emotional, or crazy. Her 13 self-directed videos from the Cry Baby era have allowed her to exceed 7 million subscribers on YouTube, 1.4 billion views and counting. She has managed to bring Cry Baby to life not only through these incredibly hands-on surrealist videos, but also through live shows that bring Cry Baby and her magical world to the eyes of many intensely passionate beings across the globe. Her tours have served to connect people with like minded souls, in a celebration of individuality, empathy, and unconditional love. Her debut album Cry Baby earned certified platinum status, with 9 songs on the album certified gold and 2 certified platinum. These haunting lullabies have amassed 2.3 billion streams and counting, out of pure connectivity to the depths of many souls. Just like everything else in her world, Melanie’s merchandise line, including her self-conceived perfume, is incredibly cohesive. It is her attention to detail and creativity that has put her collection at the top of many music industry and retail charts worldwide. On September 6th, Melanie will release her highly anticipated follow-up album K-12 paired with a mystical 90-minute feature film. This full-fledged narrative movie was filmed in Budapest, Hungary in the fall of 2018, was written & directed by Melanie herself, and looks to raise the bar on the pairing of music and film.

I kinda hated singing when I was a kid, so it’s a little odd that it’s my whole life now. My dad brought me and my brother up playing music at local Annapolis jazz jams and open mic nights where my older brother played guitar and my dad played saxophone. Even though our Mom isn’t a musician she raised us on a steady diet of classic rock and salsa, a true Cuban. I don't think any of our family members were shocked when we started to write our own material in elementary and middle school. To this day, we write everything in our bedroom; the middle school writing process still seems to be the best. Thomas and I started to drop some of these songs on itunes as a duo called “LaRosa.” We kept on that release path, which believe me was super cool in middle school. I was in high school for 6 months before covid hit and we were stuck in quarantine, where we decided to release music as individuals even though our process stayed the same. Which leads us to today. I mean there’s a ton more boring detail but you don’t wanna hear that. I started posting on TikTok to promote my music, and for about a year, 5-10 posts a day, literally nothing went viral. Not even close. Two months ago my brother and I wrote a song called “Haunted.” We wanted to create something that felt like it could be in the show “Euphoria”. I’ve loved horror tv and film since I was a kid, so “Haunted,” gave me the right vehicle for creating short film type tik tok content, that I really felt passionate about. All of this content also gave me an opportunity to incorporate my love of fashion into my videos, another reason I’ve felt so drawn to this sonic world. When “Haunted,” started to go viral on tik tok, we didn’t even have the full song written and we spent 24 hours in a frantic rush to finish it. My brother and I have been feeling super inspired by Haunted and we’ve written another two songs that feel like part of that same world - Help (drops 4/21) and Heaven comes out right after that.