Melanie Martinez

One Liner: Cutesy (a little too cutesy at times) but explicit electro indie pop

Poster Position: 9
Slot: 5:30 on Saturday

Thoughts: The very first thing I wrote when I started listening to this was "Oh vomit."  I'm pulling back from that some, but still, this stuff is too damn clever and cutesy for my taste.  Trap-ish electro stealing from Lesley Gore.  Snapping spelling songs.  A bubble beat breakdown.  One of those baby pianos playing in the background.  This is like Lana Del Rey singing only the most precious words she can find.  Her song titles explain this as well, "Milk & Cookies," "Tag, You're It," "Play Date," "Sippy Cup." Kind of reminds me of Halsey too.  And Lorde.  God, I hope its not one of those concerts where 8 billion fan kids are going to clog up the entire park to see this show and so I'm not going to be able to get my PoorQui Bun and get to the old man music in a timely fashion.

She was apparently on the Voice, with this excellent hairdo that looks like a musician from Total Recall or something.  Here is the audition moment on the show.

So, like, was Xtina all jelly because Melly was like totally lit with the old Brit but like didn't even try something off Stripped?  Oooooh!  GIRL FIGHT!

Martinez has only one album, 2015's Cry Baby, and she apparently has some hits on her hands here despite my reluctance to embrace the cutesy-ness of the lyrics.  None of her top ten has less than 17 million streams, and most of her top ten are above 25 million streams. Pretty solid for someone I've never heard of.  But literally, her image on Spotify is of her about to take a swig from a baby bottle full of milk, with a huge white tear dripping from her eye.  I don't care for the heavy imaging, I just want good music.  Her top track is "Pity Party," with 82.9 million.

I guess the half and half hair is her thing?  But, that video and song are great together, watching the visuals made me enjoy the song even more.  Poor Melanie.  Why didn't Johnny come to her party? Mean old boys.  But I guess we can thank Johnny for a pretty snappy pop tune.  I've been singing it for a few days now.  Her second-most-listened-to track is called "Dollhouse," with 49.8 million streams.

Another song that is actually good, once I get over the cute.  Sad song, but still well done.  It is a strange juxtaposition in a lot of her songs (not these two), the cutesy lyrics and lullaby musical hints mixed with repeated F Bombs.  This one, the title track from her album, makes me think of Gwen Stefani when she was good.

You know what, I might just go watch this.  Neither Aluna George nor Naked and Famous have done much for me, so unless I'm using this time to grab dinner, I may go see what this is like in person.