MARTINEZ, MELANIE - K12 - VIOLET VINYL

Melanie Adele Martinez is an American singer-songwriter, artist, director, actress, dancer, clothing designer, producer, and photographer. Born in Astoria, Queens, and raised in Baldwin, New York, she first participated in the MSG Varsity Talent Show during her junior year of high school and subsequently rose to prominence in 2012 after appearing on the American television vocal talent show The Voice. She auditioned singing Britney Spears's Toxic and made it to the Top 6 before being eliminated in the fifth week of live shows. Immediately following her departure from the show, she began independent work on original material. She began recording for a (later-scrapped) EP in 2013 with acts such as John Feldmann and Doveman. Eventually becoming tired of that sound and wanting to experiment, she wrote "Dollhouse" at a session with Kinetics & One Love in September of that year. This song kickstarted the Cry Baby theme/sound. Signing to Atlantic Records soon after, Melanie released her debut EP, Dollhouse (2014). The EP had 2 singles, Dollhouse and Carousel, and included songs that were recorded during sessions for her then-upcoming debut. Martinez later released her debut studio album, Cry Baby (2015), which debuted at number 6 on the Billboard 200 and was certified platinum by the RIAA. It currently has over 4.1 billion streams on Spotify and all of the album tracks are certified by the RIAA. Martinez released her second studio album “K-12” along with an hour-and-a-half-long film with the same name on September 6, 2019, featuring hits such as "Show & Tell," "Nurse's Office," and "Strawberry Shortcake". She then released the accompanying After School EP on September 25, 2020. The deluxe album currently has over 1.6 billion streams on Spotify. In 2020, “Play Date” gained major popularity due to trends on TikTok along with many other songs after it. Due to its success, “Play Date” now currently has 700+ million streams on Spotify, making it their most streamed song to date. Martinez's third studio album PORTALS was released on March 31, 2023, with the deluxe version being released on April 5th, 2023. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.