‘Crybaby’ Continues Melanie Martinez

Hannah Willmore, Views Editor

Most 21-year-olds are still in college, trying to figure out what they plan to do for the rest of their lives. Meanwhile, singer and visionary artist Melanie Martinez has made it to the top six on “The Voice,” created an album that debuted at number six on the Billboard 200 and produced all nine of her own music videos.

On Aug. 23, Martinez released her combined music video for “Tag You’re It/Milk and Cookies.”

The two songs belong to her first album, “Crybaby,” which is a concept album that fantasizes Martinez’s own childhood.

“The things that happen to her [Crybaby] are very similar to things that happened in my life,” Martinez said, “but there are things like her killing the person who kidnapped her with poisonous milk and cookies and that obviously did not happen to me.”

Her new music video tackles the part of the story that is all fantasy.

In the double feature music video, Martinez is stalked by a wolf selling ice cream who eventually drugs and kidnaps her during the song “Tag You’re It.”

The video then transitions into “Milk and Cookies” which shows how she poisons the wolf to escape the room where she is being held.

All of her songs and music videos continue a theme of combining deep and dark themes–such as a terrible family life, alcoholism, kidnapping, plastic surgery and more–with metaphors of childhood and children’s toy sounds.

This music video was no exception with its pastel color scheme, children’s toys and the quaint neighborhood she walks through, but because of the darker nature of these songs, there is still a disturbing factor to the video with emphasis on the wolf.

Martinez has already created videos for 10 out of 13 songs from the regular edition of “Crybaby” and she plans to complete the story through her videos while still continuing to work on her next album.

Fans should expect Crybaby to be a character in the next album, but it’s more about her as a narrator. The next part of the story focuses on a fictional town that is the title of the next work, Martinez said.

“I want all of my albums to connect with each other and eventually tell a bigger story.”