Melanie Martinez - Singer-songwriter, Timeline and Childhood

Melanie Adele Martinez was born on 28 April, 1995 in Astoria, Queens to parents of Dominican and Puerto Rican decent. After turning four she settled with her parents in Baldwin, New York.

While growing up she often listened to Shakira, Britney Spears, The Beatles, Biggie Smalls and Christina Aguilera on the radio. She is gifted with a great vocal range so she decided to pursue music during her early school days.

She attended ‘Plaza Elementary School’ where she was given singing lessons by her music teacher Mr. Nadien and began writing poetry in her kindergaten years.

Apart from singing, Martinez also loved photography and painting and often used it as a means to express her emotions in her childhood.

She was known to be a very emotional girl. Her classmates used to call her a “cry baby” as she often cried when overwhelmed. Interestingly, she titled her debut album ‘Cry Baby’ on gaining success.

She later attended ‘Baldwin High School’ and grew more passionate about music after entering her teens. She taught herself to play the guitar and won the ‘Baldwin Singing Competiiton’ in high school.

In 2012, she participated in the ‘MSG Varsity Talent Show’ and was then in her junior year of high school. She cleared the first round but was eliminated in the second round. However, she took the experience positively.

She later auditioned for the third season of the American singing reality show ‘The Voice’ which was then judged by Blake Shelton, Adam Lavine, Cee Lo Green and Christina Aguilera.

She sang Britney Spear’s ‘Toxic’ for the audition round and received three chair turns from Blake, Adam and Cee Lo. However, she gleefully chose Adam as her coach and moved on to the ‘Battle Rounds’.

She battled against Caitling Michelle in the second round with Ellie Goulding’s song ‘Lights’ and was selected by Adam to move on to the ‘Knockout Rounds’ for which she sang La Roux’s ‘Bulletproof’. She cleared the third round and entered the ‘Live Shows’.

She was supported by public votes for her songs ‘Seven Nation Army’ and ‘Too Close’, which finished at number 10 and number 6 position on the ‘iTunes’ respectively and went on to pass 5 rounds to finally be eliminated in the sixth week of the ‘Live Shows’.

Her eviction only opened new doors for Martinez. She immediately began working on original material and spent all of 2013 writing lyrics for her songs.

In February 2014, she self-released her debut single titled ‘Dollhouse’ along with a music video. Her initial music ventures were fan-funded and she was styled without any charges by her friends.

‘Dollhouse’ was co-written and produced by ‘Kinetics & One Love’ and after its gigantic success ‘Atlantic Records’ quickly signed her and shortly afterwards relased her debut EP called ‘Dollhouse’ which was promoted via a ‘Dollhouse’ tour from 2014-2015.

In early 2015, she announced that her debut album would soon be hitting music stores and on the 1st of June 2015, she released her debut album’s first single ‘Pity Party’ which was ranked gold by RIAA followed by its second single ‘Soap’ on 10th July, 2015.

Her debut album ‘Cry Baby’ reached stores on 14th August 2015 and was met with immediate success. It went on to rank number 6 on the ‘US Billbaord Album 200’ music chart.

Adding to her success, she released a seasons greetings’ song for her fans called ‘Gingerbread Man’ on ‘SoundCloud’ and on 29th January 2016, she added it to ‘iTunes’ as a single. The same year in March she released the music video of “Cry Baby” and ‘Alphabet Boy’ that aired on music channels in June, 2016. In late 2016 she launched her second EP ‘Cry Baby’s Extra Clutter’ with the single ‘Gingerbread Man’ as a part of the EP.

By December 2016, she released two music videos of her singles “Mrs. Potato Head” and “Pacify Her”. Her debut album was certified Platinum on 24th February 2017 by RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America).

At the age of sixteen she boldly dyed her hair half blond and half back after watching the film ‘101 Dalmations’ in order to look like the character ‘Cruella De Vil’ which became quite a trend after she appeared on ‘The Voice’.

In 2015, she signed with a cosmetic company named ‘Lime Crime’ to launch two exclusive lipstick products. The blue shade is called ‘Cry Baby’ and the brown shade lipstick is named ‘Teddy Bear’.

In October 2016, she released her own fragrance called ‘Cry Baby Perfume Milk’ which was later distributed by her record label ‘Atlantic Records’, making it the first label to ever distribute a perfume.

Her debut Ep’s second single ‘Carousel’ was certified gold by RIAA after her first single was certified platinum. The EP ‘Dollhouse’ comprised of four songs and peaked at number 4 on ‘US Billboard Heatseekers Albums’.

‘Carousel’ was first featured as the promo song for FX’s ‘American Horror Story: Freak Show’, which was later followed with a music video relase.

Her first album ‘Cry Baby’ was critically acclaimed for its theme, lyrics, vocal texture and music. Jason Scott of ‘Popdust.com’ called the album “13 tracks of pure hypnotic bliss”.

The album booked top spots on many music charts around the world. It peaked at the number one spot in the ‘US Billboard Top Alternative Albums’ and ranked sixth in the list of ‘Spanish Albums’.

‘Cry Baby’ has been certified silver by UK ‘BPI’ and platinum by ‘RIAA’. It settled for the tenth spot on the ‘Candian Albums (Billboard)’ and was ranked at the 44th position in the ‘US Billboard 200 Year-end Chart’.

Melanie is crazy about tattoos, and she has quite a few tattoos on her body including two hearts - one pink and the other blue, and a slice of cheese within a red lacy heart on her arms.

She is a popular ‘YouTuber’ as well and has a self-titled channel on ‘YouTube’ with over 4 million subscriptions. She frequently posts cover songs and uploads her original music videos to her channel.

She is currently dating Music Producer Michael Keenam. He has produced some of her singles such as ‘Gingerbread Man’ and ‘Pacify Her’. He will also be producing her upcoming second album due toreach music shelves in 2018.

Melanie has a vintage collection of dolls and toys from the 50’s and 60’s.