If you are into Melanie's music you know how mysteriously beautiful her songs are. How hauntingly interesting she makes her videos. It kind of draws you in as you watch it. I think I have been into Melaine's music for five months now. I know this is little late to get into someone who's been for 3 years with such an eerie and alluring approach to music.
I am kind hooked to this song for a long time now and part of the reason I like it because you can never get enough of it. The bubbly bass drop and slow, groovy melody with the breathy voice of Melaine are so intoxicating that you easily lose the track of time. What makes her haunting sound so fresh is that she keeps it consistent without making it cheesy or repetitive. It is never really too much listening to it. there is this subtle novelty in it that resurfaces itself every time you hear it.
Soap is a gloomy love song from Melaine's debut album Cry Baby. It's about how insecure one feels in getting into a new relationship. How cautious we are with our words, trying every moment not to overwhelm the other person. Putting a thin veil to our desperation and despair. Whats surprising though is that despite dealing with love and emotion of sorts this song hardly contains any such words that are usually used to elicit romantic feelings in the mainstream songs. In fact, the sentences in it are so cold and aloof to love that you probably would confuse it anything but love. At a time when pop albums are being dumbed down and diluted for mass consumption, Melanie Martinez’s Cry Baby is unapologetically complicated.
Much of the pop music is more about singles and often filled with revealing, pointed lyricism that lays every feeling on the table. Songs that usually care more about immediate shallow experiences. I mean you could figure that out by looking into the verses of many popular songs. They are so obvious so much so that you don't even have to go farther than first two lines to make out what it's going to be about. The sentences lay bare everything it has to say. There is no space in it for you to breathe. There is nothing between the lines, nothing for you interpret. And you know there is nothing wrong with such lyrics except for the fact that it has to offer you nothing except for being a passive spectator to what artist has to say.
And it is in this regard Melanie's music is so different and compelling. If you scan through her lyrics you wouldn't find them to be as much obvious. You cant just listen to the intro of any of her song and figure out what it's going to be about. She is not catering you her immediate banal experiences. There is this story lying underneath every song that you have to decipher as you go along. And often these stories are dark, honest and stories about things that people usually feel uncomfortable bringing up in songwriting.
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Cry Baby is a concept album, what it essentially means is that its tracks hold a larger purpose or meaning collectively than they do individually. Concept albums are rare these days. With the introduction of the compact disk in 1980 which allowed listeners to program songs in any order they wished, coupled with the advent of MTV which favored singles over album reduced the appeal and prevalence of concept albums. One of the defining characteristics of concept albums is that there is a message or a storyline that serves to stitch all of its songs together, which in Melaine's case is a story of the character Cry Baby. Every single song in the album reflects a particular phase of Cry Baby. There is a specific order to the songs in the album and if played accordingly brings a bigger picture of her. It shows how she transforms herself from being a vulnerable and sensitive kid who is picked on repeatedly to someone who accepts her craziness and gets comfortable in her own skin.
If you have been watching Melaine's music for a long time now you definitely know by now that how important her visuals are to get the narrative of the album and you might have even noticed that her videos aren't just feeding the lyrics. Most of the music videos are a visual response to the narrative, as in whatever is happening visually reflects the lyrics in the song. but in Melanie's case, her videos are bit twisted. They do shed light on her cryptic lyrics but they do so by taking the overall narrative of album forward. Like in sippy cup, the song in itself is about lack of being willing to acknowledge and confront one's own reality but the video is ingeniously crafted to take the story forward of her mother's suspicion on her husband's extramarital affair which is mentioned in the song Dollhouse, and along it also gives us the sense of the lyrics. This is not as easy as it might seem. You have to think of visuals as you write the lyrics. You kind of create these two narratives that are independent of each other yet complementing each other at the same time to make overall sense of the narration of the album and when you do so for a dozen of songs, this gets really really hard and needs a hell lot of imagination. It also kind of answers why Melanie choses to directs all her videos because its all in her head.
I think such an approach to songwriting where you are guided not just by feelings but that those feelings should be viable enough to put it on film gives a cinematic touch to melanie's videos. Its definitely strong and vivid as any good movie is but like any good movie it needs your attention too. like in the song dollhouse when she says of being blinded by the jewelry of her mother, the video then cuts to the neck of her father with a lipstick mark on it which then relates word infidelity she mentions two lines after. I mean these are small things and easy to miss and you really cannot afford to miss these tiny glimpses in Melanie's case because its in these tiny bits and pieces she scatters the essence of the story. She isn't making any concrete statement in the lyrics or overtly expressing herself in the videos so you have to pick a bit from her lyrics and a bit from her videos and you need to kind of gather it all up to make sense of the overall narration.
By and large Melanie's music aren't for those who skim over songs for mere entertainment. Her songs are more than that. Essentially what she creates is a story. She is a storyteller. Its no less than a movie. Like any consummate work of art it demands your attention. It would absorb you completely if you let it. This also is the reason why I am so drawn to the song soap because it resembles my own experiences in my romantic undertakings and since its lyrics is not as much rigid or filled with Melaine's immediate experiences I kind of accommodate my own experiences and feelings in it and vent my insecurities out.
I am kind hooked to this song for a long time now and part of the reason I like it because you can never get enough of it. The bubbly bass drop and slow, groovy melody with the breathy voice of Melaine are so intoxicating that you easily lose the track of time. What makes her haunting sound so fresh is that she keeps it consistent without making it cheesy or repetitive. It is never really too much listening to it. there is this subtle novelty in it that resurfaces itself every time you hear it.
Much of the pop music is more about singles and often filled with revealing, pointed lyricism that lays every feeling on the table. Songs that usually care more about immediate shallow experiences. I mean you could figure that out by looking into the verses of many popular songs. They are so obvious so much so that you don't even have to go farther than first two lines to make out what it's going to be about. The sentences lay bare everything it has to say. There is no space in it for you to breathe. There is nothing between the lines, nothing for you interpret. And you know there is nothing wrong with such lyrics except for the fact that it has to offer you nothing except for being a passive spectator to what artist has to say.
" So baby pull me closer in the backseat of your Rover"
"We don't talk anymore, like we used to do"
Build Book Reading Habit With Kindle
Cry Baby is a concept album, what it essentially means is that its tracks hold a larger purpose or meaning collectively than they do individually. Concept albums are rare these days. With the introduction of the compact disk in 1980 which allowed listeners to program songs in any order they wished, coupled with the advent of MTV which favored singles over album reduced the appeal and prevalence of concept albums. One of the defining characteristics of concept albums is that there is a message or a storyline that serves to stitch all of its songs together, which in Melaine's case is a story of the character Cry Baby. Every single song in the album reflects a particular phase of Cry Baby. There is a specific order to the songs in the album and if played accordingly brings a bigger picture of her. It shows how she transforms herself from being a vulnerable and sensitive kid who is picked on repeatedly to someone who accepts her craziness and gets comfortable in her own skin.
If you have been watching Melaine's music for a long time now you definitely know by now that how important her visuals are to get the narrative of the album and you might have even noticed that her videos aren't just feeding the lyrics. Most of the music videos are a visual response to the narrative, as in whatever is happening visually reflects the lyrics in the song. but in Melanie's case, her videos are bit twisted. They do shed light on her cryptic lyrics but they do so by taking the overall narrative of album forward. Like in sippy cup, the song in itself is about lack of being willing to acknowledge and confront one's own reality but the video is ingeniously crafted to take the story forward of her mother's suspicion on her husband's extramarital affair which is mentioned in the song Dollhouse, and along it also gives us the sense of the lyrics. This is not as easy as it might seem. You have to think of visuals as you write the lyrics. You kind of create these two narratives that are independent of each other yet complementing each other at the same time to make overall sense of the narration of the album and when you do so for a dozen of songs, this gets really really hard and needs a hell lot of imagination. It also kind of answers why Melanie choses to directs all her videos because its all in her head.
read more - Chester Bennington - Why Artists commit Suicide
I think such an approach to songwriting where you are guided not just by feelings but that those feelings should be viable enough to put it on film gives a cinematic touch to melanie's videos. Its definitely strong and vivid as any good movie is but like any good movie it needs your attention too. like in the song dollhouse when she says of being blinded by the jewelry of her mother, the video then cuts to the neck of her father with a lipstick mark on it which then relates word infidelity she mentions two lines after. I mean these are small things and easy to miss and you really cannot afford to miss these tiny glimpses in Melanie's case because its in these tiny bits and pieces she scatters the essence of the story. She isn't making any concrete statement in the lyrics or overtly expressing herself in the videos so you have to pick a bit from her lyrics and a bit from her videos and you need to kind of gather it all up to make sense of the overall narration.
By and large Melanie's music aren't for those who skim over songs for mere entertainment. Her songs are more than that. Essentially what she creates is a story. She is a storyteller. Its no less than a movie. Like any consummate work of art it demands your attention. It would absorb you completely if you let it. This also is the reason why I am so drawn to the song soap because it resembles my own experiences in my romantic undertakings and since its lyrics is not as much rigid or filled with Melaine's immediate experiences I kind of accommodate my own experiences and feelings in it and vent my insecurities out.
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