Gravitate

Idk maybe it was her or maybe it was Atlantic, but K-12 was definitely an attempt to recreate the success of CB. It almost seemed like a parody. I feel like Melanie wanted to move on to a mature, vintage theme but somehow got stuck in the childish sound of CB. If Melanie either released K-12 earlier or made K-12 sound like a high school album rather than an elementary school album it would’ve been 1000x better. Like, I just can’t listen to it and think about high school. The whole overall pastel vibe of the movie and album just made it seem too childish. I get it’s Melanie’s thing but I wish she just went for vintage rococo 
 
Dont get me wrong, I like the album (on some days)… but 4 years? 

Luckily she said herself that Cry Baby will not be a continuing character after MM3, and I get the feeling that she's going to evolve her into some sort of metaphysical being like Lilith in order to bring her story to a close.
 
I just want to hear straight from Melanie's mouth what's going on with this album being pushed back again. At this point, updates would be just as good as getting a single.

And thank God it was - we all know which is the superior version 

There's no chance in hell that K-12 could've been completed in 2016. It took several months for just the Mad Hatter video, and then the Timothy stuff happened.
 
I still don't blame Timothy at all, and I think she's unjustly criticized for what went down, but it definitely had a large impact on K-12 with cast/crew from the "1.0" demo shoot dropping out from the project and forcing rewrites (removing Johnny's storyline and introducing Ben). And then she made bad financial decisions like the choice of venue, causing more rewrites (no gym set for Strawberry Shortcake, plotlines being drastically reduced to stay within budget). The circumstances basically beat K-12 into something that's visually interesting at times but isn't good as a film nor visual album.
 
OT: Cry Baby is a great record, and I get why she wanted to continue that world she created. However, sticking to her guns with the semi-sexualized childhood aesthetic for Album 2 was a terrible choice and I think forcing albums into a chapter-by-chapter story is going to wear her out and lead to subpar results (which some have argued is true already for K-12 and the leaked MM3 demos). Maybe it would've been more creatively profitable to tell new stories with each album, instead of relying on character arcs and lore developments from the previous ones.

Idk maybe it was her or maybe it was Atlantic, but K-12 was definitely an attempt to recreate the success of CB. It almost seemed like a parody. I feel like Melanie wanted to move on to a mature, vintage theme but somehow got stuck in the childish sound of CB. If Melanie either released K-12 earlier or made K-12 sound like a high school album rather than an elementary school album it would’ve been 1000x better. Like, I just can’t listen to it and think about high school. The whole overall pastel vibe of the movie and album just made it seem too childish. I get it’s Melanie’s thing but I wish she just went for vintage rococo 
 
Dont get me wrong, I like the album (on some days)… but 4 years? 

But who wanted that? We got K-8 in Cry Baby 

Idk maybe it was her or maybe it was Atlantic, but K-12 was definitely an attempt to recreate the success of CB. It almost seemed like a parody. I feel like Melanie wanted to move on to a mature, vintage theme but somehow got stuck in the childish sound of CB. If Melanie either released K-12 earlier or made K-12 sound like a high school album rather than an elementary school album it would’ve been 1000x better. Like, I just can’t listen to it and think about high school. The whole overall pastel vibe of the movie and album just made it seem too childish. I get it’s Melanie’s thing but I wish she just went for vintage rococo 
 
Dont get me wrong, I like the album (on some days)… but 4 years? 

Idk maybe it was her or maybe it was Atlantic, but K-12 was definitely an attempt to recreate the success of CB. It almost seemed like a parody. I feel like Melanie wanted to move on to a mature, vintage theme but somehow got stuck in the childish sound of CB. If Melanie either released K-12 earlier or made K-12 sound like a high school album rather than an elementary school album it would’ve been 1000x better. Like, I just can’t listen to it and think about high school. The whole overall pastel vibe of the movie and album just made it seem too childish. I get it’s Melanie’s thing but I wish she just went for vintage rococo 
 
Dont get me wrong, I like the album (on some days)… but 4 years? 

I’ve said this before in this thread but it would’ve made sense if the original release plan went ahead, Cry Baby in 2015, followed by K-12 & movie in 2016, next album/movie in 2018 and then the last movie/album in 2020, then she could’ve organically evolved into something different but because of the Timothy stuff and covid probably didn’t help, it’s been delay after delay and now it all just seems super outdated and like she’s beating a dead horse 

Yesss, we’re gonna win in 2025 
 

Idk maybe it was her or maybe it was Atlantic, but K-12 was definitely an attempt to recreate the success of CB. It almost seemed like a parody. I feel like Melanie wanted to move on to a mature, vintage theme but somehow got stuck in the childish sound of CB. If Melanie either released K-12 earlier or made K-12 sound like a high school album rather than an elementary school album it would’ve been 1000x better. Like, I just can’t listen to it and think about high school. The whole overall pastel vibe of the movie and album just made it seem too childish. I get it’s Melanie’s thing but I wish she just went for vintage rococo 
 
Dont get me wrong, I like the album (on some days)… but 4 years? 

She's always going to be extremely ambitious, maybe too much sometimes, that's true. It worked for her before though, I'm sure with the right direction and the right team she could make it work again. It's not like K-12 was a complete failure, anyway.
 
She can't just release whatever she wants(especially old scrapped music) if Atlantic won't let her, either. Besides, I don't think she wants a lot of that stuff to be listed in her professional discography.

Idk maybe it was her or maybe it was Atlantic, but K-12 was definitely an attempt to recreate the success of CB. It almost seemed like a parody. I feel like Melanie wanted to move on to a mature, vintage theme but somehow got stuck in the childish sound of CB. If Melanie either released K-12 earlier or made K-12 sound like a high school album rather than an elementary school album it would’ve been 1000x better. Like, I just can’t listen to it and think about high school. The whole overall pastel vibe of the movie and album just made it seem too childish. I get it’s Melanie’s thing but I wish she just went for vintage rococo 
 
Dont get me wrong, I like the album (on some days)… but 4 years? 

While I do think that Atlantic Records is very problematic and definitely damaging to Melanie, I think that a large part of her problems involve her. The whole K-12 idea was good but really poorly executed and its so weird for her to immediately attempt another movie.
 
I also don't know if this is possible for Melanie, but I think if she put out an unreleased album in between these 4-year periods, her label would be better able to prioritize her, as many of her songs are very catchy and very tiktoky.

I would have fucking loved to see the Test Me music video. She was so excited about the treatment she wrote, and said it'd be her favorite video she's ever produced. She was begging for streams to get the budget approved, and I'm sure she got plenty, Atlantic Records just sucks, lol.
 
Hoping she repurposes the video for another song in the future, or at least releases the concepts so we can see what she wanted to do with it.

I would love if she started to think about being independent(and planning on it obviously, she needs to find her way)after her contract with Atlantic ends and after she gets "bigger". I feel like her sound and image would be changed vastly and she would be free to do whatever she wants. Atlantic sure has control of what she decides to release, whether it's 50% or 100%, every label does that to their artists, unless if you are big enough. She didn't write Numbers and Detention for no reason.

My comment was 90% just a joke about how shitty Atlantic Records has been treating many of their top artists lately, and how they seem to have made Melanie choose between funding for After School music videos or funding for future projects(RIP Test Me music video).
 
There were tons of musicians all over social media speaking about how controlling and terrible they are as a label, and I feel like Melanie would find a way to make it without them backing her.

can we just agree that Garden it's one of the best Melanie songs? I mean the lyrics, the instrumental, the melody, i really really hope that Mel don't scrap it, would be such a crime! I listen to it every day since it has leaked and have the perfect image for a music video in my head 🥺 hope my dreams come true

"Sirens" perfectly fits this episode titled "Jibaro" from the Nextflix's show "Love, Death and Robots" that is about a mythological siren.
It's mesmerizing, chaotic and so vulnerable just like the song, Melanie needs to take notes for the mv... 
Now i need an edit with the song 

The Secret Garden (children’s book) meets Coraline

Barely Any Juice deserved to be finished.

Yesss, we’re gonna win in 2025 
 

Yesss, we’re gonna win in 2025 
 

Yesss, we’re gonna win in 2025 
 

Yesss, we’re gonna win in 2025