Antiquity (Album)



Antiquity is the 3rd studio album and 2nd feature film by American songwriter, actress, and director, Melanie Martinez. It was released July 13, 2022, along with the film of the same name. The promotional single, Antique Store, was released on June 1, 2022. It debuted as #1 on the Top 100 Billboard for the first month, then dropped down to 8th place. Melanie went on the Antiquity World Tour September 4 - September 30, 2022, where she sang songs at many different places and had a storybook themed float travel with her, selling merchandise.

Background and Promotion
During an Instagram Q&A on January 8th, 2020 where Martinez asked fans for questions relating to her musical future in the new year, she mentioned her next film. A fan asked "Will we have a new film?", Martinez replied, "I'm planning on putting out music videos for this year. As for the next film I make, it will be attached to my third album and that will probably take a while to conjure up." This proved that her second film would be a musical like K-12.

In an Interview with People Magazine on September 6th, 2019, Martinez announced how she had planned out her next two films after K-12, "I have my next film planned out, as far as what I want to do – and the film after that and they both have albums attached to them."

Within the same interview, Martinez stated that she will likely be able to finish up her upcoming film faster, as she had refined her skills after making the first one. "Hopefully it will be faster this time. It won't be like, four years. Just because, I've done it at least once so now I'm past all those learning curves that I had to kind of reach and figure out."

In an interview with The KnockTurnal, Melanie touched on Cry Baby's growth in her upcoming projects: "She's gonna be evolving and transforming as a being. Her growth isn’t going to be as literal. She’s not gonna go to college, you know, it’s not going to be like that. But she’s definitely going to transform and evolve, but I can’t say anything or else it’ll be a spoiler".

In an interview with Billboard, Martinez was asked "What can fans expect from your in-the-works music?" and she responded, "A completely new dimension of the world I’ve created thus far," stating how her future music would be different from her past work.

On November 9th, 2020, Martinez stated on the Travis Mills show how she would be making the album with the same people who helped on her debut album, Cry Baby, commenting on her session with Kinetics & One Love that was already booked.

Also on the Travis Mill show, Martinez said that the movie would ratio out to have more film than musical scenes, referencing the amount of film-time taken up by music in her previous film, K-12. Melanie said that Test Me is a bridge between her old music and her new music, implying that her next works will be darker.

On August 2nd, 2020, Martinez posted on her Instagram Story a picture of her embroidering fabric. Along with this image, she added a caption; Side note: "Also been writing some really beautiful music for my 3rd album and it's making my heart very happy ".

On October 31st, 2020, Martinez posted on her Instagram Story at Michael Keenan's house producing a song. The song may be included on the album.

On November 19th, 2020, Martinez posted a video on her Instagram Story with the caption: "Studio Day", implying the recording of new songs for her album.

On December 2nd, 2020, during an Instagram Livestream, Martinez stated that she had started working on the music more intensely during January 2021.

On December 16th, 2020, during an interview with "Hollywood Life," Melanie revealed that the second film will “pick up” where the first one “left off” with a cliffhanger, saying that: “You’re not going to see like a clip from K-12 in the next movie, it’s not gonna be like that type of picking up, but it will be technically picking up from where it left off.”

On January 7th, 2021, during an interview with the Grammy Museum, Martinez confirmed that there will be 13 tracks on the album just like her previous albums. Within the same interview, Martinez once again stated that Cry Baby would "evolve".

On January 31st, 2021, Melanie posted an Instagram story from a studio where she was likely recording songs for the album.

On February 11th, 2021, Melanie posted multiple photos and videos of herself in Hawaii, traveling with One Love to record songs for the album.

On March 12th, 2021, Melanie, similar to her February 11th post, posted multiple videos of herself in Hawaii. The first image including the caption: "I died here, was rebirthed and transformed. The amount of synchronicities I've experienced in this house is staggering. Couldn't have dreamt of a more sacred space to create this album. Only ever coming here to finish this project." Indicating that she may stay in Hawaii for the reminder of production, and also confirming previous theories of her traveling with One Love.

On March 13th, 2021, Kinetics & One Love posted an Instagram story during the production of the album, the story also included a snippet of a song. This snippet was later confirmed to be Quartz.

Not much was heard from Melanie after that, other than a post saying that she was going home on September 21, 2021, and a post saying that she had began filming the movie on October 2, 2021.

Melanie later released a single, Test Me II, which she said was leading up to the next album. 2 months later, Melanie released the promotional single, Antique Store, on June 1, 2022.

Singles
Antique Store was released as a single, June 1, 2022.

Theme
The theme of this album is that you can not run away from your past, as Melanie stated in an interview with Hollowcove. Cry Baby and her friends try to run away from all the mistakes they make in the movie, and it seems that they are succeeding, but then it all catches up to them and they have a heavy burden to carry.

Characters

 * Cry Baby
 * Angelita
 * Celeste
 * Magnolia
 * Fleur
 * Lilith
 * Ben

Secondary Characters

 * Kelly
 * Lucy
 * Brandon
 * Heather
 * Angel 1
 * Angel 2
 * Devil 1
 * Devil 2

Locations

 * Antique Store
 * Broken Hearts Valley
 * Hot Spring
 * Garden of Quartz
 * Fountain
 * Greenhouse