”The Best Of Melanie Martinez” is her first compilation album. Consisting of Melanie’s personal favourite tracks from her catalogue. It was released suddenly with no prior announcement. It was released on November 21st, 2018. Melanie promoted the album with live performances at the Billboard Music Awards, Jimmy Kimmel Live! and Live! with Kelly and Michael.
Background
Following the release of Melanie’s second studio album, Bluffington, in late 2018, she parted ways with her record label Def Jam Recordings, her publicist Cindi Berger and her manager Jermaine Dupri. She signed a new record contract with L.A. Reid at Epic Records (who co-executively produced Melanie’s previous efforts), sought a new publicist with Chris Chambers of the Chamber Group and hired new managers Stella Bulochnikov and Brian Sher. Writers Shirley Halperin and Andrew Hampp of Billboard attributed Martinez’s decision to seek new a new label and management to the low sales of her early efforts since their releases, with Crybaby being the lowest selling album in the United States. Martinez secured a multi-album record deal with Epic in late 2018, a subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment, meaning that ”The Best Of Melanie Martinez” would be her first album since her seventh studio album Rainbow in 1999 to be released with Sony.
Following the release of Dollhouse, Martinez left Sony and signed an $80 million, four-album contract with EMI's Virgin Records, wishing to severe all ties with Sony and its chairman, Tommy Mottola. Halperin and Hampp believe that following a prolonged period of absence from Sony and re-signing with them is a positive situation for Martinez: "Doug Morris, current chairman/CEO of Sony Music, brought Martinez to Island Def Jam in 2010 when he was running Universal Music Group. Reid, then head of Island Def Jam, oversaw her Crybaby-powered 2019 comeback. Joey Arbagey, a collaborator of Melanie’s during the making of the six-times platinum Hush Little Baby, is now executive vp A&R at Epic." Furthermore, Melanie released four studio albums, a live and studio EP, which have sold a total of 54 million units in the US combined. Although Halperin and Hampp note that "Martinez’s legacy is undisputed, her recent stumbles have not gone unnoticed," with regard to her split from Timothy, the low sales of her first couple albums and its failure to garner a top-ten single on the Billboard Hot 100 and hiring and firing three managers: Dupri, Randy Jackson and Kevin Giles (the last of whom Martinez has kept as a consultant). As a result, several record labels were reluctant to offer Martinez a contract. According to Billboard, many other critics felt that reuniting with Reid is Martinez’s best chance of re-establishing herself on the charts.
Commericial Performance
The album debuted at number 29 on the US Billboard 200 chart on June 6, 2020, selling 15,000 copies in its first week, marking the ninth highest debut of the week and the tentieth best-selling album of the week. It became one of her several albums to make the chart. Her debut album had debuted at number 80 in 2015 and later became her first album to chart. The Best Of Melanie Martinez peaked at number 2 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and R&B Albums chart, respectively. As of November 2020, the album has sold 86,000 copies in the United States. In the United Kingdom, the album debuted at number 8 on June 20th, remaining on the chart for 5 weeks. On the UK R&B Albums Chart, the compilation reached number 1. Similarly, the album peaked at number 18 on the Australian Albums Chart, but reached number 2 on the Urban Albums Chart.
Promotion
On June 2nd, 2019, Martinez appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show to announce that she signed a contract to take up residency at The Colosseum at the Caesars Palace hotel in Las Vegas in May and; it is called The Best Of Melanie Martinez. During the interview, Martinez confirmed "I'm going to do my first ever residency in Vegas at Caesars." “This is a special event for me. And again, I have to hope that the fans will enjoy this cause I'm gonna be performing, which was kind of inspired by my album songs, and this is now the updated version with eighteen of them. Hopefully other people will enjoy this. I've never done this before." The confirmation of Martinez’s residency came after Canadian megastar Celine Dion announced that she had postponed dates of her residency at Caesars Palace to care for her husband, René Angélil, who was suffering from cancer. Aside from singing "Paper People" at her residency, Martinez performed a medley of her Commerical debut single "Dollhouse" followed by "Bittersweet Tragedy" at the Billboard Music Awards on May 17, 2020; it was her first performance at the ceremony in seventeen years. Andrew Hampp for Billboarddescribed the performance as "octave-leaping" and one of the most memorable of the night. Other promotional appearances included Jimmy Kimmel Live! and Live! with Kelly and Michael. For the latter, Martinez wore an Aurora-inspired dress from the Disney film Sleeping Beauty and performed on Main Street, U.S.A. in Disney World.
Reception
Jamieson Cox, from Time, wrote that "if you needed a reminder of just how thoroughly Melanie dominated the alternative scene, or a refresher on the staggering force of the numbers she’s put up throughout her career, this Little piece of art will do just fine", but also pointing out that most of the songs were released from 2015 to present time, just 20% of Martinez’s entire recording career, as well as criticizing the lack of material released from 2013 onwards; "in 2015, we're as far away from 'PSYCHO' as that song was from it’s album of the same name, and those lost years is the root of this compilation’s greatest tragedy [...] the great majority of the fine work Melanie’s done in the last years might as well not exist". Nonetheless, he praised the compilation for highlighting "the sheer athleticism and skill that propelled Melanie’s early work. She took very simple songs—both in terms of arrangements and theme—rooted in pop, alternative, and R&B and turned them into feats of strength, granting them dynamism and drama with a voice that juggled temperment, clarity, and agility with ease"
Track-list
- Blossoming
- Hush Little Baby
- Spin Around
- Fading Denim
- 99 Cent Store
- Honey Jar
- Stupid Dog
- Keep Fighting... This Is Bluffington
- My Love
- Strawberry Boy
- Jimmy Tells
- Schizo
- Want Sex
- Carousel
- Tag, You’re It
- Pity Party
- Afterparty
- Best Mistake
- Drama Club