FEATURES

More than just a crybaby

Make-upCaitlin Michele

HairAmanda Brown

StylingLoren Allred

MelanieMartinez

FEATURES

Atlantic Records Group chairman and COO Julie Gre-enwald says she wont forget the day she met sing-er/songwriter Melanie Martinez. She walked in and she was wearing this baby-doll dress, her hair was two different colors. She was wearing a crazy-look-ing necklace made from doll parts and she had made a video for her song Dollhouse by pulling in every fa-vor she could get, the executive says. It was such an impressive commitment, and it was all her vision.

Martinez could sing, too, as she had demonstrated as a finalist on the third season of The Voice in 2012, and Greenwald says that her amazing voice and well-defined point of view convinced her and At-lantic co-chair Craig Kallman to sign the then-teen-ager to the label. We wanted to give her the resources to go out there and build a real foundation, she says.

Now 20, Martinez, who is of Puerto Rican and Domin-ican descent and a native of Baldwin, N.Y., worked with the songwriters Kinetics & One Love, and in May 2014 released an EP called Dollhouse, which contained the ti-tle track and Carousel. Martinez says the latter song is about an ex-boyfriend, and, perhaps in a bit of poetic jus-tice, was used by Ryan Murphy as a soundtrack to a trailer for American Horror Story: Freak Show. Martinez then went to work on a full-length album, Cry Baby, which was released on Aug. 14, and although Dollhouse and Carousel make repeat appearances on the full-length release, the album is a fleshed-out expression of her dark, hyper-sensitive take on the underbelly of American life.

(Her point-of-view could be called Lynchian -- al-though, she tells Billboard, she has not seen Da-vid Lynchs breakthrough film, Blue Velvet. She does watch a lot of Law & Order, however.)

While Cry Baby has its critics, the record has res-onated with the record-buying public. With no ra-dio play or national TV appearances by Martinez, Cry Baby debuted at No. 6 on the Billboard 200 chart dated Aug. 5 and currently resides at No. 26, hav-ing moved 54,000 units, according to Nielsen Music.

The singer-songwriter is currently out touring behind her new music, and her manager Ron Shapiro, who worked closely with Tori Amos and Jewel during his tenure as an executive at Atlantic, and Regina Spektor, whom he managed, says demand for tickets has been such that he is having to upgrade to larger capacity venues.

Meanwhile, Greenwald says the label is taking the sin-gle Soap to alternative radio, where Martinez is get-ting some play, and is in the process of looking for TV appearances and other promotional opportunities for her. Martinez took time out from her touring sched-ule to talk about her new album, the persona shes created with Cry Baby and fans who show their ap-preciation for musical artists in rather bizarre ways.

Have you ever seen David Lynchs Blue Velvet? No, I havent.

Theres a pretty iconic scene at the beginning of the mov-ie where the camera opens on a beautiful, well-mani-cured suburb. The sun is shining and the grass is really green, and then bad stuff starts happening, the camera descends beneath the grass, and there are all these in-sects and creepy things slithering around.Your music struck a similar chord with me: The songs have these child-like titles and elements, but then you listen close-ly and the lyrics are brutally frank and really dark. Well, thank you.

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LIFESTYLE

Halseys debut album, Badlands latest single, New Americana, recently premiered on Apple Musics Beats 1 with an enthusiastic endorsement from Zane Lowe: Theres a new icon there, he said, possibly making it so by fiat. The momentum behind Halsey is undeniable, but Badlands mostly falls flat. At its best, the record plays like a conflagration of a half-decades worth of

alt-R&Bcatchy, dark, spottily engaging. But it is weighed down by trite lyrics and stale produc-tion: The details of her story wind up far more interesting than the music itself, which is a weird place to be for a superstar-in-the-making. Badlands opens with Castle, an unhurried track with a trip-hop backbone that serves as a meditation on Halseys growing fame. And theres an old man sit-ting on the throne thats saying that I probably shouldnt be so mean, she sings, taking a jab at the patriarchy; its one of the occasional moments on Badlands where Halseys personality emerg-es and the knives come out. Like most of Badlands, its calculated, defiant, and, ultimately, hollow.

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LIFESTYLE

What is it

SUGAR baby

?

LIKETO BE A

LIFESTYLE

Looking to give up her day job but maintain a steady income, the author joined a website where rich older men shop for girlfriends. Is that so wrong?

For a first date, things were going fairly well. We were at Megu, a pricey Japanese restaurant in Midtown Manhattan, eating perfectly cooked Kobe beef. My companion, a wealthy finance type, was telling me all about himself and posing questions that suggest-ed he was interested in me. Then, matter-of-factly, he said, Whether I met you on the site or at the Standard, youd cost me at least 10 grand a month.The site he was referring to was Seeking Arrange-ment, an online network that pairs people possess-ing resources (sugar daddies and sugar mom-mies) with those, usually much younger, seeking them (sugar babies). I had become a member a few weeks earlier, partly as a social experiment and partly out of genuine desperation. I was frustrated with my job, which offered little upward mobility, and was thinking about quitting it to pursue my goal of becoming a full-time freelance writer. Hold-ing me back were my lack of savings and my fear of sacrificing a regular paycheck. If I had a hefty allowance from a generous benefactor, though, I figured that I could take the leap comfortably.

The idea of wealthy older people support-ing struggling younger ones is nothing revo-lutionary, after alllook what Peggy Guggen-heim did for Jackson Pollock or the Tuohys did for N.F.L. star Michael Oher. So what if I had to tap into my inner geisha to secure a patron?

To overcome my reservations about walking the line between dating and prostitution, I told myself that any such concerns were the result of socie-tal conditioning. The idea that mixing money and mating is inherently bad, I reasoned, was a fallacy based on our collective obsession with moraliz-ing sex. Mating rituals involving the exchange of giftsbe they hunks of meat, small fishes, or dia-mond ringsare ingrained in many species, from

apes to seabirds, to humans. It is only natural for males to target cues to fertility such as youth and beauty, and for females to be drawn to displays of resources. Why sneer at suspected gold diggers like Heather Mills or the late Anna Nicole Smith if they were merely following their evolutionary instincts?

With all of this in mind, I created my Seeking Ar-rangement profile. Since I was still a bit hesitant about how far Id be willing to take my experiment, I signed up using the pseudonym Annabelle Walk-er. The site, which launched in 2006, has about 420,000 members, of which roughly one-third are sugar daddies and two-thirds are sugar babies (sug-ar mommies account for less than one percent).

While sugar daddies pay $49.95 per month for a premium membership (or $1,200 a month for Di-amond Club certification, which requires verifica-tion of ones net worth through tax-return data), as a sugar baby I was able to join for free. I uploaded two photos and listed some general information about myself, and I stated open, amount negotiable in the space that asks what youre looking for. (Seeking Arrangement skirts the issue of prostitution by pro-moting the exchange of intimacy and companion-ship for gifts.) I took a deep breath and posted my profile, determined to focus on New Yorkbased single men claiming to be worth at least $10 million.

so what if I HAD TO TAP INTO

MY INNER GEISHA TO SECURE A PATRON?

LIFESTYLE

But back to Megu and my date, whom Ill call Hank. (Throughout this article, Ive changed the names of the men I dated to protect their privacy.) Initially, he drew my suspicion with the cocky, typo-rid-den message he sent me on Seeking Arrangement:

Then I saw his net worth$100 millionand the amount he was willing to spend on a girlfriend: $10,000 to $20,000 per month. That would be enough to cover my living expenses and leave me with thou-sands in disposable income. The rest of Hanks pro-file, which told me that he was middle-aged, played sports, and worked in finance, was of less interest.

We set up a date and specified what wed be wearing so that we could recognize each othera navy-blue baby-doll dress and black tights for me, a striped but-ton-down and a maroon cashmere vest for him. Be-fore we sat down, Hank gave me elevator eyes and said,

When the waiter arrived, I ordered a very necessary glass of Sauvignon Blanc. Hank requested sparkling water, explaining, Im high on life. I wanted to tell him, Abstemious people dont impress me, but instead I smiled and encouraged him to order for both of us.

Throughout dinner Hank blabbed ad nauseam, referring to himself as a citizen of the world and concluding his autobiographical sketch with: You really hit the jackpot, you know.

I did, didnt I?, I said, but it was getting harder and harder to feign enthusiasm. Still, I was committed

to seeing this through. Have you dated anyone else through the site? Yes, I had one girlfriend, he said, his attention consumed by pieces of beef sizzling atop a hot rock. For a year. It ended in June. Whys that?

She wanted to get married. Ive seen guys go through with it. Even with a pre-nup, though, youre at risk.

Right, I said. I allowed Hank to feed me a piece of meat and chewed thoroughly. I was beginning to understand his relationship philosophy: renting a girlfriend is a safer alternative to investing in a wife. I decided to steer the conversation toward the mu-tually beneficial terms of our would-be coupledom.

How do you see this working?, I asked. He re-sponded without hesitation: If I want to go with my girlfriend to St. Barths for two weeks, shes not going to be left behind because she needs to write copy all day to make 500 bucks to pay her cable bill. A girl, if shes going out a lot with me, cannot be wearing the same thing all the time, so of course Ill buy her Louboutins and Gucci handbags.

That makes sense. I dont want to feel like Im paying for company, though. The less she asks for, the more she gets. If his expression could speak, it would have said, Dont expect cash, bitch.

Sounds fair, I said. But Hanks last state-ment felt somewhat threatening. It also struck me as hypocritical for a man to sign up to be a sugar daddy, put a dollar figure on his girl-friend budget, and then refuse to write checks.

Our bill came, and Hank threw down his black AmEx card. When he invited me back to his apart-ment, I felt torn. His promises of expensive shoes and trips to the Caribbean werent all that en-ticing, but I still wanted to fact-check his wealth. Curiosity got the best of me, and I consented.

Hank led me on a tour of his apartment, which was every bit as luxurious as Id expected, with floor-to-ceiling views of Manhattan and expensive art on the walls. Unsurprisingly, Hank made a move on me, and I kissed him for a split second before withdraw-ing abruptly. He wasnt unattractive, but I hated him.

I sensed that he wanted a puppet more than a girl-friend, and no amount of gifts or pampering could compensate for having to deal with such a controlling

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