
images of melanie martinez
Contestant Melanie Martinez, who is from Baldwin, attends NBC Universal's “The Voice” Season 3 Red Carpet Event at The House of Blues Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, Calif. (Nov. 8, 2012) Photo Credit: Getty Images
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By ANNE BRATSKEIR. Special to Newsday Updated December 2, 2012 11:50 AM
Imagine. You're a 17-year-old ambitious accompanist and Adam Levine, the Maroon 5 advanced man/heartthrob/hit machine, looks you aboveboard in the eye and, on civic TV in advanced of some 12 actor viewers, says, "I adulation you."
That's absolutely what happened aftermost Monday to Baldwin's Melanie Martinez, who is authoritative her mark on NBC's blockbuster singing competition, "The Voice," for her beautiful, addictive complete and her arbitrary but acute look.
The doe-eyed Baldwin High Academy chief is, as of tonight, one of six actual contenders, one of two larboard on Aggregation Adam. She's surpassed bags of wannabe contestants and has triumphed over 58 best choir who got assimilate the appearance all aggressive for the admirable prize: a recording contract.
At her on-air aphotic audition, three of the four coaches -- including Levine, CeeLo Green and Blake Shelton -- vied for her to accompany their aggregation (Christina Aguilera passed), afterwards she sang a breathy, soulful adaptation of Britney Spears' hit "Toxic." Back the coaches angry their chairs about to appearance the accompanist -- "blind" audience actuality the apriorism of the appearance -- they were abashed to see the 5-foot-2-inch gaptoothed boyhood with a Pebbles Flintstone-like 'do and a bow in her two-tone hair.
She is a bit of a aphotic horse. Of her singing, she says, "I don't accept a huge voice. I'm the alone one with a bendable voice. I didn't apprehend to accomplish it accomplished accessible call." She about didn't due to a car breakdown at the Midtown Tunnel aftermost March, but got to the Javits Center aloof in time. But while she lacks the adeptness and articulate gymnastic adeptness of some her competitors, her sound, is as Green has said, "So unique."
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Unique doesn't activate to call her look. She calls it, "a cantankerous amid Olive Oyl on Popeye and Cruella De Vil." There's not a aroma of pop brilliant tartiness here. Instead, she favors '50s-style dresses with Peter Pan collars and flared skirts and beefy heeled cossack shoes and boots. "I can't absolutely airing in heels," she says. Sometimes adorned socks blow out over the top -- all the bigger to highlight her feet, which occasionally comedy the tambourine while her easily assignment the guitar. "I've consistently dressed this way. I aloof absolutely like vintage."
On Long Island she hunts for clothes and backdrop at austerity food such as Glory Beezzz in Baldwin and Cooky's in Oceanside. But these days, "The Voice" appearance stylists dress her. "I beatific them pictures of things I would like to abrasion on the show, and they array of accomplish it added blinged out. You accept to appearance you are growing."
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Oh, and again there's that disconnected beard -- bisected blond, bisected atramentous -- aggressive by Cruella De Vil, about which her mother Mery says, "I about had a agitation advance back I saw it." Along with that comes her prerequisite Minnie Mouse head-topping bow. "Everybody asks me if it's a good-luck charm," she says. "I don't anticipate it's lucky. But it reminds myself to break accurate to who I am."
Patricia Grant, her photography abecedary at Baldwin High academy who accomplished her for three years, says that aggregate about Melanie is "artistic, from her singing, to her photography to the way she dresses."
"She aloof had an eye above her years," Grant says. "Everything about her is original."
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Some of Melanie's photography has appeared on the show, acclimated as backdrops for her solos, and in one case, as a arrangement on a dress.
Like her teacher, drillmaster Adam recognizes the adeptness of the Melanie "package." On the show, he said," I adulation how you present yourself in a way that separates you from everybody abroad in this competition."
Naturally, her parents, are over the moon. "I've consistently been and am so appreciative of my daughter," says her dad, Jose, who with her mom and adolescent brother, Joseph, are with her in Los Angeles. There, besides all the singing, Melanie is demography Baldwin academy commune online home schooling.
With two added eliminations and a afterpiece Dec. 18, Melanie's fate is up in the air. But win or lose, she knows what's next. "This is the greatest acknowledgment you can get and I'm absolutely beholden for it," she says, abacus that she "absolutely" affairs on advancing a music career. Says her mom: "I'm calm and at peace. To me she's already won to accomplish it this far, to accept the adventuresomeness she has apparent at her age . . . it's incredible."
Her abecedary Grant sees acclaim on the horizon. "Since the day I met her, I consistently acquainted that she was activity to be somebody. And in my accomplished life, I alone acquainted that way about one added person. I went to academy with him at Massapequa High School."
For the record, it was Alec Baldwin.
["601.4"]Melanie Martinez: affairs are absolutely good
Melanie Martinez seems like a affirmation for "The Voice" finals. She has consistently been one of the top-selling contestants on iTunes, which yields big rewards according to the show's rules. Back an artist's achievement finishes in the iTunes Top 10, the votes are assorted by 10, authoritative him or her adamantine to beating out.
Martinez seems destined for a Final Four that includes Aggregation Blake's pop-rocker Cassadee Pope, Aggregation Cee Lo's arbitrary body man Nicholas David and either Martinez's Aggregation Adam assistant rock-and-soul accompanist Amanda Brown or Aggregation Blake's Scottish archetypal rocker Terry McDermott.
Does the Baldwin boyhood accept the chops to go all the way? Definitely -- she has a characteristic articulation and point-of-view, as able-bodied as a memorable personality that will serve her well, whether she wins the appearance or not. Will she win? That depends on whether voters are attractive for addition unique, like Martinez, or added conventional, like Pope. -- Glenn Gamboa
By ANNE BRATSKEIR. Special to Newsday
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