Melanie Martinez preps 'After School EP'

EP follows K-12

Melanie Martinez will release her After School EP on Friday, September 25th via Atlantic Records, after delaying it from a spring release due to the pandemic.

In anticipation of the EP, she released “Copy Cat” featuring Tierra Whack and “Fire Drill” earlier this year, but those songs will not appear on the project. Earlier this week on TikTok, she teased “The Bakery,” a song she wrote about her experience of getting fired from a bakery before her success and appearing on NBC’s The Voice. The video will also drop at midnight ET.

Martinez confirms the EP is connected, but not a continuation, of last year’s K-12. “It is an EP that is thematically connected to K-12, but isn’t a follow up to the movie/storyline,” she shares in an Instagram Story Q&A in late July.

In a V Magazine interview from last fall, she shares that the songs on EP are more personal than previous efforts.

“I have songs in the future, like next year or something, that I’m going to be putting out that are in-line with this record and what-not, like bonus tracks that just open up,” she shares. “Those songs are more personal and more vulnerable in that way where I definitely have a break up song that’s very, very specific. But those are the things we talk about in those moments. You make sure that both people understand that no matter what, everything is for the arts and music and it’s a moment of vulnerability that comes up. It expresses itself in the form of a song, you know? I think naturally and organically seeing what that is is important.”

Six of the tracks were produced by Michael Keenan, with Blake Slatkin producing “The Bakery.”

After School EP follows her massively-successful K-12 album and film which entered the SoundScan/Billboard 200 at No. 3 upon its September 2019 release, the multi-talented pop phenomenon’s highest chart placement thus far. In addition, K-12 debuted at No. 1 on the Alternative Albums, Soundtracks, and Vinyl Albums charts, as well as No. 2 on Pop Albums and No. 3 on Top Albums. Internationally, K-12 made Top 10 debuts in Canada, Australia, Ireland, Netherlands, UK, New Zealand, and Spain. The filmed racked up more than one million views within a week of its release on YouTube, and now surpasses 65 million, as of this writing.

Future plans include a third and fourth album, both accompanied with films.