Taken from this week’s Future Pop mailer. Click here to subscribe.
Ariel Martin is Baby Ariel, one of the biggest stars on Musical.ly. She became famous for her impeccable miming, expressive performance and creative video editing skills – everything a Musical.ly user aims to achieve. However, unlike other Musical.ly stars such as Max and Harvey, she didn’t make her name as a singer. Nonetheless, becoming a pop artist was a branding opportunity too good to miss – like Disney releasing action figures of new movie characters, or the Kardashians releasing their own make-up lines, of course Baby Ariel would release music. And her songs are certainly a carefully calculated extension of her brand. The sassy 17-year-old’s first two singles were called Aww and Perf, the musical equivalent of a Claire’s pencil case. The video for Aww features her Musical.ly pals, plus cute animals, balloons, disco balls, and many other GIF-able moments. The lyrics are filled with quotable lines like “play ‘kiss marry kill’ ‘bout the people we know,” perfect for acting out in short clips on Musical.ly. The only thing lacking is a melody, but that’s OK – this song wasn’t really made for listening to in full, anyway.