Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter Melanie Taylor goes hyperactive on her new music video “Adderall.”
Raised in So-Cal’s San Diego by a single working mom, Taylor spent a lot of time in daycare and learned to keep herself entertained by listening to pop music, Mariah Carey and Alanis Morissette. Later, she discovered a sense of belonging in theater, where her fellow thespians became surrogate family, allowing her to expose her vulnerability.
In 2012, Taylor released her debut, called All About Today, followed in 2016 by her self-titled album. In 2018, her two singles, “Ink” and “Adderall,” demonstrated her personal and musical evolution. “Ink” is about her need for commitment, while “Adderall” reveals her need for liberation.
“Adderall” opens with light voices riding soft harmonics. A potently pulsing rhythm enters, infusing the song with dark dynamics underneath mid-spectrum colors from the synths. The combination is relentlessly prevailing, as Taylor’s supercharged tones take on proximate resonance, as if she’s in the grip of a full emotional winter.
The music video surges and swells with energy, as Taylor caparisoned in an austere white gown struggles in the abyss of the heresy of self. Her emotional salvation arrives in revelatory dance movements, allowing her to escape from the runaway train of self-destruction.
Taylor explains the concept of the video, saying, “I allowed myself to be at my most vulnerable in this video. My choreographer, (G Madison IV), was able to put into dance even more than what I wrote in lyrics, which the dancers executed incredibly. I cried the first time I saw them perform it, I cried making it, I cried editing it; the process was a truly transformative experience for me. Now I just hope people feel a little of that emotion watching it, and if they relate, it helps them in some way too.”
“Adderall” vibrates with burning intensity and powerful harmonics, while the seething colors of Melanie Taylor’s deluxe tones exude vast visceral power.