Porcelain Black Biography

Alaina Marie Beaton (born October 1, 1985), better known by her stage name Porcelain Black, is an American industrial pop singer-songwriter and rapper. At 18, she embarked on her music career as a solo act under the name Porcelain and the Tramps with Virgin Records. However, Black and Virgin could not agree on the music she would record. The music she recorded was posted to her Myspace account, "rockcitynosebleed", where she gained millions of hits. After three years of trying to get out of the contract, she signed with RedOne's Universal Republic imprint late in 2009 and began working on her debut album. In 2012, she appeared on Best Ink, where the name of her debut album was confirmed as Mannequin Factory.

Her discography includes multiple music video appearances, ranging from Jack White's "Freedom at 21" to Travie McCoy's "We'll Be Alright". As an author, she is credited on songs performed by One Direction, Orianthi, The Used, and Mexican pop singer, Belinda. As a solo act, she has released two singles, "This Is What Rock n' Roll Looks Like" and "Naughty Naughty", the first featuring guest vocals from Lil Wayne. Both songs charted on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Songs chart. After the release of her first single, Lil Wayne invited her on the second half of his I Am Music Tour as an opening act. She made her first televised appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman, performing "This is What Rock n' Roll Looks Like". Musically, she fuses industrial themes with pop music conventions such as electronic synths and a heavy reliance upon hooks. She is best known for her guttural vocals and two-toned hair. She considers her music the "love child" of Marilyn Manson and Britney Spears, although her image and sound has drawn comparisons to Lady Gaga, Joan Jett, and Courtney Love. The Huffington Post and The Advocate dubbed her a gay icon, for her attention to style and the rebellious overtones of her music.

Life and career

Early life and career beginnings

Black grew up in Sterling Heights, Michigan. Her father was a hairstylist. He owned a hair salon and brought her along to fashion shows and photoshoots. Her parents separated when she was 6 years old. After her mother remarried, they settled in Rochester where she attended high school. Having lived in less affluent areas prior to the move, Black found that she did not fit in with her privileged classmates, becoming an outcast. When Black was 15, she discovered that her biological father had cancer. This affected her so much that she was expelled from school in three months for fighting. Two months later, she was expelled from another school. He died when she was 16. Black had taken part in national competitive dancing, taking jazz, hip-hop, tap, and ballet lessons, since young and at one point was training to perform on Broadway. She also considered becoming a backup dancer. After being expelled from her last school, Black ran away from home. She started begging, doing drugs and drinking while crashing at friends' houses at night. After going on tour with Armor for Sleep, she returned to Detroit and stopped taking drugs.

Porcelain and the Tramps: 2006-2009

While on a road trip in New York, Black was approached by her first manager who told her to look for him in Los Angeles when she turned 18. Eighteen months later, Black moved to Los Angeles, found her manager and was signed to Virgin Records two weeks later. Recording under the pseudonym Porcelain and the Tramps, Black worked with Tommy Henriksen and John Lowery in London while at Virgin. However, she and the label could not agree on the music she made. Virgin wanted Black to record pop music in the vein of Avril Lavigne, despite already knowing what kind of music she made when signing her. She also faced skepticism from her collaborators who questioned her desire to mix industrial rock sounds with dance pop. Black began posting the songs she recorded on Myspace, gaining upwards of 10 million views in a matter of months. Black co-wrote and sang backup vocals for the song "Lunacy Fringe" by The Used. She was approached by Courtney Love on MySpace to provide backing vocals for a solo album she was working on. She also featured on a song by the Street Drum Corps's "Action!". "How Do You Love Someone?", co-penned by Black, Billy Steinberg, and Josh Alexander around the time she left Virgin was cut by Ashley Tisdale for her second album, Guilty Pleasure. Black was initially reluctant to give the song away, but relented and later got to record the song for her own album with production from RedOne.

Mannequin Factory: 2009"present

Through a mutual A&R friend, producer RedOne heard about Black and was interested in meeting her. RedOne asked to meet Black in his studio in November 2009, which led to them writing her debut single "This Is What Rock n' Roll Looks Like" the next day. RedOne helped Black get out of her contract with Virgin Records and signed her to his Universal Republic imprint, 2101 Records. RedOne also introduced her to a new manager, Derrick "EI" Lawrence, who also manages Lil Wayne. Wayne invited her to join him on his I Am Music Tour after meeting her. She changed her name to Porcelain Black because it caused confusion to people who thought Porcelain and the Tramps was a band. Her stage name came from her childhood nickname, Porcelain, which was due to an extensive collection of porcelain dolls given to her by her aunt. Her aunt thought that the dolls resembled her in appearance, with strawberry blond hair and pale skin. She adopted Black in her name because she felt that it represented the opposite of "fragile" Porcelain. She made plans to revisit the Porcelain and the Tramps project in the future. The songs "King of the World" and "I'm Your Favorite Drug" were remastered for her debut album. Black co-wrote "Lolita" for Mexican pop singer Belinda, being credited on it under her real name of Alaina Beaton. She also made appearances in the music videos for Travie McCoy's "We'll Be Alright", Swizz Beatz's "Rock 'N' Roll" and Jeffree Star's "Get Away With Murder" in 2010. Black had a cameo role in Rock of Ages with RedOne's help, playing the lead singer of a 1980s hair-metal band. Black sang one of the sole original songs for the film, "Rock Angels". "Rock Angels" was written by Adam Anders and Desmond Child. Along with RedOne, Black composed "Save You Tonight", the closing song for One Direction's debut album, Up All Night.

Black appeared on Oxygen's Best Ink, where the title of her debut album was confirmed to be Mannequin Factory. Despite numerous setbacks and rescheduled releases, the album is slated for a 2013 release. Initially, RedOne was said to have produced and co-wrote all but one of the tracks with her. However, Black later recorded songs with other producers after the album's release date was pushed back. She made her television debut on the Late Show with David Letterman on July 21, 2011. After "This is What Rock and Roll Looks Like", "Naughty Naughty", the second single from her album, was released at the end of 2011. "This Is What Rock n' Roll Looks Like" was a modest hit on Billboard 's Dance Club chart while the second single peaked at number 6 on the chart. Black featured in the song "DNA" for rapper Rye Rye's debut album, Go! Pop! Bang!. At some point succeeding the release of her singles, 2102 Records became an imprint of Capitol Records when Universal Republic went under, further delaying the release of any new material by the industrial songstress.

During the summer of 2013, Porcelain Black performed a private gig in West Hollywood, featuring all new material. Of the songs performed, "Rich Boi" and "Mama Forgive Me" received critical commentary. Several months later, 2101 Records released five songs in five weeks, following 8 August 2013. "Mama Forgive Me" was the first released. Her long anticipated debut album is expected to be released after the five week promotional period, with two brand new singles preceding it. After "Mama Forgive Me", Porcelain performed three new songs, whose titles were: "Pretty Little Psycho", "Rich Boi", and "One Woman Army" respectively. Popjustice hosted the songs "Rich Boi" and "One Woman Army" as their weekly Big Songs. Earlier that month, RedOne, Porcelain, and her other label mates co-founded and hosted a weekly iHeartRadio program title "Red's World Radio".

Artistry

Musical style

Black's voice has been described as raspy, death growls often appearing in her music. In an interview with The Advocate, Black revealed that she has always had this talent and that it is something she has never practiced. RedOne, the producer who discovered her and signed her to his label, says that Black's voice and attitude reminded him of Joan Jett. He concluded that "[s]he can scream and do things with her voice that nobody can do. She is uncompromising in pursuing her own creative vision. She's taking everything that's old and making it futuristic and bringing rock and roll back in her own way." Black styled her musical genre "horror-pop". It has been described as the love child between Marilyn Manson and Britney Spears, a fusion of dance-pop and darker industrial themes. Black cites that Spears inspires her deep love for choreography, while Manson inspires the sound and attitude of her lyrics and performance style.

Public image

Critics have noted that her sound is more pop than rock, but Black is militant at her rock and roll image, saying "...I know I'm rock n roll." Genre-wise, her sound has been called "industrial pop", a fusion of pop and industrial metal. Her flashy and irreverent image has been compared to the work of many other artists. Often, comparisons are drawn between her and Lady Gaga, but she has also been compared to Joan Jett, Courtney Love, and Nicki Minaj. Black's two-tone hairstyle and fashion is inspired by both Manson and Spears as well, along with her desire to develop a persona in which a stable duality between "good" and "bad" exists. The former has gained her comparisons to the cartoon character Cruella de Vil. Black disavows the association as completely unfounded, specifically saying, "She's a [expletive] cartoon. Are you serious?" Black calls her stans "trainwrecks", alluding to the tattoo on the inside of her middle finger. Malcom Harris, writing for The Huffington Post, discovered Porcelain Black on the cover of UnSound and reacted to her image:

I discovered two things about Porcelain Black well worth noting. The first was that Porcelain Black's personal style is similarly as outrageous as Lady Gaga or Niki Minaj -- to the untrained eye that is. However, further research quickly reveals that there seems to be a naturalness and authenticity to her style, music and performance. Personally, I've always found there to be a slight disconnect from the way GaGa and young Ms. Minaj adorn themselves and the music they write, record and perform. But I think the number one thing that sets Porcelain Black's style apart from the other two pop-stars is there is something straight out of the gate that is aspirational about her style, especially to her growing fan base. I can already envision hordes of young girls (and my fellow gays) dying their hair to resemble Porcelain's as well as lining up to snap up H&M and Topshop inspired collections to get her vintage-goth-rock frocks and looks.

Following trends in music where women experiment with bisexuality, Black said she was an "equal opportunist". Thematically, her music has been said to resonate with LGBT and adolescence, gaining her notoriety as a gay icon. On this subject, Black has said:

"Since a lot of my music is about women's empowerment, I know a lot of strong women relate to it...Me and all the gay boys that worked at my dad's hair salon got along quite nicely. I was exposed to all kinds of people and learned at a young age that people's differences are what make them beautiful. It's what makes the world go round. If we weren't different, the world would be boring."

Popjustice writer Peter Robinson said Porcelain Black was one of pop music's most confusingly styled artists, attributing the shift from her edgier, rock-inspired look to one resembling Jennifer Lopez as an attempt by her team to make her image more marketable. Despite the appraisal, he critiqued her song "Rich Boi" as being influenced by rock icons, Def Leppard and Steve Miller Band. In another review, Robinson commented on another record called "One Woman Army" from Porcelain Black's private Hollywood show. Stylistically in vein with Porcelain Black's pop rock genre hybrid, "One Woman Army" contains rapping, which Robinson said was "completely ridiculous and we love it." Blogging "What a chorus!", he called attention to the chorus, saying "...haven't we all at some point in our lives been on a battlefield like 'oh my God'?"

Influences

Her biological father's love for rock music by Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, and Jimi Hendrix also influences her. She has also listed Nine Inch Nails and its frontman, Trent Reznor, Björk, Fiona Apple, Aaliyah, Skinny Puppy, AC/DC, Hole and Oasis as musical influences, citing the albums (What's the Story) Morning Glory? and Live Through This as the most influential to her current sound. The first concert she attended was an AC/DC concert with her father. Recalling the experience, she told Revolver, "...I was like, when I grow up, this is what I want to do!"

Personal life

In April 2012, she married model Bradley Soileau, who has appeared with singer Lana Del Rey in the music videos for "Blue Jeans" and "Born to Die".

Discography

• Mannequin Factory (2013)

Filmography

Films

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2012	Rock of Ages	TBR	Cameo appearance Contributed sole original song, "Rock Angel"

Television

Year	Title	Network	Notes
2012	Best Ink	Oxygen (NBCUniversal)	Tattoo artists compete to create cover art for "Mannequin Factory", with "stripper couture" themes.

Tours

Opening act

• 2008: I Am Music Tour (Lil Wayne)