- Electronic music/EDM producer and DJ born Christopher Comstock in 1992 in Philadelphia Pennsylvania.
- Comstock has been very private about his early life. In early 2015, he began posting songs for free on the SoundCloud music sharing website. He posted remixes of songs by electronic artists like Zedd and Jack Ü, as well as original songs. His electronic music style focused more on progressive house sound, containing the usual EDM beats and drops, but with a mellower sound and rap lyrics. Recognizing the mellower nature of his work, he gave himself the professional stage name Marshmello. Inspired by EDM artists Deadmau5 and Daft Punk, he kept his identity a mystery by wearing a full head-covering mask decorated to by a marshmellow.
- Music fans demanded to learn more about Marshmello. One early fan was Skrillex, one of the biggest DJs in EDM. Skrillex’s enthusiasm created a buzz around Marshmello, and by late 2015 he was performing at festivals and earning major paychecks – his first major show earned him $30,000.
- In early 2016, Marshmello released his debut album Joytime on his own independent record label. The songs were a compilation of some of his own music that he earlier released for free. The album reached #5 on the Top Dance/Electronic Albums chart. One single was released – Keep It Mello (featuring rapper Omar LinX) peaked at #25 on the Dance/Electronic Songs chart. Soon after, he collaborated with a Canadian record label to release the single Alone – it initially charted on the Hot 100 at #60, and three years later, it charted again after he performed a virtual concert in the video game Fortnite, peaking at #28. The video for Alone has been viewed over 1.9 billion times on YouTube.
- The record companies started to make offers to Marshmello, but he decided to remain independent, giving him the freedom to collaborate with whoever he wanted to. Over the next three years, he released 21 singles that charted on the Dance/Electronic Songs and/or Hot 100 charts. His biggest hits were Silence (featuring Khalid), which topped the Dance chart and reached #30 on the Hot 100; Wolves (with Selena Gomez), which was #1 on the Dance chart and #20 on the Hot 100; and Happier (with Bastille), which topped the Dance chart and reached #2 on the Hot 100. Happier was ranked as the #33 song of the 10s decade by Billboard, and it was the highest ranking song on the list that was not a #1 song.
- By 2018, he was among the biggest DJs in the world. Late that year, Forbes had him on the cover of their magazine, reporting that he had earned $44 million over the previous two years. Shows that he headlined earned him a six figure income per show.
- Marshmello released his second studio album in 2018, titled Joytime II, and his third album, Joytime III, was released in 2019. Both topped the Dance/Electronic Albums chart. He continued his strategy of cross-promoting his music with video games and allowing access to his music to influencers on social media.
- He continued his success with hits in 2020. Come & Go, a collaboration with rapper Juice Wrld, debuted at #2 on the Hot 100 chart. His collaboration with Demi Lovato, OK Not to Be OK, was released in partnership with the Hope For The Day suicide prevention movement – it peaked at #2 on the Dance chart and #36 on the Hot 100.
- A lot of old timers like me have a hard time accepting EDM as real music and a DJ as a real artist. I’m not one of them – I’ve always enjoyed the genre, as I am a sucker for a beat. And, my love of electronic music dates way back to the 70s, when computers were just starting to be used to create sound (see 1968’s Switched On Bach, an early purchase to my album collection, and the first album to famously turn the Moog synthesizer into a tool that would become a mainstream in music). Here’s the video to Marshmello’s song Happier – a great tune, and a video that will make you cry (SO WATCH IT!).