Music / Meghan Trainor

I'm bringing booty back
Go ahead and tell them skinny bitches that
No, I'm just playing, I know you think you're fat
But I'm here to tell you
Every inch of you is perfect from the bottom to the top

—"All About That Bass"

Meghan Elizabeth Trainor (born December 22, 1993 in Nantucket, Massachusetts) is an American singer-songwriter who rose to prominence for her hit single "All About That Bass", which she performed on her own at the encouragement of her producers. She became known for her 1950s retro sound for her first album and typically bright songs, and for attracting a good deal of controversy surrounding her lyrical content.

She is currently married to actor Daryl Sabara, with whom she has two children.

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Discography:

• Title (2015)
• Thank You (2016)
• The Love Train (EP) (2019)
• Treat Myself (2020)
• A Very Trainor Christmas (2020)

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All About the Tropes, No Treble:

• Appeal to Familial Wisdom: In "All About That Bass", the singer remembers:
  Yeah, my mama she told me, "Don't worry about your size"
  She said, "Boys like a little more booty to hold at night"
• Badass Longcoat: She wears one in the music video for "No".
• Big Beautiful Woman: Meghan isn't fat, but she is visibly curvier than the stick-thin pop stars that dominated the early 2010s, so she wrote "All About That Bass" to encourage curvy and fat women to love their bodies.
• Blunt "No": "No", is this trope in song form, directed to men who don't take "no" for an answer to their advances.
• Boastful Rap: "Watch Me Do", despite having multiple singing parts, has several shades of this blended in. Same goes for "Me Too", with the titular lyrics being "If I was you, I'd wanna be me, too".
• Bowdlerize: When "All About That Bass" is adapted to other media, sometimes the lyrics are changed here and there to sound less in-the-face; Just Dance 2016's version is one example. There's also how she self-censor some words when performing it live.
• Call-Back: In her follow-up hit "Lips Are Movin" she makes a likely callback to her massive breakthrough hit "All About That Bass": ...Tell me that you're not just about this bass.
• Christmas Songs: A Very Trainor Christmas features a mix of original songs and cover versions of familiar holiday standards.
• Darker and Edgier: The music video for "No" is grittier and more sexual than her previous videos.
• Fan Community Nickname: Trainor refers to her loyal fans as "Megatrons".
  • The people that hate her stuff tend to call her "Meghan Meghans".
• Fat and Proud: "All About That Bass."
• Genre Shift: From bright '50s style doo-wop from her first album to a more late-90's/Y2K sound on Thank You.
• Genre Throwback: Initially established herself as a specialist in 50's style music with a few modern elements on her first album. Eventually moved past this on Thank You.
• Hotter and Sexier: As some reviewers put it, in "No", she's channeling Madonna and Britney Spears, which isn't far off the mark.
• "Just Joking" Justification: One that got her into some hot water, from "All About That Bass":
  I'm bringing booty baaack,
  go ahead and tell them skinny bitches thaaat
  nah, I'm just playin'
  although you think you're fat,
  I'm here to tell you
  every inch of you is perfect, from the bottom to the top
• Lethal Chef: In "Dear Future Husband", she's so bad in the kitchen to the point of setting a pizza on fire and leaving a mess while making cakes.
• Like You Were Dying: "Like I'm Gonna Lose You" says that you and/or your loved ones could die at any moment, so enjoy them as much as you can.
• Motif: Lips appear several times in the video for "Lips Are Movin", including earrings and a sofa.
• New Sound Album: As evidenced by "No", Thank You seems to be breaking out of the retro style, and incorporating hip-hop and a more modern pop sound.
• Other Common Music Video Concepts: She seems fond of The Making Of The Video, using it in both "Lips Are Movin" and "Me Too".
• Pull the Plug on the Title: In the music video of "Me Too", Meghan's shortened artistic name, M-Train, appears on a blue neon sign right at the beginning.
• Product Placement: "Lips Are Movin" was sponsored by HP tablets which appear throughout. Same goes for the dating app Plenty of Fish in "Dear Future Husband".
• Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion: In "Dear Future Husband":
  I'll be sleepin' on the left side of the bed
  open doors for me and you might get some... kisses.
  Don't have a dirty mind, just be a classy guy
• Symbolic Serene Submersion: The video to "Underwater" shows slow-mo shots of the models suspended under the water with their hair and decorative scarves arrayed. The water, here, represents passion and love.
  Let gravity pull harder
  We'll go underwater...
  Weightless and unbothered...
  I ain't afraid to drown with you
• Three Minutes of Writhing: "No".
• [Trope Name]: Her album Title. Subverted in that it's also one of her songs, where the "title" is a romantic relationship.
• Vocal Dissonance: She could easily be mistaken for a Sassy Black Woman by those who haven't seen her face.

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