Trainor Thoroughly Disappoints

Meghan Trainor's new album cover.

Meghan Trainor’s new album cover.

After reaching stardom with her new hit single, Meghan Trainor comes onto the scene with a full-length album, but sadly, not a good one.

Odds are, you’ve probably heard Meghan Trainor’s breakthrough hit “All About That Bass.” If not, cheers to you for being able to avoid it this long, because although it’s not the best song, its melodies will certainly stick in your ears. “All About That Bass” doesn’t appear on Meghan’s commercial debut, Title, but instead comes from an earlier EP of hers that goes by the same name. No problem, because if you’ve heard “All About That Bass,” you’ve pretty much heard her entire discography.

Nearly all of the songs on Title follow the same musical tendencies and patterns–mainly the combination of soul and doo-wop instrumentation with synthetic pop drums and bass. Although she utilizes the 3/4 time signature more than any pop artist I’ve ever heard, the redundancy of her typical horns and piano combination on nearly every single song makes this album a sonically tedious snooze-fest. She obviously has strong roots in soul music, but she’d be better off attempting to make an actual soul record instead of constantly muddying things up with her poppy approach — that is, after she’s taken some vocal lessons. Let’s face it, she really can’t sing that well. Her Miley Cyrus-esque, nasally voice, along with her all-too-often Taylor Swift-esque lyrics, make for a boring and repetitive execution of nearly every song — and don’t even get me started on her horrendous rapping.

This combination is at its worst for me on the song “If Your Lips Are Moving,” which is complete with several references to “All About That Bass,” a cringe-worthy verse from D’African and a directly ripped sample from Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off.” It’s not to say she isn’t trying; the melodies on “What If I,” coupled with the excellent utilization of guitars and strings, make it a down-to-earth gem in an otherwise obnoxious atmosphere.

Meghan surely shook things up with her breakthrough body positivity anthem, but this album unfortunately seems like a possible dying point for her career now that it’s very clear that she doesn’t quite have the musical prowess to be any more than a one-hit-wonder. With only one song that I thoroughly enjoyed on this entire record, only a few more that I was able to appreciate and even less that I was able to tolerate, Title earns a staggering three out of ten stars.

 

Favorite song: “What If I”

Least favorite song: “If Your Lips Are Moving”