video review: 'title' by meghan trainor

Honestly didn't think I would have a chance to get this out, but here we go.

Okay, Billboard BREAKDOWN is coming, so stay tuned!

album review: 'title' by meghan trainor

You know, outside of Billboard BREAKDOWN, I've never really talked at length about Meghan Trainor in any capacity. And considering her very recent pop culture ubiquity - and controversy - that's a little surprising. And part of me wonders why I'm even reviewing this record, mostly because from every single Trainor has released, there's been one message emblazoned across her music: namely, that it's not for me.

And yet, one of my goals this year is to delve more deeply into music outside of my comfort zone, so let's actually talk a bit about the woman behind the music. Believe it or not, even though Title is advertised as Meghan Trainor's debut album, she actually released three acoustic records while she was at Berklee, where she later dropped out to pursue her dreams as a songwriter. She eventually wound up in Nashville where she was writing songs for - and when I discovered this, I wasn't surprised in the slightest - Dan + Shay, Hunter Hayes, and Rascal Flatts. Note that these are all country artists - and more importantly, they're pop country that produce some of the most polished, safe music imaginable. More on this in a bit, but it was in Nashville she met Kevin Kadish, wrote 'All About That Bass', and the rest is history.

And let's make this clear, the success of Meghan Trainor has been meteoric - but again, I'm not surprised. 'All About That Bass' was being pushed to an under-served demographic and sounded like little else on the radio, of course it was going to do well, especially considering how non-threatening it is, but at the same time it wasn't exactly anything that got me interested in hearing more Meghan Trainor. Now that's not saying I don't like retro doo-wop or jazz or even bubblegum pop - you're talking about a guy who owns multiple S Club 7 albums - but for as much as Meghan Trainor's music prompted discussion and controversy for the lyrics, the music itself had never really interested me.

But I figured that I probably wasn't getting the whole picture, so I picked up her major label debut album Title and took a listen - what did we get?