Meghan Trainor

Meghan Trainor came of age in the thoroughly digital early 2000s but she’s likened to tunesmiths of the thoroughly analog early ‘60s for a thoroughly obvious reason: her songs are a hook-filled mix of melodic pop, bubblegum pop, doo-wop, R&B and blue-eyed soul reminiscent of tunes penned in the Brill Building. She’s a far cry from what you’d call a “retro act,” however, since she combines such throwback elements with an eclectic variety of newer genres, among them funk, hip-hop and EDM, along with reggae, country and a potpourri of other stuff, making her about as impossible to pigeonhole as Beck, Beyoncé and Bob Dylan.

And that acoustic amalgam has served her well commercially speaking, to say the least. The singer-songwriter-multi-instrumentalist, whose debut single hit #1 in the United States and 57 other countries, is among her generation’s most recognizable musical figures, and she’s inspired millions with her songs about body positivity and personal empowerment, including “Woman Up” and “Me Too.” An alto whose voice has been described as a willowy cross between Katy Perry’s and Taylor Swift’s, she plays guitar, ukulele, bass, piano, keyboards, trumpet and percussion and has an extensive discography for an artist of her age: three self-released albums, seven major-label albums, two major-label EPs and two live albums.

Among the parade of awards and accolades the Massachusetts native has received are a Grammy, four ASCAP Music Awards and two Billboard Music Awards. A global television personality as well as a pop-music megastar, she’s been a judge on three talent competition series – The Four: Battle for Stardom, Australian Idol and The Voice UK – and had voice roles in Smurfs: The Lost Village and Playmobil: The Movie. Despite being acclaimed for her remarkable lyric-writing skills, she considers melody to be any song’s most important element, she told Jim Sullivan of The Cape Cod Times in 2015.

MUSICAL BEGINNINGS, INFLUENCES

Meghan Elizabeth Trainor was born on December 22, 1993 on an island known for its whaling heritage, iconic lighthouses and use in off-color limericks: Nantucket. Her parents, jewelers Kelli and Gary, the latter of whom was the organist at the church where Trainor started singing at around age six, encouraged her interest in music, and she wrote her first songs and arrangements at age 11, using the then newly released software GarageBand. As for training, she “did a lot playing by ear” and had very little formal instruction in her pre-adolescent years, her mother told Sullivan.

In 2006, 12-year-old Trainor joined the group Island Fusion, which included her father, younger brother and aunt; they played covers of reggae and soca tunes in addition to some of her originals and she remained with the group for the better part of four years, serving as vocalist, guitarist, pianist and bongoist. When she was in eighth grade, her family moved to Orleans on Cape Cod for a time before settling in the nearby town of North Eastham. Trainor went to Nauset Regional High School, where she studied guitar, played trumpet and sang in a jazz band, and enrolled in the Summer Performance Program at Berklee College of Music in 2009 and 2010.

When she was 15, she took guitar lessons from former NRBQ guitarist Johnny Spampinato, which she says had a significant impact on how she approaches the instrument. “NRBQ are the reason I’m here today, honestly,” she told Tom Lanham of The San Francisco Examiner, noting that she loved their famously multigenred repertoire. In terms of her biggest influences, she says her love of Frank Sinatra’s style led to her mixing melodic pop and hip hop and cites a broad swath of other solo artists and bands: Aretha Franklin, Beyoncé, Phil Collins, Bruno Mars, Ariana Grande, Jason Mraz, Christina Aguilera, Britney Spears, NSYNC, Destiny’s Child, The Chordettes, Elvis Presley and Stevie Wonder, among others.

EARLY ALBUMS, BIG YELLOW DOG PUBLISHING,  “ALL ABOUT THAT BASS”

Between the ages of 15 and 17, Trainor self-released three albums of material that she wrote, recorded, performed and produced herself. She issued her eponymous debut disc in December 2009, followed by her single “Take Care of Our Soldiers” in April 2010, the proceeds of which went to the USO and the Cape Cod Cares for Our Troops organization. In 2011, she released the albums I’ll Sing with You and Only 17.

What turned out to be a turning point in her young life came in October 2009, when 16-year-old Trainor and her parents attended the Durango Songwriters Expo in Colorado. When she spotted former Wildweeds frontman and NRBQ guitarist Al Anderson walking around, she mustered enough courage to approach him and name-check her former guitar teacher Spampinato, then asked him to watch her set later that day. Anderson did exactly that, and he was so impressed with her songwriting skills that he offered to put her in touch with Carla Wallace, co-founder of Nashville-based Big Yellow Dog Publishing.

In 2012, the year she graduated from high school, 18-year-old Trainor signed on with the company as a full-time songwriter, forgoing a full scholarship offer from Berklee. She traveled often between Cape Cod and New York City, Los Angeles and Nashville in 2012 and 2013, writing and helping to produce songs for others and singing lead and/or background on demos. In mid-2013, she started collaborating with Nashville-based producer Kevin Kadish, who shared her love of music from the ‘50s and early ‘60s; their creative partnership grew so close that Trainor relocated to Nashville in November that year.

That same month, she and Kadish co-wrote the earworm that went on to make Trainor a household name, “All About That Bass,” which Trainor says was inspired by her lifelong struggle to accept her appearance. Interestingly, they offered the song to Adele and Beyoncé, each of whom turned it down. The duo then brought it to several major labels, all of which rejected it out of hand, saying it was either “too doo-woppy” or “not synth-poppy enough.” Hope arrived in the form of Epic A&R exec Paul Pontius, who in early 2014 arranged for Trainor to perform the song for label Chairman L.A. Reid, who signed her some 20 minutes after she sang the last note.

Epic released the single on June 30, 2014 and it reached #1 in the Billboard Hot 100 seven weeks later, on September 20, remaining there for eight consecutive weeks. Despite accusations from some corners of the popiverse that it was “anti-feminist” and a glaring example of “cultural appropriation,” it eventually sold over 11 million units and topped the charts in a total of 58 countries.

TITLE, THANK YOU, THE LOVE TRAIN, TREAT MYSELF, A VERY TRAINOR CHRISTMAS

Epic issued Trainor’s first EP, Title, in September 2014, and it proved beyond any doubt that her talent and marketability went beyond one hit single, debuting at #1 in the Billboard 200 and eventually topping charts in the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. October saw the release of her second single “Lips Are Movin’,” which reached #4 in the Hot 100 and cracked the top 10 in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. At the end of 2014, Billboard ranked her as the fourth Top New Artist of the Year and #12 in their annual list of the Most Powerful People in Music Under Age 21.

Trainor suffered a career-threatening vocal chord hemorrhage in mid-2015 that required surgery; she was on vocal rest for several months. Appearing to have made a full recovery, she recorded her first full album for Epic, Thank You, which debuted at #3 in the Billboard 200 in May 2016 and included two singles that fared well in the Hot 100, “No” (#3) and “Me Too” (#13). Following a months-long tour to support the LP, she had a second vocal cord surgery in December 2016, after which she was on vocal rest for some six months resulting in her being off the road and out of the studio for much of 2017.

Trainor married actor Daryl Sabara in December 2018, and Epic released her next studio outing in February 2019, the EP The Love Train, which didn’t crack the Billboard 200 but reached #10 in the Digital Albums chart and #37 in the Top Album Sales list. Trainor’s second Epic LP, the 15-track Treat Myself, came out in January 2020 and was her least commercially successful Epic disc to date, peaking at #25 in the Billboard 200 and becoming her lowest-charting album in a number of countries. In October 2020, Epic issued Trainor’s one and only Christmas disc, A Very Trainor Christmas, which made it to #7 in Billboard’s Top Holiday Albums chart.

TAKIN’ IT BACK, TIMELESS, TOY WITH ME, TOUR CANCELLATION

When Epic released Trainor’s third full album for the label in October 2022, Takin’ it Back, it debuted at #16 in the Billboard 200 and the single “Made You Look” became her first top-10 hit in the UK, reaching #2. Her next studio disc, Timeless, dropped in June 2024, peaking at # 27 in the Billboard 200, #12 on the UK Albums chart and #23 in the Australian Albums chart, and two singles made the top 40 of Billboard’s Pop Airplay Chart, “Been Like This” (#24) and “Whoops” (#27).

Trainor latest album, Toy with Me, dropped in April 2026 and underperformed in a big way compared to her previous LPs, barely cracking the Billboard 200 at #198 and peaking at #40 in the UK and #53 in Australia. Reviews leaned negative, with Washington Square News’ Annie Emans criticizing what she called its “TikTok-ified lyrics and surface-level feminist themes” and Australian critic Nick Bond referring to the disc as a “disaster” and “a dramatic fall from grace.” It wasn’t just the scathing reviews that drew fans’ and onlookers’ attention, however; they were coupled with Trainor’s sudden cancellation of a 33-show tour scheduled to start in June 2026.

“Balancing the release of a new album, preparing for a nationwide tour and welcoming our new baby girl to our growing family of five has just been more than I can take on right now,” she posted on Instagram one week before the LP’s release. Social media was quick to condemn Trainor for nixing the tour, which was ironic given that Toy With Me’s lead single, “Still Don’t Care,” addresses the torrent of vitriol posted online about her over the years, including about her breast augmentation procedure and dramatic weight loss in 2025.

Asked for her thoughts on the tepid commercial/critical response to Toy with Me and the nasty posts about the tour cancellation and other issues, she admitted that they were hurtful but appeared as resilient and self-assured as any recording artist or cyberbullying victim’s ever been. “I want everyone to sing this as an affirmation: ‘I am a badass and I don’t care about what anyone thinks’,” she told Billboard’s Rob LeDonne.

(by D.S. Monahan)