Meghan Trainor - "Timeless"
Meghan Trainor shouldn’t need much of an introduction. She’s been successful right from the start, with “All About That Bass”, “Lips Are Movin’”, and “Dear Future Husband” shooting way up the charts ahead of her debut album, Title, which released in 2015. She’s a fun, standout personality in the Pop world, and her infusion of R&B, Doo-Wop, and Blue Eyed Soul with clear stylings from the 50s and 60s helps her music to stand apart, similarly.
I’ve always liked Trainor. I have previously rated her releases from 2020 and 2022,1 not including her Christmas album,2 so Timeless will be the third that I’ve reviewed from her, and her fifth studio album overall. This is also the 50th review of 2024!
One of Trainor’s most endearing qualities, both in her music and just how she presents herself, period, is her insistence on self-love and -esteem. Much of this comes in the form of body positivity. Much of her music specifically references thicker, curvier body types, which flies in the face of much of mainstream pop.34
Timeless is absolutely no exception. While several tracks reference being cheated on, such as “Whoops”, they generally take the tone of “too bad for you, then”, rather than any wallowing or self-pity. The track that comes closest to any of that is “Forget How to Love”, which is really more about the moment you draw the line with a partner you’ve begun to have issues with — and that moment comes from a place of self-respect.
While there are a few somewhat forgettable songs here, including “Love On Hold”, which includes a T-Pain feature, there are also several outright bops, and the songs generally get better as the album goes on. There are some good ones early on, including intro track “To the Moon” and “Whoops”, but the album really kicks off with track 10, “I Don’t Do Maybe”, and every track from there to the end is excellent.
Even the songs I’ve set aside as ‘forgettable’ are fun, though. The album is an almost-entirely upbeat affair, with only two or three (I’m not going back to count right now) songs that dip into lower tempos. The slowest is title track “Timeless”, which is a solid love song; it is immediately preceded by “Doin’ It All For You”, which is also a love song, but more danceable and likely to be played at weddings.
There is an odd vocal production/pronunciation element in “Bestie” that I have to mention — some lines end with, according to the lyrics, “heall, yeah”. But it really comes across as more of an Uncle Roger-style “Haiyaaaaaaa”.
The album really only has two serious shortcomings for me:
There is no real unifying theme or throughline. The concept of self-love is persistent throughout, but that’s also sort of a core element of all of Trainor’s music. Leaning on that as a unifying element would be a cop-out, at best; especially as the title track is a love song — “I love us” rather than “I love myself”.
There is a small, 1:17 difference between the shortest track (“Crushin’” at 2:03) and the longest (“Doin’ It All For You” at 3:20). And of the 17 songs on the album, only five — FIVE! — break the three-minute mark. The songs are good, but they’re definitely geared toward very basic Pop structures and radio play. Trainor is good at working within this box, but it’s still a box that kinda makes me cringe a bit.
Overall, though, it’s fun and wildly positive. My daughter will love these songs and I’m happy to have Meghan Trainor as a role model for her. It’s not an album that gets anywhere near ‘Capital-A Art’, but it’s highly enjoyable, start-to-finish. Especially in the second half.
Rating: Teal
My 2020 re-rank project is ongoing, but Treat Myself earned a Blue.
2022’s Takin’ It Back rated a Green.
I do not review Christmas albums.
There are many examples of this in Hip-Hop and R&B; I know those genres conflate with Pop a lot over the last 10-15 years, but I am differentiating here.