If Courtney Barnett had to lose “Best New Artist” to someone at this year’s Grammys, I’m glad it was to Meghan Trainor.
Trainor–whose second album, Thank You, drops today–brought a blast of non-preachy positive body image lyrics to the world with her first single, “All About That Bass.”
Her millennial-friendly feminism was much needed in a pop universe overdosing on codependent-is-cool fantasies of brushing one’s teeth with Jack Daniels, puking in bathtubs, taking your clothes off on the second date, and being sent off to rehab.
The follow-up single, “Dear Future Husband,” added a naughty-but-nice tease with an almost-rhyme using the word “bed.” Her duo with John Legend, “Like I’m Gonna Lose You,” turned the average blah-blah love song into a meditation on mortality, while “Lips Are Movin'” was the perfect 21st-century kiss-off (“You can buy me diamond earrings / And deny-ny-ny, ny-ny-ny, deny-ny / But I smell her on your collar so goodbye-bye-bye”).
With all of those hit songs on one album, Trainor was already not a one-hit-wonder–but what would she do next?
Well, if the first single from Thank You, “No,” is an indication, Trainor has pulled off the greatest musical second act since the Beastie Boys followed up their frat-boy-anthem-meets-Zeppelin-catalog-sample debut, License to Ill, with the incredibly dense, rich, and only occasionally misogynistic Paul’s Boutique.
“No” is one of the stickiest earworms ever written (“I never learned to cook / But I can write a hook,” she sang in “Dear Future Husbund.” Indeed.), but its feminism is even clearer, more direct, less tentative: “Thank you in advance, I don’t wanna dance (nope) / I don’t need your hands all over me / If I want a man, then I’mma get a man / But it’s never my priority.”
Yes, the pool anthem of this summer was released weeks ago. But I bet you already love it:
My name is NO
My sign is NO
My number is NO
You need to let it go
You need to let it go
Need to let it go
Nah to the ah to the no, no, no …