Epic
Pop, 2016

Okay, so she isn’t a one hit wonder, as the walking Neti Pot that is Meghan Trainor went ahead and won an award while I wasn’t looking. No matter, she’s back with Thank You, which is, if you can believe it, a hilariously delusional showcase of her hubris. She can’t blame other songwriters, as her name is among the credits, so it’s part of her, at least, in play with the delusion solution.

This one starts out with two back-to-back “I’m awesome, you’re pathetic!” songs, Watch Me Do and Me Too, which see her claiming that she just has to wake up and be awesome, when she’s not thanking god that she’s so awesome the way she is. There are some positive messages about loving oneself and not relying on others, but the way Ms Trainor goes about it, she’s just being an insufferable cow acting like she’s all that and the rest of us should just beg for the privilege of kissing her shoes. No is another hilarious song about how men all hit on her, so ladies should take a leaf from her playbook and tell them no. The message is good, but her delivery is so flat and atonal that the whole thing is unintentionally comical.

Not all songs are made of cringe. Better is pretty pleasant if I can tune out the awful vocals, Hopeless Romantic has a sweet melody but it also sees her trying very hard to be a third-rate Miley Cyrus, and the Miley-isms intensify on the best song on the album Kindly Calm Me Down.

But for the most part, though, these songs all sound very generic and, worse, reminiscent of songs performed by other artists. The hooks, melodies, and even the vocal nuances seem like rejected versions of more famous songs by other artists, although to give Ms Trainor credit, she doesn’t make it easy to pin down the influences. She just makes it very easy to be seen as completely unoriginal. It also doesn’t help that her vocals are often grating than pleasant, and when she feels like belting, it’s done like a grenade barrage without any hint of subtlety or grace.

How did she get this far again?