Meghan Trainor makes another comeback once again with her new album Treat Myself, released Jan. 31. Trainor reached the peak of her music career in 2014 and 2015 when she released her debut album, Title. Many songs off that album — and a few others —  were exceptionally popular and made it on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart, examples being “Like I’m Gonna Lose You” ft. John Legend reaching #8, “Lips Are Movin” reaching #4, and “All About That Bass” reaching #1 and staying there for nine weeks as the cherry on top.

Trainor amassed many fans around this time but there were also many people who didn’t exactly approve of her songs or the messages she was trying to convey through them. Most had a problem with her most popular work, “All About That Bass” which was intended on Trainor’s part to be a body-positive song, according to this 2014 article by The Atlantic. Though it was meant to encourage people, especially women, who don’t conform to a “stick figure/silicone Barbie doll” body shape, many thought that the song was derogatory to those people who actually were shaped like this, though Trainor denied all of these claims. 

While she took a generally long break from making music, Trainor was busy with her relationship with former Spy Kids star and actor Daryl Sabara, with whom she became engaged to in 2017 and married in 2018. Sabara is one of the topics Trainor sings about in Treat Myself, along with others including past break-ups, heart break, self-confidence, and telling others that their opinions don’t bother her, as shown by this article and interview with Trainor by USA Today. 

Trainor’s music has always been catchy enough, lyrically satisfying enough, melodically diverse enough,, but never anything special. Something always seemed missing from her work, some kind of wow-factor that could stand out from the basic cookie cutter pop songs heard on the radio. Treat Myself unfortunately stays true to this judgment.

Despite this, I do notice I have more of a willingness to re-listen to the songs dealing with Trainor’s struggles and relationships (songs such as “Working On It,” “Have You Now,” “Ashes,” and “After You”) rather than others that focused on Trainor herself (least favorites being “Genetics,” “Blink,” and “Another Opinion”), which feel just plain pretentious. It seemed unnecessary to address her “haters” so many times in a single album.

However, just because I don’t find Trainor’s new album worth another listen doesn’t mean that I don’t respect her or her music. Trainor herself talked openly about her struggles with panic attacks and recovery from her second vocal surgery in the same USA Today interview. “I write these songs to help myself so that I can go onstage and be like, ‘Yeah, I feel like this,’” she said. “I need this for my own sanity and own therapy.”

Though Trainor’s music and new album isn’t exactly my cup of tea, I admire her ability to cope with her hardships through music, which her fans obviously connect with. It goes to show how everybody has different tastes and opinions that another may not agree with.