Ticket Alert: Meghan Trainor Brings Her Chilling Bugglegum Pop To West London

Chris Lockie
By Chris Lockie Last edited 110 months ago
Ticket Alert: Meghan Trainor Brings Her Chilling Bugglegum Pop To West London

Image courtesy of Ronald Woan via Flickr

Occasionally Americans decide to create a new superstar. The method behind their doing so is mysterious, with people plucked from US backwaters and thrust into the limelight in an almost random fashion, talent apparently an afterthought.

On an unrelated note, a lady named Meghan Trainor is one of America's biggest-selling stars at the moment, and she's coming to London for a show at the Shepherd's Bush Empire on 13 April. Tickets go on sale tomorrow morning (23 January). So, who is Meghan Trainor, and why would anyone spell a name like that?

We're told she began singing at the age of six, as though it's something only people like Meghan Trainor do, though Londonist remembers ploughing through a horrific version of Once In Royal David's City at a Nativity play in front of grim-faced parents at the age of four. The difference is we haven't been rewarded with a lucrative contract from Epic Records, nor gone on to be nominated at the MTV Europe Music Awards for — and this is real — the 'Best Song with a Social Message' award. Right on, Meghan.

The song in question, for we're afraid we must now turn to the music, is entitled All About That Bass. You can feel the social message dripping from the title, can't you? It's apparently about body image and accepting how you look — Meghan herself has a waist precisely half an inch larger than the wasting wretches that young girls are told they must emulate, and by God is she going to put that half inch to good use.

So here's the song for you. Be warned, Wikipedia describes it as 'a bubblegum pop, doo-wop song in the retro style of the 1950s and 1960s, containing a mix of a variety of genres'.

That song went to number one in all the countries that matter, except for some reason the Netherlands where it managed no better than number three. The Netherlands don't seem to be included on this European tour. Up yours Netherlands.

Meghan's in London to shift copies of her debut album, Title, due for a UK release next week. Confusingly it has the same title as her debut EP from a few months before, which was also called Title. Conversations with the record company must have been fun:

Exec: "So, Meghan, what about the title of your album?"
Meghan: "Yes."
Exec: "What would you like it to be?"
Meghan: "Eh?"
Exec: "The title."
Meghan: "Yes."

And so on. It's not actually her debut album though — completists be aware that she released various self-produced records during her teens, the tapes of which are likely secured in an LA vault somewhere ready to be remastered and repackaged to great fanfare at some point in the future, and quite right too.

In the meantime you'll have to contend with the new album, which has just had another single spat from it — the delightful Lips Are Movin, which doesn't even have the good grace to include an apostrophe, as though 'movin' is actually a word. Here's that!

You might wonder why we would bring such an artist to your attention, but Londonist is nothing if not a public service for all tastes and viewpoints. And when it comes to a name you're likely to become increasingly hassled by in the months to come, there's a certain amount of 'know your enemy' at play. Anyway, Meghan's show goes on sale tomorrow morning and if you're a fan of things like this, more power to you.

Meghan Trainor plays the Shepherd's Bush Empire on 13 April. Tickets priced £17.50 plus fees go on sale from 9am on 23 January on Live Nation.

Last Updated 22 January 2015