Meghan Trainor
Timeless


2.1
poor

Review

by Benjamin Jack STAFF
June 11th, 2024 | 20 replies


Release Date: 06/07/2024 | Tracklist

Review Summary: Come on now, make it stop

Something marvellous happened to me whilst listening to Timeless. Something I didn’t think I’d ever be able to do again after listening to music with an active critical ear for so long: I stopped caring. Just like that. Bang, gone, goodbye! Just so I’m clear, I don’t mean I stopped caring in the way Meghan Trainor wants me to stop caring, i.e: not being self-conscious that my abs are too firm or my biceps are too huge, but I mean, I REALLY stopped caring. I didn’t feel like nitpicking, assessing or being an insufferable elitist- I just listened to the music with no agenda. Unthinkable, I know. Now, I don’t want to make it seem like I’ve cracked the code per se, but I am almost positive that this is the key to fully appreciating the music of Meghan Trainor, and a great many other artists I probably will never listen to. No lie, during my listen Doug Bradley himself appeared in full Cenobite regalia and whisked me off to an alternate dimension where there was no such thing as critical appraisal- only pain. Once I had made peace with this uncomfortable new reality, I found the experience of Timeless to be quite tolerable. The preoccupations of body positivity, self-confidence, feisty feminism and how curvaceous Trainor’s rear happens to be are things that most well-balanced individuals will be able to see the value in, and it’s difficult to see any real offence stemming from such topics. After coming back to reality with a thump and going beyond these admirable ides into the nuts and bolts of the album, though, I realised the unfiltered truth: the experience was underwhelming at best, and patience-proddingly irritating at worst. Timeless is a definite step up from Takin’ It Back, but weak songwriting, a lack of cohesion and unfortunate lyrical choices keep the genial focus way below the level it aspires to be. Back in the underworld with Pinhead where criticism is no object, to be specific.

First, a hot take: I like Meghan Trainor. She seems like a genuinely lovely person with a sunny disposition, and I’ve always found her atypical popstar image and vintage musical influence to be quite refreshing amidst the washed-out stereotypicality of the billboards. There are even moments on Timeless where this identity really comes out and she manages to purvey admirable ideas with some degree of catchy gusto: ‘Forget How To Love’ has some pleasant vocal lines and, despite its simplicity, offers some amount of staying power. Similarly, ‘Love On Hold’ (minus the T-Pain cameo) and ‘Rollin’’ (Air Raid Vehicle) are generally catchy and innocuous enough to overcome how underdeveloped they are. Nevertheless, the main issue with the majority of the material here is that the low points on Timeless are so aggressively subpar they actively drag the album’s above-waterline moments down to their level, and even manage to undermine them on a few occasions. For example, on multiple songs Trainor pontificates about just how voluptuous her ass is, selling that body-positivity angle that made her a household name back in 2014. Then, on ‘Whoops’, Trainor shames some anonymous woman by claiming that she is not as attractive as her, and is bereft of an ass. Whether it’s a misjudged jibe at a hypothetical individual or out-and-out hypocrisy, the contrast is jarring and casts doubt upon the character the singer has cultivated for herself over the years. Be it self-love, falling in love, falling out of love, or various other misadventures pertaining to love, the record doesn’t really have very much to say, making the sourness of the aforementioned lyrical barb exceedingly obvious and unpleasant in the extreme.

With ‘love’ being the core focus of Timeless, there’s an extreme amount of redundancy on display during its 44 minute runtime, both musically and thematically. The doo-wop infrastructure charged with modern pop hallmarks make up the predominant style found on the record, and it’s consistent if nothing else. Single ‘Been Like This’ with T-Pain exhibits the worst of both worlds and is horribly reminiscent of will.i.am’s electro swing monstrosity ‘Bang Bang’ from 2013, minus the comparative dynamism of the chorus drop. It’s on moments like this that the glaring shortcomings with every aspect of the formula are highlighted; the saccharine lyrics, tasteless instrumentals and squeaky-clean production violently butting heads in a futile attempt to create some form of cohesion. Cuts like ‘Crushin’’, ‘I Wanna Thank Me’ and ‘Bestie’, cover almost identical self-congratulatory ground and really drive the idea of self-love into the mud, and not in diverse enough fashion to justify such repetition. ‘Crowded Room’, ‘I Get It’ and ‘Sleeping On Me’ are all pure filler and feel exceptionally bland even against the context of the rest of the album. ‘I Don’t Do Maybe’ and ‘Hate It Here’ have a slight edge thanks to the former’s mischievous brass instrumentation and the latter’s friskier lyricism, but both suffer from distracting production choices and uninteresting hooks. Much like the rest of Trainor’s output there’s no real sense of direction, only an abstract that encompasses an expected musical style and topicality. These rigid guidelines are adhered to so religiously that not a single aspect impresses or offers anything beyond a fleeting, toe-tapping distraction.

It’s doubtful anyone was toiling under the impression that Timeless was going to mark a bold stylistic shift for Trainor, and in spite of its more irritating qualities, it does mark something of a step up in terms of quality from her more recent output. However, this quality is entirely dependent on how much of your brain you’re willing to check at the door, with anything less than a full lobotomy likely resulting in a vexing experience. The formula that Trainor peddles is little more than a novelty, but that doesn’t mean that it’s of no value; it could certainly be wheeled out on occasion to diversify a release’s content- but not for an entire album’s worth of material. Much less five album lengths. There are vague attempts at tinkering with the sound in an effort to prevent the uniformity from getting stale, such as leaning more into the contemporary side of her sound, but so at loggerheads are the individual components of the LP in general terms it’s a losing battle from the second it starts. The issue is made all the more frustrating by the fact there are incredibly brief flashes of songwriting prowess in here, but much like everything else Trainor has released, they're obscured by gimmicky production and an absolute checkmate of a genre trademark that doesn’t allow her to evolve so much as enthusiastically flail around within an incredibly confined stylistic space. It’s inoffensive, lighthearted and bubbly, but offers nothing in the way of surprises or excitement. Remember in 2014 when Trainor told us all that she’d never learned to cook, but she could write a hook? Culinary school’s a-callin’, Meg.



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user ratings (17)
1.2
awful
other reviews of this album
Shamus248 CONTRIBUTOR (0.5)
One of the albums of all time....

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Comments:Add a Comment 
YoYoMancuso
Staff Reviewer
June 12th 2024


19421 Comments


great review meghan trainor might be my least favorite musician ever

FowlKrietzsche
Contributing Reviewer
June 12th 2024


2088 Comments


Very good review (even if I got the point by paragraph three), just want to counter that her image has always had jarring body shaming moments, with her first 'body positive' hit, All About That Bass, being all about how men want booty and not "skinny bitches"

Odal
Staff Reviewer
June 12th 2024


2488 Comments


This is a fantastic review and doubtlessly better than the album deserves.

I have only heard the two singles and thought they were mindlessly bleh. I kind of agree with the hot take though. I actually think there is a world in which Meghan is compelling as Target shopping fodder, she just needs to stop with the awful lyrics and shift things ever-so-slightly to be low-stakes good time. Not sure if I can muster up the energy to listen to the whole album lol

PumpBoffBag
Staff Reviewer
June 12th 2024


1698 Comments

Album Rating: 2.1

Thanks all, much appreciated!

@Fowl yeah that’s true but I think the difference is the moment I highlighted on this album feels much more targeted at a specific person (even if it’s a fictional person). AATB does make some similar assertions but I don’t find it anywhere near as mean spirited. I did notice a couple instances of similar attacks across her discog though, although the one here is the worst imo

@Odal that’s exactly it, she’s painted herself into such a stylistic corner there’s hardly any room for development, and her sound stays stuck at the same level. But yeah, against my better judgment I quite enjoy her generally, especially when her personality comes out more. I do contend that this is probably her best since Title though, I didn’t find it a chore to listen to like some of her other releases

Now I can listen to brat yayyyy

someone
Contributing Reviewer
June 12th 2024


7064 Comments


"my abs are too firm or my biceps are too huge"
Pump Buff Brag

Koris
Staff Reviewer
June 12th 2024


22128 Comments


I tried to listen to Whoops out of morbid curiosity, and I had to turn it off after about 30 seconds. Crazy how she's still doubling down on this sound, lol. Great review!

DadKungFu
Staff Reviewer
June 12th 2024


5517 Comments


Haha great read, I've also got a slight soft spot for Trainor but this just doesn't sound good

mkmusic1995
Contributing Reviewer
June 12th 2024


2071 Comments


Always love your reviews, Pump! One of my favorite writers on this site! That being said, I will stay very far from this record :D

PumpBoffBag
Staff Reviewer
June 12th 2024


1698 Comments

Album Rating: 2.1

@someone first draft mentioned my oversized wang instead of the biceps but yknow, professionalism..



Big love to all of you and cheers mk that means a lot :,) appreciate you x

Mort.
June 12th 2024


26197 Comments


there was a moment the other day where i was listening to 'whoops' and thought, huh, this chorus is kinda fun and catchy

still an awful song but yeah turning off brain key to enjoyment

AmericanFlagAsh
June 12th 2024


13637 Comments


Heard this is better than Brat

SteakByrnes
June 12th 2024


30499 Comments


one of the worst artists ever

also lmao good Doug Bradley shout out

CaliggyJack
June 12th 2024


10319 Comments


God this woman is a blight on pop.

bellovddd
June 12th 2024


7129 Comments


amazing review. never going to touch this album though.

Trebor.
Emeritus
June 13th 2024


60085 Comments


This barely made the billboard top 200 lol

LilLioness
June 13th 2024


3710 Comments


The cover is aesthetically pleasing.

...that's all i got

kodama
June 13th 2024


191 Comments

Album Rating: 1.0

just as annoying as ever I see. yuck.

gravityswitch
June 13th 2024


2181 Comments


god dammit you really made me check if there was a limp bizkit cover in there
awful album

PumpBoffBag
Staff Reviewer
June 13th 2024


1698 Comments

Album Rating: 2.1

Had a good few sentences highlighting thematic similarities between the two songs actually, but nixed it for the sake of flow. If you reach they overlap more than you’d think…

maffoobristol
June 14th 2024


19 Comments


Listened to Rollin' cos you really got me good too. Had to put my Spotify into a "Private session" first of course.

Oh god she actually uses the word "tummy".



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