- Singer songwriter born in 1993 in Nantucket Massachusetts.
- Music was prevalent in Trainor’s family, and she started singing in church at age 6. Her father introduced her to 50s music, doo-wop and James Brown. By 11, she told her family that she wanted a career as a performing artist, and she started writing songs. At 12, she was singing and playing piano, drums and bongos in her family’s party band, called Island Fusion. In high school, she was in a jazz band, and her parents encouraged her to go to songwriting forums.
- At 15, she recorded in her home studio an album of her own compositions, called Meghan Trainor, releasing it on CD and digital download. She participated in the Summer Performance Program at Berklee College of Music in 2009 and 2010, advancing to the finals of the program’s songwriting competition. She started winning songwriting contests nationally. In 2011, she self-released two more acoustic albums, I’ll Sing With You and Only 17. She was introduced to some recording executives who were impressed with her songwriting skills, and she signed a publishing deal when she was 17 years old.
- After graduating from high school, she wrote and helped produce songs for country and pop music performers, traveling to New York, Los Angeles and Nashville. She also sang on demos for other artists. She met a producer in Nashville in June 2013 that shared her love of retro music, and they started to work together. In November that year, she moved to Nashville, and she wrote songs for Rascal Flatts, Hunter Hayes and others.
- Also in 2013, she co-wrote the song All About That Bass with her Nashville producer. The song was offered to numerous artists, who all declined to record it. She decided to record it herself, and in early 2014 she performed it on a ukulele for the head of a national record label. She was immediately signed, and in June 2014, the song was released as a single. The video quickly became a viral hit, and by the end of the year, it had sold over 11 million units worldwide, reaching #1 in 19 countries, including the U.S. It is the only debut single ever to remain either #1 or #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 for as many as 15 weeks.
- Soon after the song was released, her debut EP, called Title, was released, and by January 2015, she had enough material to released a full length album, also called Title. In addition to All About That Bass, 3 more singles were released – Lips Are Movin’, Dear Future Husband, and Like I’m Gonna Lose You (featuring John Legend). All were major hits, with multi-platinum certifications, peaking on the Hot 100 chart in the top 15. Her sudden success led to her first headlining tour in 2015 – she was barely 21 years old. By that summer, she was forced to cancel the rest of her tour due to vocal chord hemorrhaging.
- Later in 2015, Trainor wrote and recorded Better When I’m Dancin for the soundtrack to the film The Peanuts Movie. The song has a tropical sound to it, and over 1 million downloads were sold.
- Her follow-up album, Thank You, was released in 2016. Earlier that year, she won a Grammy award for Best New Artist. The song No peaked at #3 on the Hot 100 chart, while Me Too made it to #13. The album was certified platinum, and both singles were 2x platinum in sales. Also that year, she collaborated with country music artist Brett Eldredge on his cover of the song Baby, It’s Cold Outside, which reached #1 on the Adult Contemporary chart.
- Her third album is scheduled to be released in January 2019 – it will be titled Treat Myself. The lead single, No Excuses, was released in early 2018. It had modest success, especially compared to her earlier mega-hits. Two other singles from the album were released in May 2018 – they’ve also not had much popularity. We’ll see if she can score another big hit with a finicky public that seems today to be obsessed with hip hop music.
- Here’s the song that instantly made her a star – All About That Bass. There’s over 2.4 Billion views on YouTube (#19 on the list of all time most viewed videos).