Pop newcomer Meghan Trainor belies being just the 'Bass' girl

[January 24, 2015]  By Holly Rubenstein

LONDON (Reuters) - When her debut single "All About That Bass" topped charts in 58 countries last year, Meghan Trainor knew people were thinking of her as a "one-hit wonder" or simply the "Bass" girl.

She knew it would be a short-lived reputation.

"My confidence in my song writing had me feel like 'just you people wait, just wait a few months. I'll show you. I'm not a one-hit wonder and I'm here to stay,'" she told Reuters this week, just when the 21-year-old from Nantucket prevailed.

Trainor's debut album, "Title," knocked singer-songwriter Taylor Swift's "1989" off the top of the weekly U.S. Billboard album chart, where it had been for nine of the last 12 weeks.

Buoyed by "All About That Bass," a 1960s-inflected pop song about female body types, and follow-up hit "Lips Are Movin,'" "Title" marked the biggest debut for a female pop act's first full-length album in more than five years, Billboard said.

Trainor described her album as "different and fun and very relatable and topics that not a lot of artists talk about and I think I went there, and I talked about them.

"There's a song called 'Walk of Shame,' which pretty much explains it right there. There's different genres and feels, and it's fun," she added.

While "All About That Bass" is an ode to a curvaceous woman's body, it has also spawned controversy for "skinny-shaming" thin girls. Trainor's lyrics state: "I'm bringing booty back. Go ahead and tell them skinny bitches hey."

But the singer songwriter who wrote the song to help her with her own body issues says she was not targeting thin people.

"Hi, people who are getting wound up about my 'skinny bitches' line," she said addressing her critics. "I don't hate skinny people. There it is. I didn't get a record deal and write this hit song just to tell skinny people I hate them."

The single is nominated for two Grammy awards in the song and record of the year categories, and she thinks it has "a great shot" at winning at the Feb. 8 ceremony in Los Angeles.

"I've made a name for myself and now people are starting to know Meghan Trainor instead of just the 'Bass' girl because that's what I was for a minute!" she said. "And I can't wait for the entire world to hear my album and see what Meghan Trainor's all about."

(Writing by Mary Milliken; Editing by Eric Kelsey and Andre Grenon)

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