Meghan Trainor remembers exactly when she realized pop music was changing. It was the spring of 2018 and she was just starting to promote her third album, Treat Myself. Its lead single, “No Excuses,” had peaked at No. 46 on the Billboard Hot 100 — a solid showing, if lower than past lead singles like “All About That Bass,” which hit No. 1 in 2014 — and her team had turned their attention to its follow-up, a laid-back disco track called “Let You Be Right.”
“The label, management, my whole team were really confident in it,” recalls Trainor. “Radio guys were telling them, ‘It’s the only song that will work [off the new album].’ And for the first time I was like, ‘Alright, I’ll do what you all want to do.’ ” As it turned out, “Let You Be Right” didn’t even crack the Hot 100. “That shit was wrong,” she says of her team’s prediction, forcing out a sneering laugh and adding: “Sorry, I’m getting fired up.”
