When Meghan Trainor burst onto the pop music scene in 2014, her dance-oriented pop was a refreshing contrast to so much of what was coming out of the radio. She wrote songs about feeling positive about your body, something that many a tween girl and younger needed amid an onslaught of online bullying and body shaming. According to Trainor’s lyrics, you’re fine just the way you are. And it’s very likely that that message has saved some lives.
And it’s easy to understand why that’s made her so beloved of a fan base that’s stayed with her long after the international sensation of “All About That Bass” has faded from earshot. So she deserves the kind of attention that attracted 8,112 fans to the Minnesota State Fair Grandstand on Friday night. What they experienced was a bubbly, buoyant dance party that kept the crowd on its feet and bouncing throughout her 80-minute, 19-song set of retro-flavored dance pop.
But was it a concert? That’s debatable. It was basically a prerecorded show, with Trainor singing lead vocals atop the tracks from her albums. The lone reason to buy a ticket was to witness her dancing with eight other women and to celebrate the infectious beats and positive messages of her songs with a Grandstand full of kindred spirits.
And to be clear: They are her songs. Unlike some pop stars whose music is the product of a consortium of songwriters and producers, Trainor is the lead songwriter on all of her hits. She was already selling songs in her teens to pop and country acts before she signed her first recording contract and she doesn’t just shop around for songs that send affirmative messages to young female listeners: She writes them.
But Friday’s show may have undercut her message somewhat, as a considerably thinner Trainor sported a spangled bikini-style Las Vegas showgirl outfit and a platinum wig wider than her shoulders, frequently turning to wiggle her slimmed-down posterior to the audience when her biggest hit was about being proud to have a considerably larger one.
That said, there was plenty of fun to be had admiring the well-executed choreography with her dancers, all of them clad in cheerleader-style pleats. And the audience clearly exulted in singing and dancing along to such ‘50s-flavored fare as “Dear Future Husband” and “Whoops.” But I came away concerned that the glamorous showgirl schtick was making Trainor seem too much a poor girl’s Taylor Swift, when she has the potential to be someone uniquely her. The kind of individual she encourages her listeners to be.
Rob Hubbard can be reached at wordhub@yahoo.com.
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