Timeless (Deluxe)

Meghan Trainor is back, just in time. “I survived two C-sections, period—I'm alive,” she tells Apple Music's Zane Lowe. “And a week after the C-section, I started in the studio immediately because I'm a workaholic and I really love this album. Babies bring inspiration and they make me want to be the best human being I can try to be.” Her sixth studio effort Timeless is a mix of vintage Trainor with a few twists, which she points out is intentional. “My fans love when I do pure pop,” she says. “And then a lot of the world likes when I do just the doo-wop stuff. So I try to make everybody happy, and so I tried to blend it together and was like, let's make a weird new genre that's different or something, or I haven't heard that in a while. And I love when that happens.” “To the Moon” certainly fits that bill, with a sound that meshes “All About That Bass” with circa-2006 Justin Timberlake. And “Been Like This,” a duet with T-Pain, starts with an old-timey jazz riff but transforms into a bouncy back-and-forth between the two singers, with Trainor’s signature sassiness in the lyrics (“Ain’t nothin’ new, still that bitch”). T-Pain, who also appears on “Love on Hold,” isn’t the album’s only special guest. The pop-soul sibling duo Lawrence add their stylings to “Crushin’,” and “I Wanna Thank Me” features a snippet of Niecy Nash’s 2024 Emmys speech as well as the actor, her daughter, and her wife Jessica Betts on backing vocals. “I was like, ‘Please, I want you to feature on it, have publishing, because you inspired it, you're all over the song,” Trainor says. “And then I want your daughters and your wife to come sing background with you. Come over and we'll do the chorus together.' And we did.”