By MARIA SHERMAN AP Music Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — In the decade following her debut album, Meghan Trainor has lived myriad lives — but the message of her bright, cheery pop music has remained the same: Stay true to who you are and ignore the haters. That spirit endures on her lead single, the jovial “Still Don’t Care,” the first tease of her forthcoming seventh full-length album, “Toy with Me,” out April 24.
And in true Trainor fashion, “Still Don’t Care” was inspired by real life situations. “I was seeing a lot of hate all over the world, but I was getting a lot of hate when I started posting more pictures of … my fitness journey and my health journey. And I didn’t really expect that,” Trainor told The Associated Press. “I would get really upset at comments and I was like, ‘I wish I didn’t feel like this. I wish I didn’t give them so much power.’
“And so, when I write songs, I always write in the perspective of how I wish I thought, like ‘All About That Bass.’ I didn’t feel like that when I wrote it,” she continued. “And all my self-love anthems. But when I perform them and I see how it affects other people, I start believing them.”
“Still Don’t Care” is yet another example, with its maximalist, ’80s pop production and choir courtesy of Pentatonix’s Scott Hoying. Her mom, brother and sister-in-law contribute background vocals on it as well — perhaps softening the song’s gloves-up approach to combating online hate. “You could tear me apart,” Trainor sings. “But I sleep well at night.”
It’s the first taste of “Toy with Me,” which Trainor teases will have a few self-love bops, songs to excise her anger through and lots of familial love. “The only features I have right now in this moment are my kids, Riley and Barry, because I wrote them a beautiful song, the only, like, slower song. It’s called ‘Little One’ and it’s about how I wish they could stay little forever,” she said, smiling. “When I play it, Riley goes, ‘Oh, this is my song. Play my song!’ It’s literally my lullaby for them. And at the end of the song they say, ‘I love you, Mama,’ and it’s just the cutest thing ever. And that’s when everyone’s crying.”
Trainor said she worked on the album for eight months. “I exhausted myself, and I went a little too hard. I got excited to be home with the kids and work on my songs, but then I definitely, I overdid it, and my body started doing weird things, giving me signals. Like, my tongue started burning one day. And I was like, ‘What’s this?’ And it wouldn’t go away forever. And the dentist was like, ‘Oh, you’re stressed,'” she recalled.
Songwriting, too, was a challenge. “I usually write a song in one day and I’m done with it, but each song on this album took, like, months to finish,” she said. “So that was the only difference from this album than any other album I’ve done.”
A lot of that was because she enlisted songwriters she’s never worked with before — people who would push her to make the song the best it could be — challenges she welcomed with open arms.
The work is fulfilling, and so she continues: Trainor will also embark on a North American tour in 2026 with openers Icona Pop. The Get in Girl tour kicks off June 12 at the Pine Knob Music Theatre in Clarkston, Michigan, and ends Aug. 15 at Los Angeles’ Kia Forum.
Along the way, she’ll hit Toronto, Cincinnati, St. Louis, New York, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cleveland, Houston, Denver, Salt Lake City, Seattle, San Francisco, San Diego, Phoenix and many more.
Trainor’s last tour, the Timeless Tour, marked her first in seven years. It proved to Trainor that she can do this thing again. “I’m not absolutely petrified like I was for the Timeless Tour,” she said. “I know I can survive it and it can be really fun.”
After an American Express pre-sale, tickets will become available to the general public on Nov. 21, at 10 a.m. local time.