[Video] [Website]
[10.00]
[Video][Website]
[3.69]
[0]
Micha Cavaseno: There wasn’t an ungainly rapping section within the first two minutes, so there’s a point for that. The continued career of Meghan Trainor finally shows the Vargas girl/rockabilly/everything was so much cooler in the ’50s world how corny they can be, so automatically there’s a point for that too. You see, all of Meghan Trainor’s songs are too insignificant as songs to judge on that merit. They’re like those really cheap furniture items you buy that look, feel like and serve the purpose of a couch, but then you spend a year and you think “these springs never move, there’s no actual cushions, my back is going to need surgery in years if I keep treating this couch as the real thing.” It’s all assembly, and it works fine. Like, there’s a bridge, there’s a key change, there’s even an attempt to sneakily imply oral sex that provides a knowing wink and irritating elbow jab of “GEDDIT, GEDDIT” that could debunk her “thing” — if it didn’t already have that flimsy feeling of artifice.
[3]
Thomas Inskeep: Trainor’s a decent songwriter, and her personality comes across so perfectly in her songs (not to mention videos), but enough with the ’50s/’60s schtick, already. It’s cute enough but wears thin real quick. That said, I love the title “Dear Future Husband,” and she sells this pretty damn well. I just wish it were better.
[5]
Luisa Lopez: Has neither the faux feminism of bass nor the poppy rage of lips, but I still can’t help tapping my feet.
[5]
Anthony Easton: Well, the music isn’t as retrograde as the politics, but neither are very subtle or very interesting. Losing points for both trading basic courtesy for fellatio, and for refusing to be explicit about it.
[0]
Edward Okulicz: Meghan Trainor’s art here is more or less the same as that of an advertising copywriter who repurposes popular songs so they are about an event or product. On the last two singles she was at least a moderately respectable jingle writer.
[2]
Scott Mildenhall: There are other ways of making a song just about legally different to “Runaround Sue” than flattening it. That had thrust and a bitter, unbecoming righteousness; this has a nice sit down and a bit where Trainor doesn’t say “head”. Olly Murs at least kept more pep on his attempt. It’s amiable, but suggestive of a dire need for a cautionary copy of Permission To Land.
[5]
Katherine St Asaph: Every theater kid I knew in the 2000s assigned their girlfriends parts to “Mama, I’m a Big Girl Now,” the nu-“Lady Marmalade” of their milieu — I was Penny, my sister Amber. After Hairspray became a hit, it and Mean Girls practically came standard on college girls’ DVD shelves. Given this, it’s shocking a Meghan Trainor didn’t succeed sooner — several did emerge, but either they got minimal label pickup like Lady Phoenix or found mostly cult success like The Pipettes. And yet, as usual, Trainor is less interesting for her music than for the cultural milieu stew it’s cooked in. After the Pharrell trial, the commentariat’s taken to calling her a ripoff artist (when the culprit would be Kevin Kadish; Trainor even spells out in the song that she writes hooks, and this one sounds nothing like the hook to “Runaround Sue”); you can also read about how “Dear Future Husband” is simultaneously anti-feminist for wanting marriage and rings like 90% of the Western world, and an entitled shrew-screed for asking boys for such terrible sacrifices as “make time for me” and “take me on a date.” Still present are the converging undercurrents of “man, ‘Runaround Sue’ was so much classier, that halcyon time when men called women sluts in harmony,” of media-world liberalism clashing with heartland values, and of pre-ordained ill will. There’s an idea that mega-popstars are the ones who soak up their era’s cultural anxieties most, but it’s not true. A side effect of the one-percentification of the pop industry is that people grant artistic consideration to musicians who’ve already achieved superstardom, while the rest just get their politics nitpicked — if you Google “dear future husband review” it takes at least one page for anyone to mention the music. And a shitty fact about human nature is that people are more apt to snipe at statements like “dear future husband, here’s some things you need to know if you wanna be my one and only” from someone who looks like Meghan Trainor than someone who looks like Katy Perry (and Title is like One of the Boys in a lot of ways, beginning with styling). I still haven’t discussed the music. What is there to discuss? It’s pastiched and polished to be as perkily likeable as possible; at that it succeeds, and at everything else Trainor is set up to fail.
[5]
Brad Shoup: She can write a hook (she has “buyin’ groceries” on a yo-yo). Also a key change. Credit to the bari sax player for playing this totally straight, and to Trainor, of course, for rocking between cockiness and distraction. Whoever this guy is, he’s out there in the future after all.
[6]
Will Adams: What offends me most about Meghan Trainor’s music is how grossly uninteresting it is. Why is sterilized, schticky doo-wop getting at least three go-rounds within the span of six months? It’s not worth getting worked up over the bad politics in “Dear Future Husband”; apart from that, there’s nothing to the song that won’t show up in five years with a new artiste du jour who will be lauded for updating “classic” music for new audiences.
[1]
Patrick St. Michel: I know exactly where I’m going to hear “Dear Future Husband” in the next several months, because American pop like this ends up in very specific places outside of the Western world. I will hear this in Subway and Mister Donut and in the GAP, because Meghan Trainor equals generic U.S. cool — not a global megabrand like Taylor Swift, but rather music to fill a space while signalling vague nowness. And I’m OK with this, because “Dear Future Husband” is Trainor’s best sounding song, the awkward rap-isms of her last two singles reduced drastically. Even the dick joke is cute. And best of all, I won’t have to focus on the lyrics while I’m shopping for jeans.
[6]
Ramzi Awn: I don’t mind spending time in Meghan Trainor’s world of girl-meets-world throwback. I wouldn’t stay there forever — I’d probably listen to some Doris Day instead — but I’ll take a stroll in candy land.
[6]
Mo Kim: Dear future husband: run.
[4]