Meghan Trainor Releases Single With A New Sound

Since Meghan Trainor dominated radio waves in 2015 and snagged the Grammy award for Best New Artist this year, everyone’s been waiting for the “All About That Bass” singer to release new music. Her first single of the year is called “No,” a preview to her sophomore album Thank You, out May 13.

The feisty song is begin’s with Meghan’s classic doo-wop bounce but quickly transitions into a fresher sound which The Rolling Stone described as an “early millennium-pop vibe with its beat and crunchy guitar” with influences from late ’90s/early ’00s Pop and R&B (think early Britney Spears and prime-time Destiny’s Child). Trainor told Time that she wanted to “give [listeners] a taste of what they know” and then “slap ’em in the face. In the nicest, sweetest way. A polite slap.”

Ricky Reed co-wrote and produced the song. In a recent interview with Spin, it was revealed that the song (which has a chorus with the lyrics “my name is no, my sign is no, my number is no”) was written after the Epic label head L.A. Reid said to Trainor when she arrived at the studio, “Look, there’s no way we’re going to make a single today. Let’s just blow off some steam, f-ck around, have a good time.” Out of her annoyance at his lack of faith in her came this song. Reed told Billboard, “We harnessed that fiery energy and made ‘NO’ in about seven hours. It was magical.”

Trainor told Time, “went into the studio and was like, ‘Ugh! We need an angry song! More hip hop, more urban! Let’s go!'”

Trainor promises that while her distinctive lyrical style will be there, the sound will not be another Title. “There’s hard drums,” she told Billboard, “with some funk in them, and some straight-up unplugged songs, some classic songs where it’s just me and a guitar or me and a ukelele.” She also added that there will be some Caribbean influences on the upcoming album, noting that her uncle is Trinidadian and she loves Soca, a Calypso and Caribbean-influenced genre. “It makes you feel good,” she explained, “and it’s not on the radio as much over here as I want it to be.”

Thank You is available for preorder now.