Meghan Trainor
Billboard via Getty Images
Meghan Trainor is setting the stage for her next act. Since finishing up The Timeless Tour in support of her previous album Timeless in 2024, the 31-year-old has juggled motherhood with making music. The end result is her forthcoming sixth studio album Toy With Me, due out next spring.
“Still Don’t Care,” the first single off the album, is out now, and it’s a fittingly titled track for how she’s approached this latest chapter of her life. Scrutiny of her body after losing weight in the past two years especially contributed to that mindset. “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 told The Associated Press of her 2014 breakout single. “And all my self-love anthems. But when I perform them and I see how it affects other people, I start believing them.”
“You could say what you want, say I’m so hard to like / You could tear me apart, but I sleep well at night / Say I’m doin’ too much, and you’re probably right / That’s the same s**t I’ve heard my whole life,” she sings on the candid track. “Said I was too thick, then I got way too thin / And I try to stand out, but I wanna fit in / ‘You’re a little too loud,’ ‘stretch marks on your skin’ / Can’t believe you’re still here, girl, where have you been?’”
Ultimately, “Still Don’t Care” was birthed out of a new perspective Trainor has when she looks in the mirror at the person on the inside, not the outside. “This song came from a place of growth for me; I’m learning to care less about perfection and more about what actually makes me happy,” she said of the song. “I’m learning to shake off negativity, choosing joy, and living life my way, because at this point in my life and career, I’m ready to be done worrying about pleasing everyone.”
Naturally, the new album fell in line with that vision every time she went to the studio. “Toy With Me feels like the most honest and fearless I’ve ever been,” she said. “It’s all about self-confidence, freedom, and learning how to meet people where they are at. I wanted to kick off this new chapter with a song that makes people feel unstoppable.”
Toy With Me is out April 24. The Get In Girl Tour in support of the album kicks off June 12 in Clarkston, Mississippi and wraps up Aug. 15 in Los Angeles.