When
Meghan Trainor titles her fourth album
Takin' It Back, it's a tacit acknowledgment that by the time she released
Treat Myself in 2020 she had drifted too far away from the swank, swaggering retro-pop of
Title -- a sound that she calls "doo wop" but has only a passing connection to the street corner harmony groups of the 1950s.
Trainor's music feels as if it was steeped in
Grease, a pastiche wrapped in nostalgia for nostalgia, a template that's more flexible than it seems. Since she's not attached to authenticity, she can thread in the glitter-ball disco pulse of "Dance About It" and the self-explanatory "Mama Wanna Mambo" (which inexplicably features
Arturo Sandoval) into
Takin' It Back just as easily as she can pepper the record with digital flair and modern R&B beats, both of which liven up the title track. Usually, such electronic affectations are merely a part of the execution: the bones of the songs are old-fashioned, the presentation contemporary. This doesn't mean that
Takin' It Back is a state-of-the-art pop record.
Trainor's dedication to reviving the spirit of
Title means that the attitude and melody can occasionally seem preserved in amber -- witness the parade of high-end consumer brands
Trainor rattles off on "Made You Look" -- but taken as a whole, separated from trends and fashions,
Takin' It Back showcases her knack for hooks and musical theater pizazz with cool efficiency. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine