For the week ending September 20, 2014, Meghan Trainor’s song “All About That Bass” hit number 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100. The song was cited by the New York Times as one of several new hits that utilizes the theme of body image, and Trainor mentioned in an interview with Billboard that the song is “about loving your body…and your booty.” On the other hand, the song (and its music video) have been criticized for not actually being body positive; author and blogger Jenny Trout even cogently asked, “If this song is promoting body positivity, then why does it define a specific body type as being more desirable, and place all of a woman’s value on her fuckability to heterosexual men?”
Those criticisms aside, the song is quite catchy, and since its release back in June it has become a memorable hit of the summer (and a welcome change from last summer’s dance craze). However, what intrigued me about the song was not its body image theme, but rather how other performing artists appropriated Meghan Trainor and Kevin Kadish’s song, and covered it in different ways.