Meghan Trainor’s New Album Brings Her To A Career Low On The Charts

When Meghan Trainor scored her first hit a little more than a decade ago with the body positivity anthem “All About That Bass,” she was heralded as a new kind of pop star. Trainor built her name as a songwriter before launching her own artist career, and she looked to the past to find a sound that wasn’t present in contemporary top 40 pop.

For a time, it seemed that Trainor would become a long-standing hitmaker. Trainor’s debut album Title produced several top 10s on the Billboard Hot 100 and set up her follow-up Thank You to produce multiple smashes as well.

Since those first two albums, things have not been going brilliantly for the Best New Artist Grammy winner. Trainor has had a difficult time landing hit singles, and only one solo cut in the past decade — 2022’s “Made You Look” — has broken into the top 40 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Trainor’s albums have experienced something of a rise and fall as well. Some of her releases were labeled commercially underwhelming when they debuted, though they managed to at least peak within the top 40.

This week, Trainor’s latest album, Toy With Me, debuts on several Billboard charts, including the Billboard 200. As it launches, the pop musician establishes a new and quite disappointing all-time career low.

Toy With Me Debuts Almost at the Bottom of the Billboard 200

The Billboard 200 is the weekly ranking of the 200 most-consumed albums and EPs in America. The tally ranks sets based on both sales and streaming activity, with the two combined by the company using its signature methodology to create equivalent units.

Toy With Me debuts at No. 198, in third-to-last place. According to Luminate, Trainor’s seventh proper album opens with a little more than 9,700 equivalent units shifted.

Title and Thank You Remain Meghan Trainor’s Biggest Wins

Throughout her career, Trainor has pushed eight releases to the Billboard 200, and Toy With Me is far and away her worst performer. The singer’s latest is her only project to fail to crack the upper half of the 200-space rundown.

Before this week, A Very Trainor Christmas stood as her lowest-peaking album. That holiday effort, which debuted in November 2020, climbed to a No. 89 peak the following January.

Trainor’s first two albums, Title and Thank You, both broke into the top 10. The first of that pair spent one frame at No. 1 in January 2015, while Thank You stalled at No. 3 the following summer.

Toy With Me Debuts as a Vinyl Bestseller

Toy With Me earns Trainor only her third career placement on the Vinyl Albums chart, and just like on the Billboard 200, none of her releases have stalled in a lower spot. Toy With Me opens at No. 22. Previously, Timeless and Title surged as high as No. 13 and No. 14, respectively.

Toy With Me Misses the Top 10 on the Top Album Sales List

Toy With Me also manages to arrive on the Top Album Sales chart. That ranking focuses entirely on purchases, whether they be on physical formats such as CD, cassette, and vinyl or via download stores like iTunes and other competitors.

Toy With Me opens at No. 13, its loftiest placement on any of the three Billboard tallies where it debuts this time around. Luminate reports that Toy With Me sold a little less than 6,450 copies.

Toy With Me is not one of Trainor’s highest-rising hits on the Top Album Sales chart, but it does not come in last place, as the project manages on both the Billboard 200 and Vinyl Albums rankings. Several other releases, including the Title EP — separate from the full-length of the same name — A Very Trainor Christmas, and the Love Train EP peaked at No. 15, No. 16, and No. 37, respectively.

Toy With Me is Trainor’s first non-holiday studio LP to fail to enter the top 10 on the most competitive sales ranking in the country.