Little Boots on how the music industry treats female artists: 'I had no input on my body being distorted to look thinner'

Little Boots on how Meghan Trainor's photoshopped waist epitomises the music industry's treatment of female artists

US singer-songwriter Meghan Trainor (Getty Images)

You can imagine the panic spreading across Meghan Trainor’s team earlier this week, when fans spotted and started reposting shots from Trainor’s new video “Me Too” in which her waist had been very obviously digitally reduced. “How did we miss this? HOW? Who signed off on this? They’re gonna get it. Yes the label’s saying it was management. Management’s blaming the label. The editor said he just did as he was told. No, the director’s in Mexico already on Ariana. Meghan just wants to have whoever’s head it was on a stick. Someone get Vevo on the phone, like NOW!”

For an artist whose entire shtick is based around celebrating the more curvaceous female form with songs like “All About That Bass“ this could be career suicide. Her biggest hit literally calls out the use of Photoshop, and despite some criticising Trainor’s opportunistic take on en vogue “faux” feminism, personally I’m relieved there’s at least one less greased up bikini clad size six chanteuse just to give me a bit of variety when I’m sweating on the treadmill watching The Box telling myself all my problems will melt away if I can just get that thin.

With Trainor’s new album due in a week, cynics claimed this was all a bit too fortunate timing, and a strategically constructed press stunt. But in reality, anyone with a cursory knowledge of a major label marketing department will tell you it's unlikely that much blue sky thinking went into an artist like Meghan's campaign. For a video that begins with Meghan somewhat refreshingly jumping around in a giraffe onesie brushing her teeth and driving a car with her girlfriend whilst some men bop around in the back, purposely photoshopping the final dance scene just to cause a stir does seem a bit long winded.

It is difficult to believe that simply no one noticed until fans picked up on this. But I think this is testament to how desensitised we've become to these warped pop images. This stuff is nothing new, but I’m not sure if people really realise the extent to which image manipulation happens, especially in pop music videos and even more so with female artists. I remember a music video director once telling me “You should have seen Beyonce’s ass before we got in the edit”. From personal experience I had a shot I requested to remove once from a video as I thought I looked flat chested (why I was bothered by this and not more focussed on whether the song and video itself were any good is just further proof of how deep these anxieties run). Before I knew it, there’d been a quick-fix augmentation and I was told the director was insisting on keeping the shot in, although in retrospect I’m not entirely sure this was the case. I’ve had other episodes where I had literally no input on my body being distorted or stretched to look taller and thinner, and photos running to print. It is very difficult as you feel you are not in control of your own body or how it's being represented, and have heard countless stories from other artists, it being well known how widespread this practice is. You only need to glance across Meghan Trainor’s artwork discography and you will struggle to find an image that hasn’t been retouched in some way.

The problem is the music industry just can’t help itself. These tactics run so deep, the pop rule book is out of date but still referred to especially at major labels, and they just can’t seem to shake the notion of how pop stars should or shouldn’t look. If someone sees the opportunity to meddle or ‘fix’ something, they probably will, and this will just be thought of as doing their job properly. The music industry is being slowly grabbed kicking and screaming into the future, with the last few major labels being pulled last digging their nails into the floor. Even if artists are allowed to be “different”, if you look closely you’ll still see how they fit into vague tropes or stereotypes, the “curvy” like Meghan or Adele, the “pixi”’ like Grimes, “kooky” Florence or “girl next door” Ellie Goulding or Carly Rae Jepsen.

I actually think it can be seen as a small triumph that, assuming this was a genuine error, Meghan and her team insisted the video be removed and re-posted quickly in its original form. It arguably turned what could have been a swift curtain call to fairly brief pop-life, into a move of empowerment. Or if this was all just an elaborately engineered publicity stunt I’m still glad it hit the headlines, and that the discussion of body image and manipulation has that comes with it. Every time something like this is called out it helps demystify the process and expose what's really at work in the continual production of body images that add up to create the constant pressure most women feel about their body. So stunt or no stunt I for one enjoyed seeing Meghan in her full glory busting out a classic dance line up routine, with every frequency intact!

Little Boots' new EP Afterhours will be released in June via On Repeat Records.

Victoria is currently developing LOOP, an alternative city guide app curated by musicians