The trio has racked up a cool 6.8 million “likes” on Facebook. But the “like” Rascal Flatts is most excited about these days is its new single, “I Like the Sound of That.”
With its big, sing-along chorus, smart harmonies, and an identifiable hook, there’s plenty to like about its chances of a long chart life. It doesn’t hurt, either, that there’s a marketable personality behind it. Two of the title’s three songwriters are successful artists in their own right: Nashville-based pop singer Meghan Trainor and Dan + Shay lead vocalist Shay Mooney. Both are major Rascal Flatts fans -- particularly Mooney, whose tenor resonance and phrasing have drawn frequent comparisons to Flatts frontman Gary LeVox since “19 You + Me” introduced Dan + Shay nationally in 2013.
...
Mooney’s similarities to LeVox were advantageous. Mooney, Trainor and co-writer Jesse Frasure (“Crash and Burn,” “Sun Daze”) actually landed two songs on Flatts’ Rewind album -- “I Like the Sound of That” and “DJ Tonight” -- in part because Mooney’s performances eliminated any questions about the material’s compatibility.
...
The seeds for “Like” were actually sown a year or two before when Frasure and Trainor became musical penpals. Still living in Nantucket, Mass., at the time, Trainor had garnered attention from Big Yellow Dog owner/GM Carla Wallace, who lined up some long-distance co-writers, including Frasure, whose pop sensibilities were a good match for the “All About That Bass” singer.
“She wrote to a few of my pop tracks and then sent me the vocals to mix them and they were awesome -- full-blown [background vocals], great tracks, great hooks,” says Frasure. “We wrote via email for quite a while. Then she started coming to town for prolonged periods of time, and we started doing some collaboration.”
Trainor and Frasure co-wrote with Mooney for the first time on June 18, 2013, banging out “DJ Tonight” a year before “All About That Bass” was released and three months before Dan + Shay launched publicly. The writing trio reconvened on Jan. 22, 2014 -- a month before Trainor signed with Epic -- and Mooney played a big part in laying the groundwork for that day’s efforts.
He and Frasure arrived at Major Bob Music on Nashville’s 17th Avenue before Trainor made it in, and Mooney concocted an upbeat guitar groove. Frasure, in turn, started building a track on his laptop that they could use to sustain the tempo and energy in the room, and when Trainor arrived with her ukulele, they all flipped through lists of potential titles on their phones for one with the right mood. Mooney had logged “I Like the Sound of That” months earlier.
...
“You have Shay and Meghan singing their asses off, and you aren’t touching the Auto-Tuner, ever,” says Frasure. “You just have them sing a couple passes, so we built that thing up and it was done, out the door.”
Neither Trainor nor Mooney had the song in mind for their own careers as artists, so Razor & Tie vp music publishing/creative Brad Kennard (a Big Yellow Dog exec at the time) got the song to Big Machine Label Group senior vp A&R Allison Jones, who in turn passed it to DeMarcus. LeVox and Flatts guitarist Joe Don Rooney bought into it, too, though the original lyrics in the second verse -- which suggested the couple’s love sounds were so loud that they annoyed the neighbors -- were over the line for the band.
Meghan is coming with her first country hit! "I Like the Sound of That" by Rascal Flatts is currently charting at #42 on the Hot Country Songs Chart and #35 on Country Airplay and is rising.
The Title () was more so alluding to the fact that Taylor appears to no longer be the only girl with pop AND country appeal. Also, her label Big Machine Records is mentioned.
The Title () was more so alluding to the fact that Taylor appears to no longer be the only girl with pop AND country appeal. Also, her label Big Machine Records is mentioned.
when will your faves? 
) was more so alluding to the fact that Taylor appears to no longer be the only girl with pop AND country appeal. Also, her label Big Machine Records is mentioned.