New (slang?) meaning of bass?

I have come across the song "About that bass" by Meghan Trainor, and was wondering what "bass" and "treble" mean in the chorus, which goes:

Because you know I'm all about that bass, 'Bout that bass no treble

Pairing with treble suggests a musical meaning (low pitch vs. high pitch - treble), but it doesn't fit the song at all in my eyes, so I was wondering if those two terms have another (slang-ish?) meaning here, which it is and how it came about. Anyone knows?

Solution 1:

bass is being used metaphorically to refer to the buttocks. I think the juxtaposition of bass and treble refers to the clefs in musical notation: the bass cleff is on the bottom, the treble cleff is on the top, and bottom is another euphemism for the butt, while top is often used to refer to a woman's breasts. And the low and high tones can represent the physical locations of these parts of the body.

I'm not a student of current slang, so I don't know if this is common or introduced by this song.

Solution 2:

"All About That Bass" is about the attractiveness of full-figured women, to whom bass clearly applies here. The song and its music video emphasize "booty" (large hips and buttocks), so we might suppose that bass = booty; i.e., lower notes correspond to the lower body.

I would offer a different interpretation, however. If bass corresponds to the lower body, then treble must correspond to the upper body--but since women with large hips tend to have large bosoms as well, why would Meghan Trainor sing that she's "all about that bass, no treble"? I believe, therefore, that bass and treble correspond more closely to large people and skinny people in general, in keeping with the hoary comedic association between fat people and tubas and similar slapstick gags.

But of course the real explanation is that it doesn't really need an explanation, because we all pretty much got the idea right away, didn't we? Chalk it up to artistic license, and always remember that every inch of you is perfect from the bottom to the top.

Solution 3:

According to Trainor herself, it's a reference to the difference between the shape of a bass and treble guitar. A treble guitar is about the same width on the bottom and the top, while a bass guitar is much bigger on the bottom. Thus it's about having a big booty.

Solution 4:

Per http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/how-meghan-trainor-became-2014s-most-unlikely-pop-star-20141027:

My producer Kevin [Kadish] had the title "All Bass, No Treble," but he hadn't figured out what to relate it to. And I was like, "What about booty?"

So the association was indeed coined with that song, indeed after the title had already been arrived at in the brain-storming that went into the song-writing.

Solution 5:

After Listening to another one of her songs I have come to the conclusion that she is most likely referring to "bass" as her lower half (meaning not just her actual bottom but the vagina as well) or base, which really makes "treble" then stand to reason to be referring to oral sex. She is all about that bass meaning she prefers to have sex and "no treble" would mean no blow jobs. So the song may sound more like "I'm all about that sex, bout that sex, bout that sex, no blow jobs" If not for the clever wording. If you think that this is a ridiculous assumption just go listen to "Lips are moving" and see if you can't make the same conclusion.