Meghan Trainor has won the award for best new artist at the 2016 Grammy awards.

The pop singer has had an exciting 12 months, building on the success of her 2014 breakout hit All About That Bass. She released Title, her major label debut after three independent releases, and watched it top the charts in several countries including the UK and the US. She said she was so honoured to have been nominated for a Grammy that she cried all day after hearing the news.

“[Winning] would mean more than anything I’ve ever done,” she told MTV after the nominations were announced. “I’ve always wanted to be an artist and I didn’t have everyone believe that, even I didn’t believe that … but to be recognised by the Grammys as an artist, and a best new artist, is the top of my whole list in life.”

Writing in the Observer, Kitty Empire said: “There’s a lot to like and to question on Meghan Trainor’s debut album, sung like 21st-century R&B, but imagined in the milk bars of the early 60s, where the Shirelles reigned supreme. The message is self-respect, but it’s the kind dressed in pastels.”

Trainor triumphed in a category that featured competition from Courtney Barnett, James Bay, Sam Hunt and Tori Kelly.