At only 20 years old, Camila Cabello, former member of the girl group Fifth Harmony, released her self titled album, CAMILA, early this year. Coming from a girl group, Camila had to show the world she could essentially “make it” on her own. As her single “Havana” took over the charts, more and more people started to recognize her as a talented solo artist, instead of the girl who left Fifth Harmony.
Camila Cabello auditioned as a solo artist for the U.S version of The XFactor in 2012 at 15 years old. After failing to move onward in the competition, Camila, along with four other female contestants, was put into a group by the judges. They proceeded as a group, naming themselves 1432 and went on to the “judges house” part of the competition. After singing in front of Simon Cowell, and special guest Marc Anthony, they let them know they would be moving forward to the live shows. As they made it on to the show, they announced they changed their name to L.Y.L.A.S and later on changed it once again to Fifth Harmony.
After being eliminated and placing third in the competition, the group remained popular and went on to sign under Simon Cowell’s record label SyCo. They released their first album, “Better Together” in 2013. “Better Together” consisted of bubbly, happy, generic pop songs. The songs were very catch, especially for their fanbase, but it was very different from songs they had covered in the past. Their second album, “Reflection” had a more grown up sound than the first album, but was still geared toward a younger audience. From this album, the song that made Fifth Harmony a well known girl group, is “Worth It” featuring Kid Ink. After that they released their third album “7/27”, which helped them make a bigger mark in the music industry. This album had three singles on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. These songs were “That’s My Girl”, “Flex” and “Work From Home”.
During her time in Fifth Harmony, Camila would venture out and write her own songs with other artists on her time off. She eventually released many singles as a solo artist featuring other artist, such as Machin Gun Kelly in “Bad Things”, Shawn Mendes in “I Know What You Did Last Summer” and many others. This started a bit of a shift between Camila and the rest of Fifth Harmony. On December 18, 2016, after Fifth Harmony’s pre-recorded set on “Dick Clark's New Year’s Rockin’ Eve”, the group announced that Camila would no longer be a part of Fifth Harmony, but they would remain as a four-piece. Soon after, Camila went to the studio, started writing her own songs and then released a few songs before finishing her album. Her song “Havana” was what you could say her turning point to higher success. It was massively popular, and it still is. It peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Soon after, she was on tour with Bruno Mars as one of the opening acts, giving her a bit of a platform to reintroduce her self as a solo artist, and not just and ex member of a girl group. After touring, Camila eventually finished writing her album and released on January of this year. Her album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart.
CAMILA by Camila is one of my favorite albums released within the past five years. Her album is one of the few in which I absolutely love every single song. This album could be described as a diary that sums a few parts of her life up. We hear emotions of happiness, sadness, anger and more. Just by listening, one can come to the conclusion that the lyrics of every single song in this album were well thought of and came from personal experience. She talks about situations she has been in and things she has felt, and they are things her fans can very well resonate with. Not only that, but this album contains several different sounds such as some that stem from her latin roots to acoustics to stripped down piano. This album has a little bit of everything, but it is definitely different from her work with Fifth Harmony.
“Real Friends” is the seventh track off of CAMILA, and one of the first two tracks released as a sneak peak for fans before the release of the album. The song starts out with Camila’s soft and low voice accompanied by a steady guitar strum, which catches your attention as soon as the song starts. She starts off by singing “No I think I’ll stay in tonight. Skip the conversations and the ‘oh i’m fines’.” Camila decides to take time for herself and avoids being with ‘friends’ and faking the conversations she would have with them. Throughout the song she sings on her chorus, “I’m just looking for some real friends. All they ever do is let me down every time I let somebody in. Then I find out what they’re all about.” Although she believed the friendships she made were genuine and real, she then learned they weren’t being friendly with her for her best interest. Some people just want to be friends because of who she is, and other than that they are not there for her. She gives us insight on this part of her life, in which she struggles to make true friends.
“Havana” is the fourth song of off ‘CAMILA’ and it is her second single as a solo artist. Despite that, it is the song that led her to larger success in the music industry. In interviews, Camila always speaks about how proud she is of her Cuban and Mexican heritage. This song pays homage to her home country, Cuba, with the name of Cuba’s capital, Havana, being the title of the song, and with Latin instruments and beats throughout the song. This song also features Young Thug, which received a lot of criticism because people felt like it was very random. Personally, I think it gives it an element of surprise because it is something you would not have expected from this song. This song has had success in Spanish as well. Soon after Havana gained loads of success, Camila partnered up with Daddy Yankee, a well known reggeaton artist, and released a Spanish Version of Havana. This version also received a lot of success, and was immediately played on Spanish- speaking radio stations.
Through this album, Camila was able to express herself and it can be heard in every song. Her emotions can be heard, and felt through her vocals, both strong and soft in every song. ‘CAMILA’ contains lyrics that were beautifully written and sounds that were very well produced. This album is basically her in its entirety, there is only one song that features another artist, Havana, but other than that, it’s all her. ‘CAMILA’ is definitely one of the best albums this year, and it is an album that should be given more credit. At such a young age, Camila has proved she is an artist who is proud and uses her platform as an advantage to talk about her culture. She has also proven she is capable of something other artists have been working towards their whole life. At only 21, she has her name on the writing credits of every single song on her DEBUT album. She opened up her heart and soul to share with the whole world, something many older people would not do. Camila is very successful today, and I have no doubt she will do bigger things as she progresses in her career. Personally I am hoping for an album in Spanish. I think many people would go crazy, in a good way, for it.