A little over a year since beginning her solo career, on Jan. 12, Cabello released her first album.
Cabello’s highlights are her unique and soft voice with slow beats and clever lyrics. Cabello includes varying styles in the album, the soft and slow song all these years, her upbeat collaboration with Young Thug, “Havana,” and the dark, moody song “Something’s Gotta Give.”
The variety of the album is perfect for a first solo album because she is really showing the exploration period she is going through with her voice and what she can do with it. The different songs all fit together and create an album that is strong, the individual and separate styles highlight the different ways Cabello’s voice can work.
However, it is very clear that the album is experimental and many songs sound similar to regular pop hit songs from artists like Ellie Golding and Sia. Nevertheless, Cabello has shown great potential in this album and set herself up for a great solo career.
Cabello’s use of soft backup singers throughout “Never Be The Same” almost brings back similar tunes from when she sang with Fifth Harmony. Camila Cabello began her rise to fame during the second season of the American TV show X Factor. She was placed into the group Fifth Harmony, which would later drop multiple hit songs and sell out arenas. Camila always stuck out. Even during the X Factor show, judge Demi Lovato brought attention to how Camila was holding the group together.
In December of 2016, Camila Cabello left the group and made the decision to become a solo artist. Throughout 2017, she released multiple hit singles like “Crying in the Club,” “Havana” and “Know No Better.” She gained more attention throughout 2017 by making collaborations like “I Know What You Did Last Summer” with Shawn Mendes, and her “Bad Things” collaboration with Machine Gun Kelly.
She also made the album a whole reflection of herself, which is shown through her song Havana. Havana really shows how she is celebrating her Cuban heritage and her culture. The attention to little details like this makes the album an ever more accurate reflection of her personality, and it’s perfect for her first solo album.