Camila Cabello has done it again— she has managed to shock me with her incredible songwriting skills, mastery of mixing styles, and her extraordinary voice.
Cabello’s debut album Camila was released on January 12, 2018. The album was available for preorder on December 7, 2017, along with “Never Be The Same” and “Real Friends,” two of my favorite tracks from this album.
Other songs such as “She Loves Control” and “Inside Out” mix reggaeton and pop in the best way possible. By expanding on her origins in her music, Cabello is bringing new styles to the charts.
Take, for example, lead single from Camila, “Havana.” “Havana” was released on August 3, 2017, as a promotional single, however, due to its extreme success, “Havana” has been labelled as the lead single from Camila.
“Havana” peaked at number two on the Billboard “Hot 100,” and, at seven weeks on the “Hot 100”, Cabello is now the longest reigning female artist in that spot since pop artist Taylor Swift’s 2013 “I Knew You Were Trouble.”
This is no surprise. The “Havana, ooh, na-na-na” is impossible to forget, and the cinematic feel makes me want to get up and dance.
However, as much as I love “Havana,” “Real Friends” is easily my favorite track from this album. The acoustic guitar, not only in just this song, but also repeated throughout the album, feels much more raw, genuine, and humanistic.
“Real Friends” is an introspective track about trying to discover your ‘people.’ Not only relatable to teenagers, but also to adults, “Real Friends” truly brings out the best in Cabello’s lyrics and her personality.
Cabello has said that “every song on [Camilla]… came from something real that happened to [her], or something that [she] felt.”
To see Cabello so involved in the creative process behind her album, unlike some other artists, is very respectable. Cabello also has writing credits on every song from Camila, unlike when she was 1/5 of girl band Fifth Harmony. Cabello has said this is one reason for her split from the band.
Overall, Camila is a very strong album. The acoustic guitar found in “All These Years” and “Consequences” is simple, but it brings light to her fabulous songwriting skills. “In The Dark” and “Never Be The Same” feature grand choruses that you just can’t get out of your head, and Cabello mixes latin influences, reggaeton, and pop wonderfully in “Inside Out” and “She Loves Control.”
Cabello has also garnered 40,000,000+ well-deserved monthly listeners on Spotify, making her the most popular female artist on Spotify. Cabello has also entered Spotify’s top 50 most listened to artists of all time, with 1.7+ billion streams.
With such extreme growth in a short amount of time, I look forward to witnessing what will undoubtedly be Cabello’s future success on the music charts.
