FEATURE:
Second Spin
Fifth Harmony - Fifth Harmony
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IT is a shame that…
the American girl group Fifth Harmony are not together anymore. One of the last great examples, I wanted to spend some time with their eponymous 2017 album. I could have included this in Revisiting… - as I look at underrated albums from the past five years -, but it felt right putting it in Second Spin instead. Released on 25th August, 2017, this is perhaps the last we might hear of Fifth Harmony. They are on an indefinite hiatus. Fifth Harmony was the first album without one of its original members, Camila Cabello. She has gone on to massive solo success, in a way that fellow members Ally Brooke, Dinah Jane, Lauren Jauregui and Normani Kordei have not. If many critics do not rate Fifth Harmony up there with their 2015 album, Reflection, they need to reassess. Despite the fact the group released three albums that covered a couple of years, they established themselves as one of the best girl groups (a term I still hate) of their generation. Let’s hope they do return one day, as there are scant examples of the type of music they were putting out. Very few girl groups anyway.
I will come to one of the most positive reviews for Fifth Harmony. If the eponymous title suggests the group were more themself or confident as a quartet, it is clear that Cabello’s departure was a big blow. Many did not see the departure coming. After releasing the second studio album, 7.27, in 2016, the group embarked on a tour. It was a week before Christmas Day 2016 that the group announced Camila Cabello has left the group. They wanted to release another album with her on it, but it seems that she wanted to go solo. Her career has really exploded, Whilst it can be a transition and often the end for a group when a member left – think about Spice Girls and the departure of Geri -, it can also tighten their bond. I feel Fifth Harmony is an album that has many highlights. The lead single, Down, is one of the best of their career. Deliver and Angel are other standouts. At ten tracks and just over half an hour running time, Fifth Harmony is a tight album that warranted better. Maybe some felt there was disconnection or something missing. A little bit of that additional magic that Camila Cabello brought to the fold. I feel Fifth Harmony’s eponymous album was a strong reaction to a very difficult time. They did an interview with Billboard that actually explained more about Cabello’s exist and some of the wrangler around that. The 2017 interview gives more context to Fifth Harmony, and where the group’s future ambitions were at the time:
“But those are all tales of an earlier era, before 2016, the group’s biggest year yet — and the one that ended in shambles when, exhausted and unfulfilled, 5H lost Camila Cabello to a solo career. Last year’s 7/27 debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard 200, propelled by “Work From Home,” the first top 10 Billboard Hot 100 hit from a girl group in nearly a decade. But the acrimonious December split made even bigger news, with 5H accusing Cabello of quitting through her reps, and Cabello denying the accusations. It was… awkward.
“Try experiencing it,” retorts Jauregui when I volunteer as much. The rest of the group, as it so often does, rushes in to complete her thought. “I was literally going to say that,” Kordei quickly adds. “I get to sleep at night knowing we did everything in our power as friends, bandmates and human beings” to make it work. Then Hernandez: “You can’t change people.” And finally, Hansen: “Let’s just say we’re in a better place now — there are no secrets in this circle.”
IN THIS PHOTO: Lauren Jauregui/PHOTO CREDIT: Joe Pugliese
Jauregui admits she nearly threw up from anxiety before the downsized 5H’s first performance, at the People’s Choice Awards in January. But today, the members are quick to (literally) high-five each other as they talk about their ongoing 7/27 Tour, the first in which they’ve built in real downtime, and a third album, due later this year on Epic. “Honestly, in this very moment, we could not be happier,” says Hernandez with more assertiveness than the Pollyanna-ish cheer that’s her trademark. Their first new single as a foursome, “Down” — a neon-edged dancehall bubbler featuring a warmly romantic verse from Gucci Mane (“Got me showing off my [engagement] ring like I’m Jordan”) — reached No. 42 on the Hot 100. Meanwhile, Cabello’s “Crying in the Club,” which entered the charts two weeks earlier, peaked at No. 47. Both are still active on the Mainstream Top 40 list.
“Crying in the Club” is a wide-screen, Sia-style ballad and “Down” is an airy dance track, but the two have more in common than just a chart trajectory: They’re both grown-up songs for longtime professional “girls” now expected to be seductive women. The 5H video, which racked up 21.6 million views in two weeks, even seems to offer some sly commentary on this, with the group pulling up to a seedy motel and writhing on beds in separate rooms. But the women have come up with their own narrative for the lyrics, which came to them from “Work From Home” co-creators Ammo and DallasK, and include “You the type that I could bake for/’Cause baby, you know how to take that cake” — as well as the chorus, “Long as you’re holding me down/I’m going to keep loving you down.”
“We dedicate it to each other,” says Hansen. “We’ve been together five years, so that message is powerful to us. We’ve been there for each other through ups and downs.” Hernandez hits her with an “Amen.”
IN THIS PHOTO: Normani Kordei/PHOTO CREDIT: Joe Pugliese
The single is only a slice of what’s to come, because for the first time, 5H is co-writing its songs — over half, in fact, of those destined for the new album. Since January, it has been holding songwriting camps between tour stops, mostly at Windmark Recording, just two miles from here. The group typically breaks into pairs, then takes turns with that day’s writers and producers like 5H alums Monsters & Strangerz and pop and R&B producers Harmony Samuels (Ariana Grande) and Sebastian Kole (Alessia Cara).
“It’s not like they came in at the end and started riffing,” says Leah Haywood of Dreamlab, which has two songs on the album. “We sat and wrote verses together, because they’re empowered women who want to be pushing the agenda.” Justin Bieber’s go-to hook man Poo Bear, who worked with Skrillex on a 5H session, adds, “I was pretty blown away. They were hungry and excited and seemed like they had a serious new point to prove.”
In March, Jauregui shared photos from a November “coming-out” shoot, as photographer Nicole Cartolano characterized it to MTV, with her then-girlfriend Lucy Vives (daughter of Colombian singer Carlos Vives). Her sexual identity has since cropped up in her music. Jauregui briefly made an appearance on the Hot 100 as a guest on Halsey’s “Strangers,” which, as a duet about an it’s-complicated same-sex romance, has inspired more than a few think pieces.
Jauregui’s openness speaks not only to the accepting nature of 5H but also to the potential for a mainstream girl group in an era where many minorities feel under attack. 5H is still a place for purity rings. Hernandez is wearing a “TRUE LOVE WAITS” band. She and Kordei identify as Christian, while Hansen is Mormon. But all insist Jauregui’s expression is “supported.” And Jauregui, who believes in “the universe and a god source, like an energy,” seems content with this. But asked if she would be comfortable singing about a relationship with a woman in a 5H song, she says she doesn’t know, “because it has to do with me personally. It doesn’t speak for everyone in the group, which is its own entity as an artist. That’s the whole reason for doing your own thing”.
I will finish off with a review from Rolling Stone. I do think that more of the reviews would be positive in nature if they came out now. Fifth Harmony has more than a few golden moments. One cannot really fault the quartet throughout. After losing one of their members, they show strength and resilience on an album that warrants a second spin:
“The dramatic departure of Fifth Harmony’s Camila Cabello couldn’t have come at a riskier time for the girl group: Last year, mega-hit “Work From Home” became their first Top 10 single, establishing the group as a Top 40 force to be reckoned with. Now a foursome, they have learned what works: a healthy dose of danger mixed with ego-boosting empowerment anthems. They keep spirits and energy high with muted trop house and hip-hop beats on their third album. Sexy lead single “Down,” featuring Gucci Mane, sets the tone while the Skrillex and Poo Bear-produced “Angel” goes hard with heavy bass and trap-leaning hi-hats as the singers ask for complexity: “When you look at me, what do you see?/I’m more brilliant than you’ll ever be.” Elsewhere, they instigate a party on the raucous “Sauced Up” and assert themselves in romantic relationships with infectious jams like “Make You Mad” and “Don’t Say You Love Me.” It’s the group’s most cohesive album yet and a satisfying introduction to what Fifth Harmony can be capable of in their new era”.
If you are unfamiliar with the work of Fifth Harmony, I would advise you to listen to their three studio albums and check them out. A brief but impactful girl group who we hope have not called time for good, they definitely left their mark. 2017’s Fifth Harmony is a great album that, whilst not their absolute strongest, has plenty of excellent tracks alongside one or two filler cuts. If they called time with Fifth Harmony, they bowed out with…
QUITE a bang!