Camila Cabello known for her sweet ballads and songs everyone in the family can enjoy, has made a big change with her new album C XOXO. Yet this new bad-girl image doesn’t work. It looks a lot like she’s trying to copy Charli XCX and ends up losing her own touch in her music.
Camila Cabello 27, stirred up some musical drama with “I Luv It,” her first track from her upcoming fourth album. This was a shift for her. With “Havana” in 2017, which rocketed to 10 million US sales, she’s been crafting easy safe Latin-American tunes. Her songs often reached both Radio 2 and Radio 1. Cabello kept some of her old charm from her TV talent show days. She was once in Fifth Harmony, who got famous on the US X Factor. She sticks to clean lyrics aiming to set a good example, as she explained to a reporter in 2019.
The cover art for “C XOXO“.
The art for “C,XOXO” comes from AP.
People said “I Luv It” sounded unique. It was a mix of strong and noisy hyperpop that walked a fine line between catchy and irritating. Plus, it looked a lot like Charli XCX’s song “I Got It” from 2017. When picking out what influenced it, the chorus also seems to pick up a bit from Ariana Grande’s “No Tears Left to Cry.” Charli XCX herself joined in. She posted a TikTok making fun of Cabello’s release video with her own song instead of “I Luv It.” This started a big online fight among hardcore fans.
Camila Cabello seems to be stirring up some debate with her latest music. It looks like she’s changed her style maybe because her previous album Familia didn’t sell too well. When you listen to C XOXO, you won’t find a sweet slow song like Señorita from 2019, the huge hit she sang with her ex-boyfriend Shawn Mendes—and which Charli XCX helped write. The songs that come closest are either the piano-driven B.O.A.T. or the plain June Gloom, which kind of hints at Lana Del Rey’s style just by its name. However, this new album goes for a bare-bones style. It’s just a simple synth or piano and maybe a random sound on top of some beats. Some tunes, like Chanel No.5, are pretty light on melody, or they just grab a catchy bit and repeat it a lot—like in I Luv It or Dream-Girls. It doesn’t seem like Cabello is trying to be a good influence on young girls anymore. She’s singing about how awesome some “Shawty” is, talking about messing around, and asking someone if they make their girl as excited as she can. Her voice, which used to show off a lot and get the crowd excited, has now turned into a kind of mumbled, rap-like way of singing, and she’s using so much AutoTune that it’s hard to understand her.
Cabello’s work is often very different and sometimes even hard to understand. C XOXO has made some strange choices. There’s a song with Drake called Hot Uptown and it’s one of the best on the album. Yet right after it comes ****, another song with Drake where you can hear Cabello. She only sings two words and a bit of quiet backing vocals. Then there’s Pink XOXO, a short break in the album that features PinkPantheress. Since PinkPantheress’s music is short, this song feels like one of hers that got put in by mistake. It’s a nice song with a good tune, but it seems weird and doesn’t fit. Why is it even on the album?
You might want to cheer for an artist who goes for it in today’s safe pop scene, but you end up wondering about Cabello too. She sometimes seems a bit off, like she’s testing a look that doesn’t fit. On “Twentysomethings,” her flat rap sounds like it’s moving too quick for her, and you almost feel she’ll mess up the rhythm, which makes the song a bit stressful when it shouldn’t be.
