Marcel Winatschek

Crying in the Club

The title said everything: ’Crying In The Club.’ Camila Cabello was out of Fifth Harmony, officially solo, and Sia and Benny Blanco had handed her a song that sounded like every confident-woman-in-pop-music moment of the last five years.

She’d been leaving the group for months before it was official—features with Shawn Mendes and others, solo appearances, the slow drift away. When the split finally happened at the end of 2016, it kicked up drama online the way these things do. But I was mostly curious about what she’d actually sound like on her own.

The song isn’t anything special, just competent pop with a strong voice over it. But that was always the point. Camila was the voice that stopped you when Fifth Harmony came on. The real question was whether she was enough on her own.