December 2019 - Music

Album of the Month - Romance by Camila Cabello


There was a lot of pressure on Camila Cabello when she released her debut album, ‘Camila’, back in early 2018. After weeks of speculation, it had been announced in 2016 that she’d done a Timberlake and left her girl group, Fifth Harmony, to go solo. In the months that followed, she released a handful of collaborative singles – to lukewarm reception.

But when she released ‘Havana’, everything changed. The slinky, salsa-flecked tune soared up charts worldwide and was nominated for a Grammy. Cabello, it seemed, could more than cut it on her own.

‘Camila’ proved that Cabello excelled under pressure. A collection of tight, Latin influenced pop songs, it further established her as a genuine solo artist. She’s since supported Taylor Swift on one of the biggest international tours of all time and headed back to the studio to work on her follow-up record

Cabello’s honeyed vocals soar throughout. She’s more than capable of producing earth-shatteringly big pop tunes, but on ‘Romance’ she has attempted to expand her palette into more textured ballads. She’s more comfortable in the former territory, but here is an artist unafraid to explore terrain that is, to her, less well-known.