Taken from this week’s Future Pop mailer. Click here to subscribe.
Fifth Harmony may be new to most Brits, but they actually formed only a year after Little Mix (LM had four albums in the time 5H had two). This puts the members in a weird position where they’re ready to move on at a time when their career has only just got going. Their current era is their most successful yet, with Work From Home the defining hit of their career, but even casual fans are aware the chances of them making another album are small. They’ve given up hiding their unhappiness in the band, openly recording solo music and fulfilling promo duties alone or in pairs. Camila Cabello led the charge before the band had even reached album two, duetting with Shawn Mendes on the hit I Know What You Did Last Summer. She has her own manager (a co-founder of successful independent(ish) label 300), and has recently released a second collaboration, with rapper Machine Gun Kelly. At this point, she’s basically a featured artist in Fifth Harmony, and her solo launch is not an “if,” but a “when.” Camila has a big fan following, an irritating but certainly distinctive vocal, and counts Diplo and Taylor Swift among her friends. The question is whether that will be enough to continue the momentum Fifth Harmony had gained on her own.