![]() ![]() Seemingly by design Fifth Harmony stifles that sort of individuality. Outside the confines of the collective, Cabello and Jauregui in particular have revealed more distinctive creative impulses, just as we’ve seen from the various One Direction alumni as they’ve launched their respective solo careers. I’m not saying Ally Brooke, Normani Kordei, Dinah Jane, and Lauren Jauregui are ciphers - consult your favorite Harmonizer for a breakdown of skill sets and temperaments - but with or without Cabello, the group dynamic has always overshadowed each member’s specific identity. ![]() (I can’t remember any other Fifth Harmony performances, and I’m someone who likes Fifth Harmony.) It’s aggravating that they are continuing to use the name Fifth Harmony as a four-person group, but otherwise, things seem good?įifth Harmony works so well partially because this group has never been particularly dependent on its individual personalities. They’re also leveraging their own internal drama as best they can I can’t remember a Fifth Harmony performance attracting attention comparable to the buzz around last weekend’s VMAs stunt. Their pointedly self-titled new album, released last week, is as enjoyable as anything they released when Cabello was in the group. ![]() After Zayn Malik left, they released one more album before splintering, and it generated one of their biggest hits, “Drag Me Down.” Similarly, Fifth Harmony are soldiering on without Cabello, and they’re doing pretty well for themselves so far. That’s not what happened with 5H’s commercial/spiritual peers One Direction, though. And historically, with some notable exceptions, the departure of a key member usually means the end of the group. When it comes to girl groups and boy bands, we almost always see it. Thus, with no shortage of acrimony, she left the group a week before Christmas. Not that Cabello’s public profile is anywhere near where JT and Bey were when they went solo or that she’s close to assembling a resume on that level, but her star power certainly was outshining the rest of Fifth Harmony’s by several degrees. They’d built a voracious fan base (seriously, cross the Harmonizers at your own peril), scored some hits (most famously last year’s gloriously campy “Work From Home” with Ty Dolla $ign), and rendered themselves the definitive girl group of their generation, one that synthesized pop, hip-hop, and R&B into consistently entertaining easy-listening fare.īy the time they released their second album, last year’s 7/27, several members were dabbling in solo work, but Cabello was the only one who’d scored a legitimate hit with the 2015 Shawn Mendes duet “I Know What You Did Last Summer.” And when her Machine Gun Kelly collaboration “Bad Things” soared to #4 last fall, matching her group’s best chart position, it was beginning to seem like Fifth Harmony would go down as the act that launched Camila Cabello’s career - just as *NSYNC and Destiny’s Child, although each historically significant and beloved in their own right, are now overshadowed by Justin Timberlake and Beyoncé. Like their counterparts in One Direction, Fifth Harmony were a quintet of former X Factor contestants who’d been assembled into a unit by Simon Cowell and ended up carving out a lucrative career together. Some context: For the past eight months Fifth Harmony have been semi-publicly feuding with Camila Cabello, who had been their best-known member before going solo last December, as the best-known members of pop groups are wont to do. But if the dramatic gesture did not result in any literal wounds, it likely contributed to some longstanding emotional bruising. It was just a stunt, of course no girl-group alumni were harmed in the making of this dance routine. ![]() Seconds later, when the faceless figure at the center of the formation was jerked backward to her apparent doom, they were more likely screaming the way pro wrestling fans respond to a heel turn. For an instant, when five silhouettes appeared atop a platform to begin the performance, Fifth Harmony’s fans (who undoubtedly comprised a large portion of this year’s VMAs audience the Harmonizers roll deep) likely wondered if they were witnessing a reunion of the group’s original lineup. ![]()
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