Going solo

On Dec. 19, 2016, Camila Cabello left Fifth Harmony. The world was—as the kids are saying—“shook” by the news. “How could Camila leave the most popular girl group in the world?” people cried. “Is the band through?” “Are they going to change their name to Fourth Harmony now?” The latter two questions are easy to answer. Fifth Harmony will continue as Fifth Harmony, despite missing their most famous member. In all likelihood, they will release one more album. Maybe it will be slightly hollow, a desperate attempt to capture the group at its full majesty. Whatever the case, after its release, Normani Kordei, Dinah Jane Hansen, Ally Brooke, and Lauren Jauregui will scatter to the corners of the Earth to craft their own solo material. As for Cabello—well, that’s the fun part.

Going solo is a time-honored tradition that many major bands and singing groups throughout history have had to endure. Phil Collins and Genesis. Justin Timberlake and N’Sync. Mark Wahlberg and New Kids on the Block. Zayn and One Direction. It is a tale as old as pop itself, and I’m sure in three years we will all be distraught when Calum leaves 5 Seconds of Summer or Mystery leaves BoyzWhoLike2Dance. The culture of celebrity primes us to be upset by this upending of the status quo. Just two years ago, Zayn Malik’s departure from One Direction left a fan base reeling, grasping for stability from a band they never thought would dissolve. But they always do. While I was researching this note, I couldn’t find a boy band or girl group that had lasted more than ten years with their original lineup fully intact. We should be conditioned to expect this at a certain point, yet so many of us aren't.

Cabello knew that girl groups weren’t meant to last, and Cabello knew she was a star. So far, she is the only current or former member of Fifth Harmony with two Top 20 hits to her name outside of the group (the Shawn Mendes duet “I Know What You Did Last Summer” and the Machine Gun Kelly-featuring smash “Bad Things”), and she usually received the prime “center spot” in all of Fifth Harmony’s live performances. Here’s a hot take—Camila Cabello isn’t the best singer in Fifth Harmony. In fact, she might be the worst. Cabello has a Grande-esque range, but her timbre is pinched and nasal compared to the warm tones of the rest of the group. However, this is to her credit and benefit. You can’t pick the other four vocalists’ voices out of a lineup, but you always can tell when Cabello is singing.

Thus, Cabello is primed for her own breakout path. Going solo is an exciting time for an artist recently freed from the confines of a group, a time where one can establish oneself as a new pop vanguard or flame out into mediocre chart placement and supporting gigs for bigger stars. The floor for this phenomenon is fairly low. Take Nicole Scherzinger. The former star of The Pussycat Dolls, Scherzinger struck out in the early 2010s in search of chart-conquering success, only to bottom out with a series of minor hits in the UK and getting fired from judging the low-rated US version of "The X Factor."  If the floor is low, the ceiling is astronomically high. Beyoncé left Destiny’s Child, and now she is arguably the most famous singer in the world, a cultural iconoclast in every sense of the word.

Cabello will not be a Beyoncé, nor will she stoop to the level of Nicole Scherzinger. She’ll probably fall somewhere in that vast middle alongside Cheryl Cole, Posh Spice, Zayn, or any of the other former One Direction members. Her level of success will depend on the musical direction she takes. If she leans in too hard into building a base and pleasing former Fifth Harmony fans, she runs the risk of becoming indistinguishable from her former group. She would be solo in name but not in spirit. On the other hand, going too far in a different musical direction would be weird but alienating to that core base. Weird isn’t necessarily bad—mainstream pop has gotten a little staid the past few years—but it certainly wouldn’t provide the level of mainstream success she certainly craves.

Ultimately, the onus to make or break an artist falls on us as fans. Going solo is especially tricky for any artist because they come with the burden of preexisting expectations. Cabello’s departure has set herself up for a public reckoning of sorts. Her audiences wants her to triumph, while her detractors need her to fail as justification that Fifth Harmony was perfect just the way it was. I don’t envy Cabello. Even though she’s already a star, the next few months will be crucial to her success as an artist. By the end of the year, we will be able to see whether her big gambit for autonomy ends up creating the next big pop star or a legendary bust.