Fifth Harmony have only been down their most prominent voice for a few months, so it might seem sudden that Camila Cabello’s first solo single is already here. But as she’s previously explained, the time has been long overdue because she’d been writing solo material while with 5H. There are two sides to this debut, beginning with the song that introduces her album’s official first single, “Crying in the Club.†Its video starts instead with the intimate ballad “I Have Questions,†a song Cabello said she wrote a year ago while on tour with Fifth Harmony and feeling “completely broken.†“I was in the kind of pain that’s uncomfortable to talk about, and it was the kind of chapter you never want to read out loud,†she says. Cabello claims she didn’t write another song until she left the group and entered the studio to work on her debut album, the hurting the healing the loving.
“I Have Questions†is appropriately heavy and seems to be directed toward her former bandmates, though it’s a smart enough pop song to be open to multiple interpretations. Cabello releases the tension and immediately cuts to “Crying in the Club,†the hopeful hit she’s been building toward with a string of successful features. It’s exactly what you want to hear in a heatwave like the one currently boiling the Northeast, when the only tears dripping down your face are sweat.