It’s ironic, when considering the theme of Camila Cabello’s third album, Familia, that the entire basis of her rise to pop superstardom was founded on a declaration of independence from Fifth Harmony. Something she mentions with artful shade in the “psychofreak” lyrics, “I been on this ride since I was fifteen/I don’t blame the girls for how it went down, down/Thinkin’ out loud.”
With that first “declaration of independence,” Camila, released in 2018, Cabello was making good on her risk to leave the group, providing bop after bop (including, of course, “Havana”). Nonetheless, like Geri Halliwell before her, Cabello became an easy target to vilify (and not merely because of her grotesquely racist Tumblr posts—we’re talking about shit that makes Doja Cat seem like a Girl Scout). After all, she broke up a good thing and, like “Ginger” with the Spice Girls, chose to dip out of the group after just two albums with Fifth Harmony (Reflection and 7/27—the latter named in honor of the date they were formed via The X Factor). It was also, like the Spice Girls, a matter of the five women being “thrown together” for the sake of creating a pop group that could generate some cash. Albeit Britney Spears had a strong hand in orchestrating Fifth Harmony’s existence as a group, being a key The X Factor judge and all back in 2012. So, if her conservatorship did nothing else, it at least… brought Fifth Harmony into the world?
And, while Normani and Lauren Jauregui have also both had their own solo successes after Cabello set the precedent, it is the latter who has long been the clear standout of the group’s original members (with Dinah Jane being the, let’s face it, Mel B of the group in terms of memorable solo output). Not only because Camila aimed to establish her skill in both up-tempo dance/pop and earnest ballads, but because Cabello has been careful and deliberate in the business of coming into her own as a musician. This included songs like “In the Dark,” which established a trend in vocals also manifested by Bebe Rexha that same year with her own debut, Expectations.
Like all of Cabello’s album covers, apparently, 2019’s Romance, too, would showcase the chanteuse in a sitting position—this time in a vibrant red “señorita” skirt (as the whites would call it) and matching red crop top. Her feet plunging into an ocean, an art gallery backdrop (with other “romantics” behind her) lends the air of magical realism fitting of a title like Romance. And, as anyone familiar with romance knows, there’s no better song to kick off such an album than one called “Shameless.” For that’s what displays of love entail. And Cabello would know, as it was the highest-charting single placed on the album, “Señorita,” that would lead her into a very PDA-laden relationship with Shawn Mendes. The two were, resultantly, inseparable and ubiquitous in 2019—high on the chemistry established by the song and video, as well as the runaway success of the single. That high reached a comedown by November 2021, perhaps after too much time spent together during the pandemic’s quarantine phase. So it was that both Cabello and Mendes jointly posted a missive that read: “Hey guys, we’ve decided to end our romantic relationship but our love for one another as humans is stronger than ever.” And yet, Cabello’s pain over the relationship’s demise still warranted a proverbial “breakup album.”
Is it anything quite as pointed and direct in that regard as Lorde’s Melodrama or Ariana Grande’s thank u, next? Probably not. But that’s because Cabello, for the first time in her discography, is addressing the concept of interdependence. A decidedly “European notion” (except in the U.K.) we all came to understand whether we wanted to or not throughout 2020 and even in the present, as ‘rona continues to rage. For, although everyone was told to isolate and stay away from other people, there was a sudden revelation, particularly in the United States, that everyone was ultimately interconnected and reliant upon each other for “success” in this world (i.e., not further spreading a contagion by doing the humane thing and both quarantining and masking when in the public space).
Essentially eleven tracks like her debut album (unless you really want to count the seventeen-second “Familia” as a song), Cabello introduces the crux of Familia with her vocals on “Celia.” It seems a significant choice to kick off the record with a song in Spanish, complete with her eight-year-old cousin, Caro, freestyling on it (her father also showed up to the studio to play some of the instrumentals). And, after all, Caro is the little girl who Cabello is embracing on the album cover (this time in a similar skirt to the red one she wore on Romance, except this one is multicolored). But what’s even more appropriate about commencing Familia with “Celia” is that it could easily be (and likely is) referring to her dynamic with Mendes. For the chorus basically tells the tale of a Cuban girl who introduces a white boy to her culture (“He has lived his whole life without sugar/He met Celia without going to Cuba”). And yeah, Mendes has some Portuguese heritage, but it seems his mother’s Anglican side is the more dominant one.
“Celia” then leads into “psychofreak” featuring WILLOW (a bit too eerie on timing in terms of the Smith family having some kind of publicity on hand to distract from The Slap). A song that Cabello wrote from a place of candidly addressing her issues with anxiety, WILLOW compliments the chorus with her own vocals, “Want to love you, but my chest is tightenin’ up/I want to, want to, want to feel like I can chill/Not have to leave this restaurant/Wish I could be like everyone/But I’m not like anyone.” But if it makes WILLOW feel any better, not everyone can afford to eat at a restaurant at these inflation prices, so maybe that’s part of the reason why she’s so “different.”
As for Camila, who affirmed herself as an erstwhile believer in “the fairy tale” by starring as Cinderella in the Amazon-backed remake of the same name, “psychofreak” acknowledges some very deep cracks in that veneer of being a perpetual romantic. Thus, she sings, “Sometimes, I don’t trust the way I feel/On my Instagram talkin’ ’bout ‘I’m healed’/Worryin’ if I still got sex appeal.” Of course, if “hot bitch” and twenty-five-year-old Cabello is worrying about a loss of sex appeal, there’s little hope for anyone else. She continues, with some very pointed remarks aimed at her sex life with Mendes, namely, “Hopin’ that I don’t drive off this hill/When we’re makin’ love, I wanna be there/And I wanna feel you pullin’ my hair/And believe the words you say in my ear/Gotta go outside, I need some air.”
Incidentally, for someone so attuned to anxiety, Cabello decided to make an accompanying video that might induce just that. Hence the warning at the beginning: “This video contains flashes of light that could trigger seizures for people with visual sensitivities.” The Charlotte Rutherford-directed piece then zooms in through a window that leads into a claustrophobic room (you know, sort of like the one in the *NSYNC video for “I Drive Myself Crazy”). It’s in here that we see a mulletous Cabello rounding out her 80s hairstyle with an equally 80s fashion statement in the form of a shoulder-padded pantsuit. At the one-minute mark, WILLOW suddenly shows up to infiltrate the thought space by appearing on the wall. As though this particular cell has topsy-turvy propensities. And yes, we’ve all gone a little topsy-turvy in the years since, well, 9/11. With a post-chorus that sounds like the signature intonation of Suzanne Vega’s in “Tom’s Diner,” the camera proceeds to zoom into the same room after the same room (for an effect that mirrors career pivoting in an office). We then get a costume and background change from Cabello and some random tit-flashing (blurred out, of course) as WILLOW continues to sing her part.
While “psychofreak” might not “manifest collective joy”—as was Cabello’s intent in writing the album during quarantine—her latest single with Ed Sheeran (the two previously collaborated on 2019’s “South of the Border”) certainly does. As the second single from Familia after “Don’t Go Yet,” “Bam Bam” takes a markedly different approach in narrative, focusing, once again, on a breakup motif. And so, like Cassie (Sydney Sweeney) in Euphoria, director Mia Barnes opens on her drinking in front of a liquor store, her eyes smeared with mascara from crying. Her accusation, “You said you hated the ocean/But you’re surfin’ now,” mimics a certain Lorde line from “Green Light”: “She thinks you love the beach/You’re such a damn liar.” Cabello then gets up and starts walking so that we can see the neon “Life is Beautiful” sign behind her… contained within a giant wine bottle being funneled into a crying woman’s mouth. We then see scenes of her in a club, pulling a maneuver out of a Mentos commercial when she decides to simply pour wine all over herself after she gets knocked around a few times by people carrying drinks that spill on her. It’s all in keeping with the chorus’ assurance, “Así e’ la vida, sí/That’s just life, baby.” Along with losing someone you falsely assumed you would be with forever (ergo, “Blink and the fairy tale falls apart”). Which is why Camila keeps going out again every night, now in another outfit with more pronounced Euphoria makeup. And, for a brief moment, she looks joyful before falling face-first onto the pavement of the sidewalk (“Love came around and it knocked me down”—literally).
But even that doesn’t prevent her from continuing to laugh it off and move on as we now cut to her face patched up with Band-Aids as her friends push her around in a shopping cart (because, If You Give A Drunk Girl A Shopping Cart…). She then whiles the night away in a laundromat before dragging herself to a morning yoga session just in time. The message being: everything falls into place when it needs to—no matter how fucked up you are.
Cabello keeps the guitar-heavy Latin influence (specifically, mariachi) going on “La Buena Vida,” another direct hit aimed at Mendes. With a chorus that accuses, “You should be, you should be with me tonight/Instead you’re working, you’re working all the time/Why am I home alone with your glass of wine/Oh no, oh no/This is not the life.” As that rare genre of song—the kind that highlights a long-distance relationship between two celebrities—perhaps only Madonna has so accurately encapsulated similar sentiments on 2008’s “Miles Away.” And yes, she, too, ended up having to part ways with the lover she’s speaking to on that song: Guy Ritchie. Cabello, however, brandishes the concept to also declare that she understands better than anyone what a “hectic schedule” is, yet she still manages to find the time to be present. For no one, as it turns out. Thus, she bemoans, “Listen, listen, I get it, I get it/More than anybody, I get it/Life is right now, you tend to forget it/Looking back, you’re gonna regret it.” And yeah, when Mendes’ dick and face are all shriveled after years of getting as much youthful snatch as he wants, he probably will regret it.
“Quiet” takes a different sonic and lyrical tack with its unapologetic sweetness. After all, it was among the first songs to be written by Cabello and her collaborator, Scott Harris, who co-produced this particular ditty with Ricky Reed. Speaking to just how many years in the making her relationship with Mendes was, Cabello opens with, “You’re comin’ over, I started takin’/Breaths ’cause I was too anxious/Too much to take in, years in the makin’/No melatonin, no meditation/Can ease my anticipation.” Like any other girl who might swoon over the prospect of Mendes coming over, she adds, “No drink I’m makin’ is helpin’ the waitin’/Can’t focus and you’re gorgeous/And I’m hopeless, goddamn it.” Enter the self-soothing chorus where she comes to find that his mere presence is all she needs to remain calm, marveling, “And my, my mind’s made so much noise for so long and it’s gone/‘Cause when you kiss me, it’s quiet/Oh, it’s quiet.” Still that self-doubting voice manages to creep in every now and again to ask questions like, “Oh, but what if I panic?/What if I’m damaged?/What if I’m just not who you imagined?” Questions, in the end, she wasn’t wrong to ask, considering the outcome of the romance.
Keeping a similar pace in tempo (aided by the flugelhorn), “Boys Don’t Cry,” fortunately, is not a cover of The Cure song of the same name. However, it does acknowledge the same themes of men being expected to stifle their emotions for the sake of adhering to long-standing tropes of what it is to be “masculine.” This, too, is a topic MARINA sings about with affecting clarity on Ancient Dreams in a Modern Land’s “Highly Emotional People.” Obviously, Cabello got her inspiration for the lyrics from the ego-driven Mendes, who admitted in his 2020 documentary, In Wonder, that, “Ego comes rushing in, and it goes: ‘don’t mess up, because you’re the man.’” Of course, he could be wielding “the man” in that way Taylor Swift uses it on “The Man” to mean, you know, “the shit.” But either way, there are clearly high expectations regarding the specific “gender role” of “Man.” And yet, he’s able to comfortably get as cheeseball as possible at many points throughout the documentary, including when he admits all of his songs have been about Camila with the seemingly pre-rehearsed line, “Everything’s about you. [The songs have] always been about you.” And then there is another song they sing together to warm up before the 2019 VMAs. One that apparently John Mayer wrote for them without knowing it back in 2006: “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room.”
Luckily, Cabello exited that room whether she really wanted to or not—because everything about Mendes feels decidedly “not real.” He’s all polish. Veneer. And he’s got no bite, that’s for sure. And, on that note, increasing the tempo after “Boys Don’t Cry,” Cabello’s Latin roots return on “Hasta Los Dientes” featuring María Becerra. Indeed, it’s moments like these on the album where Cabello seems to be unwittingly competing with Rosalía’s Motomami. And also, in this case, Lady Gaga. For we were long overdue to have a song with teeth in the title that wasn’t, well, “Teeth.”
Together, Cabello and Becerra highlight the jealousy that can come to roost in a relationship. Particularly when such an “Adonis” is the object of a girl’s affection. And so, it’s no surprise when the two harmonize, “Niño, hasta en mis sueños tu me haces sufrir/Te ví con tu ex y me quise morir/No te quiero compartir, te quiero solo pa’ mí/¿Me entiendes?/Que mi cuerpo se enciende cuando tú me besas/La depre me da/Saber que has besado así a otra más/No te quiero compartir, te quiero solo pa’ mí/¿Me entiendes?/Me duelen hasta los dientes.” Translation: “Boy, even in my dreams you make me suffer/I saw you with your ex and I wanted to die/I don’t want to share you, I want you just for me/You understand me?/That my body lights up when you kiss me/It makes me depressed/To know that you have kissed another one like that/I don’t want to share you, I want you just for me/You understand me?/I ache to the teeth.” And yes, re: all that posturing about not sharing, it’s something that The Smiths certainly know all about via one of music’s definitive tracks on “possessing” another: “I Won’t Share You.”
The jealousy theme persists on the following song as well. Not, alas, an homage to Gwen Stefani’s jumping off point, “No Doubt” is instead a reggaeton-infused number that provides dual meaning for the term. On the one hand, the listener could interpret it to mean Cabello has no doubt he’s cheating on her when she sings, “Seeing visions on the ceiling/Drunken kisses, heavy breathing/You’re up against the wall/She’s unbuttoning your jeans and you tell her that you want it all/She loves you all night, makes you breakfast/Not just sex, it’s a real connection/And out of love, we’d fall/And it makes me wanna scream why I’m making up this shit at all.” On the other, she’s also talking about her insecurities being melted away yet again (as they are on “Quiet”) in the chorus, “The way we’rе making love, you leave mе with no doubt/The way you’re biting on the corner of my mouth/You take the psycho out of my brain, yeah.” Here, it might bear remarking that Cabello uses the term “psycho” much too liberally.
With the establishing motif for Familia being visually represented in the video for “Don’t Go Yet” (directed by Philippa Price and Pilar Zeta), the vibrant, Frida Kahlo-esque palette plays up the vivacity of living in community. For 2020 purposes, “a quaranteam.” This is the idea Cabello most wants to get across on the album—regardless of her breakup with Mendes taking up a lot of space on it thematically. But even he, at this point, can still be considered part of her “familia”—for she means this word to include everyone she relies on for support. And obviously, Mendes is equally as supported in writing breakup songs about her as well (hear: “When You’re Gone”).
During her interview for The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, she noted, “A defining word for this chapter [is] interdependence. ‘Cause, I feel like, especially culturally, we always talk about independence—‘I did this on my own!’—and to me this is about celebrating the people in my life.” Even if she’s no longer getting dicked down by one of those people.
With that sense of community in mind, “Lola” featuring Yotuel is another example of how collaborations can lead to something beautiful. Namely, this folksy ballad about the eponymous Lola, a girl from Cuba who has been denied any so-called future promised by the potential of a post-Castro government. Her lamenting lyrics recognize the hopelessness that sets in when there is no change after so much time. So it is that Cabello bemoans for Lola (and all those like her), “Nobody’s listеning, so she won’t speak, won’t speak/All of thosе dreams are fading slowly, slowly/She knows the stories ’bout the police, police/It’s just the way it is, so don’t speak, don’t speak.” And yeah, that feels somehow like another callout to Gwen Stefani at the end there.
Elsewhere, she also paints the portrait of a country that has fallen prey to despair via the lines, “She believed the world they promised her, but now she’s older/She’s seen the people disagree and disappear/The power’s out for days, no food is on its way/Nothing changes, this ain’t the dream they sold us.”
Neither is the one about a love “that lasts forever,” as Cabello found out recently. Thus, the finale to Familia is a bittersweet one that anyone who has ever feared running into an ex can relate to. Called “everyone at this party,” it’s a stripped down, minimalist track that finds Cabello at arguably her most vulnerable on the record as she sings, “Didn’t wanna ask our friend if you were gonna be here/And make the whole thing weird/But I was nervous in the car just in case you are.”
To her dismay, he actually isn’t as she brings us the swelling chorus, “Everyone at this party isn’t you, everyone at this party isn’t you/You’re the only one I wanna run into/But I never do,” later adding, “I don’t wanna search for you in every room/But I always do.” It’s as good of an admission as any that Cabello would be open to a reconciliation—which is what everyone is not so secretly hoping for as the two are slated to play a few shows together in time for the summer concert season.
Of course, concert season for Mendes is also the prime time for Cabello to remember that she has quite a bit of competition/many other girls waiting in line to bang him. Nonetheless, “I just had this vision of you looking at me different/When you saw this dress/But I’d have one drink and I’d say the wrong thing/So it’s probably for the best.”
Yet, despite knowing when a breakup is for “the best,” it doesn’t change the constant regret—the perpetual wondering of whether or not it truly was (for “the best”), or if, had both people tried just a little harder, it could have worked out. Which is why Cabello asks, “Did we fuck it up or not? Did we waste two years?” She then concludes the track with the ultimate query: “Did you realize you don’t need me?” Well, since Mendes is an inherently selfish white boy, probably. What’s more, he ain’t about that interdependence life so ingrained in every other culture except the American (and, in this case, Canadian) one.
