USA TODAY International Edition
Fifth Harmony is shifting gears
“It’s a new time for us,” Normani Kordei says.
Every day, the members of Fifth Harmony hear this question: “Hey, can I be the sixth harmony?”
It’s easy to see why. When the group arrives at the Capitol Records lounge in Los Angeles, they look like a beautiful collection of flip- ready hair, sky- high eyelashes, heels ( important for dancing, they say), confident dance moves, Instagram- ready poses and — most important — striking vocals, which they show off with interjections of Beyoncé lyrics.
In reality, being a member of a girl group isn’t just a series of sexy, fun times. And neither is their music.
Fifth Harmony — Camila Cabello, Lauren Jauregui, Ally Brooke, Dinah Jane and Normani Kordei — hope to show that in their next release, 7/ 27, out Friday.
The new album is a shift from the girl- power- all- the- time theme. 5H’s debut album ,2015’s Reflection that contained hit female-empowerment anthem Worth It, was released three years after Simon Cowell brought the women together on X Factor, One Direction- style.
“Before, it was trial and error, coming off the show. We didn’t know what our sound was gonna be,” says Kordei. “Now, it’s a new era, and it’s a new time for us.”
Brooke elaborates: “Our last album was more high- energy and girl power, fun, feeling confident and sexy, but you didn’t really get to see the other side of us. So that’s something that we’re excited to incorporate.”
As for the album title, that’s the date that the group — formerly solo entrants in the TV talent show — formed.
The first single off 7/ 27, poppy earworm Work From Home, is about encouraging your partner to skip the office and stay in bed. The music video has more than 350 million YouTube views. Write on Me, also from the forthcoming
album, already has 13 million views.
But back to that question about being in the group: What makes it so hard?
There’s the required jelling of different personalities, combined with continuous travel, little sleep and eating on the go. Also, there’s that one thing the Spice Girls never had to deal with: social media.
“Fame is already so invasive to begin with — we’re literally giving you ourselves. As an artist, that’s what you do,” Jauregui says. “To already have to do that as your job and to go home and have to keep up on social media. It’s really intense.”
With a collective 16 million followers on Twitter, and another 16 million on Instagram, 5H’s fans are a vocal group. Some followers use the access to the pop stars as a way to dissect posts for signs of rifts within the group.
“The five of us, although we do love each other and we’ve been in this together for four years now and respect each other to the highest degree, we have our own lives,” says Jauregui. “Social media expects us to be together all the time. Are you together with anyone all the time?”
Adds Hansen, “When you look at social media you see these comments that aren’t true about you all the time,” she says. “But one time, I caught myself believing the lie.”
“People on social media, because they see so much of you, they feel like they own you, like you’re their property,” says Cabello, who was recently photographed with Taylor Swift’s squad at Coachella and recorded song I Know What You Did Last Summer with Shawn Mendes. “I’ve gotten tweets before that are like ‘ Go back to where you belong.’ I’m like, ‘ Where do I belong?’ ”