Camila Cabello keeps telling everyone that her new music is “weird,” but that might just be code for “Florida.” Having spent the past few years of her stardom making patently non-weird decisions - to tour with Coldplay, to duet with Ed Sheeran, to star as Cinderella in a Hollywood jukebox musical - the Miami-raised singer’s fourth album, “C,XOXO,” oozes toward the inherent Floridian strangeness of Disney World, “Spring Breakers” and rising sea levels. In pop music, declaring yourself weird is proof that you’re not.
But in Florida, pretty much everything is weird, which means Cabello suddenly sounds something like a realist. She says so herself. “Magic and real like Murakami,” she coo-brags over the smothered piano twinkles of “Chanel No.
5,” nodding to the magical realism of Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami - which is a nice thing to hear after Florida led the nation in attempted book bans in 2023. For an even tidier declaration of neo-self, go straight to the song’s hook, where Cabello uses her digitized rasp to posit herself as a “cute girl with a sick mind.” She’s telegraphing her makeover here, but at least she keeps it stylish and quick.
The rest of Cabello’s big mutation is in the music itself, which - with the help of producers El Guincho and Jasper Harris - does all kinds of sci-fi tricks with its sleek timbres, exploded forms and sweet-tart moods. On the more subtle side of that spectrum, there’s “B.O.
A.T.,” a grieving pia.
