Pitbull’s “Hotel Room Service” belongs on club dance floors or blared out of car speakers — really anywhere you can scream, “Hotel, motel, Holiday Inn!” at the top of your lungs. In almost every way, it’s the polar opposite of a tender ballad about lost love. But Camila Cabello thinks it belongs in one of those, too. Her fourth album, C,XOXO, is full of left turns — a Charli-via-Gucci pivot on lead single “I Luv It,” two whole Drake appearances — but the biggest might be the Pitbull sample on “B.O.A.T.” After the chorus, about all the things her ex never told her (looking at you, Shawn), you hear a faint synth line and think, Is that …? No, it can’t be. But, yes, it is, and trust me: It’s wonderful.
I went through some version of the five stages of grief when I first heard “hotel, motel, Holiday Inn” in an otherwise emotional, vulnerable song. First, I thought my ears were deceiving me. I laughed out loud. I tried to find meaning in it: Maybe Cabello really wants this ex to forget about whoever he’s with right now and meet her at the hotel room. I thought it was stupid. But by the time the song was over, I loved it. It’s also C,XOXO in a nutshell: an undeniably silly moment coexisting with raw emotion, with the thread of Miami tying it together.
C,XOXO sure seemed scattered prerelease, with Cabello dyeing her hair blond and spinning her hands at Coachella with Lana Del Rey. But it’s united by that simple love-letter-to-your-hometown concept. Cabello worked with producers El Guincho and Jasper Harris on a beat-driven, sample-rich album that reflects her city’s melting pot of hip-hop, club, and Latin trap music; more than a few songs sound like lost cuts from the Spring Breakers soundtrack. Of course this album was going to reference Mr. 305 — and so what if it’s on one of the most intimate tracks? Really, beneath the neon haze, C,XOXO is pretty intimate all around — Cabello reflects on how the town made her a musician, falls in and out of love a few times, and wonders what she messed up along the way. On “B.O.A.T.,” sad girl and party girl unite. Just treat it like any other time you hear “Hotel Room Service” on a night out and give in.
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