Is Camila Cabello’s ‘C,XOXO’ finally getting the credit it deserves?

“C,XOXO” truthers, your moment has arrived. If you supported Camila Cabello’s last album cycle all along — haters be damned — you’ve earned the right to be smug.

For those who are not necessarily tuned into the ins and outs of daily pop-music discourse, this week, The Fader’s Tobias Hess proved that rumors of pop-culture criticism’s death have been greatly exaggerated when his essay, “Camila Cabello’s ‘C,XOXO’ deserves a second chance,” published Aug. 7, led to a wide reappraisal of the Miami singer’s much-contested 2024 album.

Upon release, Rolling Stone gave the album a safe three-and-a-half stars, The Guardian called it “totally unconvincing,” and Pitchfork wrote it was “electrifying but inconsistent.” Two years later, Hess’ plea for a second chance has resulted in countless creators’ camera-ready takes, playlist re-additions, and what appears to be a tangible sales boost for the record. So, has everyone really come around or is everyone simply jumping on the latest social media bandwagon? And what went wrong for “C,XOXO” in the first place?

But it wasn’t just Cabello’s foray into hyperpop that sparked listeners’ cynicism. The album seemed cursed by timing that felt almost star-crossed. A guest feature that would have been a career-boosting flex any other year — Drake, who appears on two songs — came at a time when the rapper was on the ropes during his beef with Kendrick Lamar. (“C,XOXO” dropped less than two months after the release of knock-out punch “Not Like Us.”)

An appearance by Miami’s City Girls was also ill-fated. Their collaboration with Cabello, “Dade County Dreaming,” was released about two weeks after the act confirmed it had split. The song is the last one ever credited to Yung Miami and JT as a duo.

And then there was “Brat” summer. Though “C,XOXO” is much more clearly influenced by aughts hip-hop than the neck-breaking electropop of Charli XCX’s culture-shifting album, its lead single, “I Luv It,” spawned weeks of discourse about whether Cabello had borrowed a little too much from her contemporaries. It didn’t help that “Brat” was released just three weeks before “C,XOXO,” shifting the axis of the pop music world before Cabello’s sonic experiment could make much of a dent.

“305tilidie”

If anyone was going to “get” Cabello’s album, it was her fans in Miami, her hometown. “C,XOXO” is very much a love letter to the city, as evidenced by its song titles — the aforementioned “Dade County Dreaming,” plus “B.O.A.T.,” and “305tilidie” — and its samples, with the synthy interpolation of Pitbull’s “Hotel Room Service” being the best example.

New Times spotlighted the album early on, with then-senior music editor Jose Duran writing a cover story about Cabello’s musical left turn and its deep Miami roots just before its release.

“Working mainly with producers El Guincho (Rosalía, FKA Twigs, Björk) and Jasper Harris (Tate McRae, Jack Harlow, Post Malone),” Duran wrote, “Cabello sounds more confident in herself and her sound than ever before.”

New Times was also there when the singer brought “C,XOXO” to the stage in Miami at Kaseya Center for Y100 Jingle Ball, almost six months to the day after the album’s release. The record had been written off by much of the general public by then, but Cabello doubled down, playing “I Luv It,” and “Dade County Dreaming” during the nine-song set. Tellingly, Cabello did not tour the album in the U.S., making Miami one of the few cities in the country where she performed any of its songs live.

“…Six months in,” I wrote in my review at the time, “fans are starting to come around, and ‘C,XOXO’ is in play to face the same fate as [Taylor] Swift’s ‘Reputation,’ which was derided at the time of its release but has since been reclaimed by fans and critics alike.”

Still, for early “C,XOXO” adopters, the show left something to be desired.

“As an ‘I Luv It’ skeptic, I’ll admit the song works much better live,” I wrote in my review. “As a ‘C,XOXO’ apologist, I sorely wished for the Pitbull sampling ‘B.O.A.T.,’ and I would have preferred ‘June Gloom’ or bonus track ‘Godspeed’ for her big ballad moment.”

I still haven’t come around to “I Luv It,” but if recent additions to Spotify and Apple Music playlists are any indication, “B.O.A.T.” (my favorite on the album) is on track to finally get its due credit.

The backlash to the backlash

According to The Fader, “C,XOXO” has seen a 475% rise in Spotify searches this week. (The publication had initially reported the album had seen a 475% increase in streams, not searches, but it shared a correction from Spotify on Friday, Aug. 14. New Times reached out to the music platform to verify those numbers, but did not hear back by the time this article was published.)

Still, as we all know, the clout-chasing internet is prone to hyperbole. “C,XOXO” was never as bad as the haters claimed, but we also run the risk of overcorrecting by positioning the album as Cabello’s opus instead of what it really is: a sonic and stylistic experiment that sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t.

“I Luv It”? I’ll admit I still don’t luv it. But there’s some good stuff in here.

If you’re just tuning in, spring for the album’s deluxe “Magic City Edition,” released three months after the original version. Its closing track, “Godspeed” — my most-played Apple Music track in September 2024 (yes, I was going through it) — joins the ranks of album highlights alongside as-yet undiscovered highlights “Chanel No. 5,” “B.O.A.T.,” and — the one song that did get its flowers upon release — “June Gloom.”

Okay, okay. So I like all the emo songs. For a joyride down the Rickenbacker with your girls and the top down, blast “He Knows,” “Dream-Girls,” and bonus track “Baby Pink.”

And while we’re here, let’s take a moment to give Cabello her flowers for the “He Knows” choreo — especially that booty-slapping floor routine.