7/27

This article is about the Fifth Harmony album. For 27th of July, see July 27. For other uses, see 727 (disambiguation).

Untitled

7/27 is the second studio album by American girl group Fifth Harmony. It was released on May 27, 2016, by Syco Music and Epic Records. The album's lead single, "Work from Home", was released on February 26, 2016, and has peaked at number five on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming their highest charting single in the United States. "The Life" was released as a promotional single on March 24, 2016. The album features guest vocals from Ty Dolla Sign, Fetty Wap, and Missy Elliott.

Background

In an interview with Billboard, Cabello was quoted as saying, "We're about to start recording our new album the day after tomorrow." The interview was uploaded on September 21, several days after the 2015 iHeartRadio Music Festival, where Cabello spoke to the magazine. In an interview with Spin, Dinah Jane said that 7/27 is "a side of Fifth Harmony that no one’s really seen. In the beginning, we were super happy. Our first album was very jumpy. This time, we're showing who Fifth Harmony really is behind closed doors." The title and the cover of the album were unveiled on February 25, on the group's official Instagram page, with the following caption, "We know there has been a lot of talk, but we wanted you to hear this from us... Our new album 7/27 is coming May 20th." The album's title refers to July 27, 2012, the date the group was formed on The X Factor.

Back in early October, Jauregui told Billboard that Max Martin was "heavily involved" in the production of the group's second full-length album. On another interview, Dinah Jane told Spin that Martin had produced 6 songs for their album since the interview took place. Harmony Samuels, who previously worked on the Hotel Transylvania track "I'm in Love with a Monster", told Entertainment Scoop that he is "currently working on a new project with (Fifth Harmony)."

On April 22, it was announced that the group would postpone the album's release date by one week to May 27. The following day, digital music platform site, iTunes updated the tracklist with two tracks under the explicit label, making this Fifth Harmony's first release to contain explicit lyrics.

Critical reception

Professional ratings

Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	72/100
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
The Boston Globe	positive
Digital Spy
Entertainment Weekly	B
Idolator
Rolling Stone

At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 72, which indicates "generally favorable reviews", based on 4 reviews. Matt Collar of AllMusic was positive, calling it "a sophisticated production that finds the all-female outfit nicely transitioning from the brash ingenues who finished third on the second season of The X Factor into reliably mature pop divas." He noted that "while 7/27 isn't quite as loose or as fun as one might hope, Fifth Harmony prove they can balance youthful swagger with grown-up sophistication." Praising the mature environment, Nolan Feeney of Entertainment Weekly named it "deep, vulnerable, personal--these were some of the quintet’s stated goals for 7/27. It’s not a bad look by any means." Maura Johnston of Boston Globe stated: "The group’s power has always come from its Spice Girls-like ability to form a massive unit of self-actualization, and the peppy 7/27 has no shortage of that, both lyrically and musically." Lewis Corner of Digital Spy noticed that "while the debut album 'Reflection' was a mixed bag in terms of styles, '7/27' is a cleverly structured collection. The uptempo numbers pop off with confidence, while the slower tracks barely detract from the overall energy of the record. There's sass, there's vulnerability, there's sexiness; it draws upon all the emotions a great pop album craves. Christopher R. Weingarten of Rolling Stone opined that the album "isn't a massive step forward, but with a constant bombardment of hooks, high energy and incredible harmony there's not much time to catch your breath to compare."

Writing and composition

Speaking to Billboard, Jauregui said that the group wants to make the album sound "a bit more soulful." She also said that they want to aim towards a more R&B sound. According to Hansen, her favorite tracks from their debut album were 'Reflection' and 'Going Nowhere', which inspired their R&B and soul direction for this album. Unlike Reflection, where the group had no writing credits, Jauregui said that that all five of the girls will be more involved in the album, lyrically. When revealing the tracklist, group member, Dinah Jane confirmed that her and the rest of the girls co-wrote a song on the album called, "All in My Head (Flex)". The song features American rap artist, Fetty Wap.

Release and promotion

After announcing their album artwork for 7/27, Fifth Harmony released their new single "Work from Home", which was performed for the first time at the annual post-Oscars show, broadcast by Live! with Kelly and Michael. Recreating the set of the music video and wearing the same costumes as it, the girls performed the song on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on March 24, 2016. Each track was announced hourly through the group's Instagram page on April 28.

"That's My Girl" was featured in one of commercials for the 2016 Olympic games in Rio de Janeiro.

Singles

On February 26, 2016, Fifth Harmony premiered the album's lead single, "Work from Home", which was written by Joshua Coleman, Jude Demorest, Dallas Koehlke, Tyrone Griffin, Jr., Alexander Izquierdo and Brian Lee. The music video, directed by Director X, was released on the same day as the official release date. It features the vocals and appearance by American hip hop and R&B recording artist, Ty Dolla Sign. The song debuted at number 12 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and reached number 4 in its thirteenth week, making it the group's highest charting single in the United States. Internationally, "Work from Home" performed strongly, peaking in the top 10 of twenty five countries, while becoming their highest-charting single in The Netherlands, Germany, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

The second official single "All in My Head (Flex)" featuring Fetty Wap will impact rhythmic radio June 7, 2016.

Promotional singles

"The Life" was released as the first promotional single on March 24, 2016. It made its chart debut in the UK, peaking at number 97 in the Official Charts and number 1 in the Billboard Bubbling Under Hot 100 chart.

"Write On Me" is the second promotional single released on May 5, 2016. A music video for the song was released on May 6, 2016 on the group's Vevo channel.

Commercial performance

In Japan, the album debuted at number 20 on the Oricon Albums Chart, selling 3300 copies in 3 days and making it the group's first album to debut in Japan.

Tour

Main article: The 7/27 Tour

The group will embark on their second world tour, "The 7/27 World Tour", from June 2016 to September 2016. They will perform 41 shows, 33 in the United States and 8 in South America.

Track listing

7/27 – Standard edition

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Producer(s)	Length
1.	"That's My Girl"	Tinashe Kachingwe Alexander Kronlund Lukas Loules	Alex Purple Lulou	3:24
2.	"Work from Home" (featuring Ty Dolla $ign)	Tyrone Griffin, Jr. Alexander Izquierdo Joshua Coleman Jude Demorest Dallas Koehlke Brian Lee	Ammo Dallas K	3:34
3.	"The Life"	Kachingwe Kronlund Hilbert	Alex Purple Lulou	3:20
4.	"Write On Me"	Mikkel Eriksen Tor Erik Hermansen Kyrre Gørvell-Dahll Priscilla Renea Hamilton Simon Wilcox	Stargate Kygo	3:39
5.	"I Lied"	James Abrahart James Wong Oliver Peterhof Izquierdo Jordan Johnson Marcus Lomax Stefan Johnson Clarence Coffee Jr.	The Monsters and the Strangerz	3:23
6.	"All in My Head (Flex)" (featuring Fetty Wap)	Eriksen Hermansen Benjamin Levin Willie Maxwell Daystar Peterson Nolan Lambroza Julia Michaels Wilcox Brian Garcia Ewart Brown Clifton Dillon Richard Foulks Herbert Harris Leroy Romans Lowell Dunbar Brian Thompson Handel Tucker	Stargate Benny Blanco Sir Nolan	3:30
7.	"Squeeze"	Eriksen Hermansen Gørvell-Dahll Hamilton Wilcox	Stargate Kygo	3:33
8.	"Gonna Get Better"	Adidja Palmer Linton Timajae White Mario Antonia Dunwell	Stargate	3:36
9.	"Scared of Happy"	Cass Lowe Michael Tucker Eriksen Hermansen	Stargate Bloodpop	3:23
10.	"Not That Kinda Girl" (featuring Missy Elliott)	Melissa Elliott Negin Djafari Jared Cotter Aaron Pearce	Pearce	3:11
Total length:				34:33

7/27 – Deluxe edition

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Producer(s)	Length
11.	"Dope"	Jack Antonoff Michaels Justin Tranter	Antonoff	3:32
12.	"No Way"	Victoria Monet	Tommy Brown	2:56
Total length:				41:01

7/27 – United Kingdom deluxe edition

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Producer(s)	Length
13.	"Worth It" (No Rap)	Hamilton Eriksen Hermansen Ori Kaplan	Stargate Kaplan	3:05
Total length:				44:06

7/27 – Japanese deluxe edition

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Producer(s)	Length
13.	"Big Bad Wolf"	Evan Kidd Bogart Coffee Andrew Goldstein Eman T. Kiriakou		3:19
14.	"1000 Hands"	Adam Waldman Jason "Poo Bear" Boyd Georgia Ku	Royal Z	3:20
Total length:				47:40

Charts

Chart (2016)	Peak position
Japanese Albums (Oricon)	20