Chlöe Talks Debut Album In Pieces, Not Knowing Who She Is, and the Best Advice Halle Ever Gave Her
Chlöe began crafting In Pieces shortly before the pandemic started, when her sister crossed the pond to begin filming The Little Mermaid in London. Over the course of three years, Chlöe never stopped creating — which means narrowing down the final tracklist for In Pieces was a behemoth of a task. “There’s around, I think 120 [songs] that I did for this within the three years for this specific project,” Chlöe tells Teen Vogue. “And some that didn’t make it, maybe they’ll see the light of the day, maybe they won’t. Maybe I’ll sell them. You never know.” (She coyly deflects questions about a potential deluxe version of In Pieces, but knows exactly who she’d want to hop on a feature if the project ever came to fruition: “SZA, Beyoncé, and Frank Ocean.”)
“There were so many songs that I love that didn’t make it, but it was definitely about the arc and what story can be told with this body of work,” says Chlöe. “So if it didn’t make sense within the story, the song was scrapped… That’s why ‘Have Mercy,’ ‘Treat Me,’ ‘For The Night,’ and ‘Surprise’ aren’t on the album — not because they aren’t good songs and I don’t love them, but because I didn’t feel like they were essential to the storytelling aspect of In Pieces.”
Chlöe describes the story of In Pieces as “a rollercoaster ride” with “a lot of loops, a lot of twists and turns.” “It’ll start off really, really fast… then you’ll get stuck upside down for a little bit.” (“I love rollercoasters,” she laughs.) Her silly analogy is spot-on. In Pieces, out today, March 31, is a turbulent range of sounds. From the operatic hymnal intro to experimental R&B melodies, to dance pop to piano-driven heartbreak ballads, the 14 tracks that make up the record aim to showcase Chlöe’s versatility as a producer and a vocalist — and succeed — but fight against each other for dominance while doing so. However, Chlöe says she was more focused on sending a cohesive message with the music rather than nailing down a cohesive sound.
“I hear music with everything and I wanted it to feel like how my life felt. I wanted it to have ebbs and flows,” she says. “I didn’t want it to be predictable. I didn’t want it to feel like the same thing, because in life we’re constantly evolving, and that’s how the music sounds. When I put out my R&B singles, [people] were like, ‘We want pop.’ Then I put out ‘Body Do’ and they’re like, ‘Is this pop or R&B?’ And that’s the thing, the box that people have put me in, it’s going to explode when they get to hear [the full album], because everything that they thought I was or that they thought they could label me as a specific artist, they can’t really.”
In Pieces has three features from Missy Elliott, Future, and Chris Brown, with the latter sparking severe backlash from Chlöe’s fanbase. “I love my fans so much. Without them I wouldn’t be here,” says Chlöe. “We all have every right to our opinions, so I don’t fault them for that. In my case, I always want to let the music speak for itself, and I’m grateful to Chris for making the record so special and being a part of the video with me, and I’m just as grateful to my fans for rocking with me through it all.” But it’s easy to imagine a version of the album with no features, with Chlöe standing fully on her own. Cuts like “Heart On My Sleeve” and “Make It Look Easy,” which Chlöe calls “the most personal” on the album — “I was crying as I was even singing it in the booth” — are where she shines brightest, lyrically peeling back the curtain to reveal a sliver of the young woman behind the extravagant and seemingly fearless mononym.
