14 tracks · 38 min
In the wake of her sister act Chloe x Halle's early-2010s breakthrough, Chloe Bailey saw the world from pop's highest reaches—touring with Beyoncé, racking up Grammy nominations, performing at the Super Bowl. But there are other rites of passage that she missed out on by being a young R&B star. “I was homeschooled for high school, so all the experiences—falling in love, falling out of love, breaking up, making up, all of that—I'm going through it now,” Chlöe told her one-time collaborator Latto on Apple Music radio. “It's really been motivating the lyrics. When I'm angry, instead of crying or wanting to throw things, I just sit there and I write.” That raw emotion, sung into existence by Chlöe's versatile, strong voice, gives her solo debut In Pieces a strong backbone as it whirls through styles and collaborators. Chlöe's unquenchable musical curiosity is on full display, whether on the straight-up torch song title track, the gospel-trap parable about being the better person in a break-up's aftermath “Pray It Away” or the regret-wracked, Dionne Warwick-sampling Chris Brown duet “How Does It Feel”. Throughout, her innate knowledge of unexpectedly plush vocal harmonies—a staple of h…
