Chloe releases her Latto assisted single “For the Night”, and she might have a hit on her hands

There’s still no album from Chloe, but that’s not stopping her from releasing singles. Columbia records are probably going to keep Chloe’s debut album ransom until a single becomes a Billboard hit. And Chloe might just have a good shot at one with “For the Night”.

This video was co-directed by Chloe herself and is shot from moments whilst she was on the road. It’s a clever and resourceful way to shoot a video. But it definitely lacks the gloss and big pop girl vibes of “Have Mercy” and “Treat Me”, which I think would have served “For the Night” well. “For the Night” is a damn good song, and it deserved to have something bigger; a Paul Hunter or Hype Williams-esque production which visually evokes the late 90s / early 2000s R&B vibes of the song. The warehouse setup at the start could just been the whole video if the choreography and the cinematography was good enough, with some of the humoured moments woven into it.

Chloe first previewed “For the Night” back in May, when she held an Instagram Live playing snippets of three songs and asking fans to pick which they think should be the next single. Fans gassed up “Surprise” and Chloe end up going with it, even though not a damn thing about the song screamed ‘radio hit’, despite “For the Night” being RIGHT the fuck there.

Chlöe featuring Latto - For the Night | © 2022 Parkwood Entertainment / Columbia Records

Artists need to stop listening to fans, which I know is rich for somebody like me to say, who is always fixing their fingers to say ‘THIS PERSON SHOULD DO THIS, THIS AND THIS’. Although in this context I can see why Chloe would listen to her fans and take their choices seriously. Because ‘if the fans like this song, then it means they will show up for it when I release it’. But things don’t always shake this way. At the point that Chloe is at in her career, she needs a song which going to cast a wide net that radio is going to play, even if her fans don’t love it as much as another song, and that song was “For the Night” over “Surprise”. It’s crazy to me that Chloe’s label even allowed “Surprise” to be a single over “For the Night” in the first place. But folk at record labels don’t seem to have as much expertise as they used to. And far too many label decisions are driven by Twitter, TikTok and YouTube. I completely get why. But you can’t look at these platforms in a vacuum, and I feel too many people these days do just that. A fan could look at this post and say ‘But “Surprise” got 175 million views on YouTube’ which would prove my point. Because whilst that figure is great, where did the song chart?

Certified Tatooine dust.

The promotion of “For the Night” has been fascinating to see, because Chloe has been relying A LOT on her fans to drive most of it, whilst her record label do bugger all. Chloe’s fans came through and ran whole campaigns for free. Fans were out here interning-but-not for Chloe and her marketing team. Chloe may not yet have a smash hit single, but she has herself an extremely dedicated fanbase. She just needs a team around her who can help her better fine tune things, so that what Chloe puts out does more than just trend online for a few weeks, then disappear. Because for the amount of noise that “Have Mercy” and “Treat Me” made when they first released, there was no real lasting impact of either song. And as good as “For the Night” is, the timing may go against it, as we head into the Holiday season and Mariah starts snatching up all the streams and making her annual journey to the Billboard charts. Also, “For the Night” is a Summer song. Ain’t nobody outside of L.A giving you bikini and top down in late October.

At this point it’s a race to see who will release an album first. Chloe or Normani. And Rihanna and Halle are probably gonna end up putting out albums before the both of them.

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📺 Chlöe music videos: Have Mercy | Treat Me
💿 Chloe x Halle album review: Ungodly Hour