Fifth Harmony - Better Together (2013)

In 2012, Ally Brooke, Camila Cabello, Normani Kordei, Dinah Jane and Lauren Jauregui auditioned as solo contestants on the second season of the American TV series The X Factor, and although the latter four failed to progress in the "Teens" category, and Brooke didn't make the "Young Adults" category, they were later brought back and put together to form a five-piece girl group, thus qualifying for the "Groups" category. Initially, the group's name was Lylas (an acronym for Love You Like a Sister), but another group called The Lylas claimed that the show stole their name, so the girls changed their name to 1432 (a colloquial term for I Love You Too). Lead judge Simon Cowell was critical of the new name, and he suggested that the group be renamed again, so after winning a place in the top 12 contestants, a new name was chosen by a public vote, with Fifth Harmony winning out. In the semi-finals stage of the show, the group performed Ellie Goulding's 'Anything Could Happen', and the following night's public vote results advanced the group to the final three, along with Tate Stevens and Carly Rose Sonenclar, but after the first round of the finals they did not receive enough votes from the public to reach the Top Two. About a month after The X Factor season finale in January 2013, Fifth Harmony was officially signed by their mentor Simon Cowell to his record label, Syco Music, and they started recording covers of songs which were uploaded to YouTube, with three of them receiving public praise from the original artists, including Ed Sheeran, Ariana Grande and Mikky Ekko. Their debut single 'Miss Movin' On' was released in July 2013, as the lead from their debut EP 'Better Together', and it peaked on the Billboard Hot 100 at number 76, with the EP following in October and reaching Number 6 on the Billboard 200. An acoustic version and two Spanish versions of the EP, 'Juntos' and 'Juntos Acoustic', were released in November, and the latter two records peaked at number 2 and 12 respectively on the Billboard Top Latin Albums chart. After recording a dozen or so songs for the EP, a number of them were discarded when the final five were chosen to be released, but luckily they have since surfaced online, and if they are slotted back into the running order of the EP you end up with an excellent album, which could have preceded their official debut 'Reflection' the following year. So that's what I've done, and with a revamped version of the EP cover, here is what could have been Fifth Harmony's first full length introduction to the general public who had voted for them on the X Factor. 

Track listing

01 Me & My Girls

02 Better Together
03 No Boys Allowed
04 Try Everything
05 Young & Beautiful
06 Leave My Heart Out Of This
07 Don't Wanna Dance Alone
08 Better Days
09 Miss Movin' On
10 Who Are You
11 Drown On Solid Ground
12 Anything Could Happen
13 One Wish