A Short Analysis of Alex Cameron's Flawed Characters
Written by: Christian Jatar
I might be stating the obvious here, but I feel like deeply flawed characters are some of the most interesting subjects to dissect. There’s something about their indisputable wrongness that makes them so incredibly human. They make mistakes and fail to learn from them, but that doesn’t mean you don’t stand to learn something from their experiences. They live and breathe in ways that their more sanitized, temperate counterparts rarely ever do. Granted, their flaws might sometimes lead to some borderline psychotic, antisocial, or generally harmful behaviors. But there’s still something about how they willfully make the wrong choices that leads to some very interesting learning experiences as an audience. A learning experience that allows us to empathize with people we’d normally never even think about.
In the vast universe that is filmmaking, there’s an obvious choice when thinking of a director who faithfully portrays such characters with a careful degree of empathy: Martin Scorsese. From Travis Bickel in “Taxi Driver” to Jordan Belfort in “The Wolf of Wall Street,” his protagonists all walk a fine line between being unbearably human in their decision-making and truly sociopathic in their actions. Again, and I hate to belabor this point, but the bottom-line is that they’re human. And that undeniable fact is what makes these artistic representations such dark, uncomfortable mirrors for us to ponder upon; for us to learn from.
Alex Cameron by Chris Rhodes
In music, this type of character is rarely the focus of a song. Maybe in some Metal, Hardcore, Punk, or Frank Zappa (yes, I consider him a genre), but never, ever, in the same space as such silky-smooth production like that of Alex Cameron’s discography. This guy understands that sometimes you need to use vibrant, stunning colors to grab people’s attention before hitting them in the head with some cold, hard facts. If that doesn’t make sense, let me elaborate.
Any Alex Cameron song (especially from his last two records, “Forced Witness” and “Miami Memory”) is produced and arranged to stunning results. Saxophones sound as vibrant and heavenly as humanly possible, and every melody is infused with such skill and precision you could be forgiven for thinking you were listening to some long lost David Bowie record. The catch is, that every character in these songs is either a proud idiot, a toxic-bro, a stalker, or some other form of a, let’s say, complicated individual. He invites you into his fun, approachable world, only to then show you the reality of the people that inhabit it. This, believe it or not, makes for some deep, funny, irreverent observations on human nature. Especially if you enjoy some pitch-black comedy and genius, off-the-wall lyricism.
There’s a song on “Forced Witness” about a man who’s cheating on his lover with someone he met online. He’s never seen this person outside of pictures she sends him (of “her eyes,” mind you), but that doesn’t stop him from sending a few dollars her way. He’s obviously being scammed, but he can’t help himself. He’s getting some much-needed attention, and that’s more than enough for his feeble ego. As the song progresses, he starts to realize that maybe he’s not actually talking to a woman, maybe it’s “a Nigerian guy,” but this still doesn’t dissuade him from continuing with this “affair.” Attention is one hell of a drug.
“Yeah there’s this woman on the Internet
Even if she’s some Nigerian guy
Yeah well you should read the poetry he speaks to me
I don’t care if they’re just beautiful lies
(Gonna love him with these beautiful lies)”
Another song, “Gaslight” from the stellar “Miami Memory,” paints a vivid picture of those insecure souls who unabashedly, you guessed it, gaslight their partners into dependent behaviors out of fear of losing them. What makes this song so interesting is how Alex frames it. It sounds like your typical love-song straight out of the 70s until you inevitably realize that the chorus isn’t exactly something you want to sing at the top of your lungs. The narrator talks about his partner “acting crazy” and that she should “hear [him] out” because he’s a “nice guy,” and ends his poisonous statement with a horrifying “in the night, use my gaslight.” Again, the true genius of what Alex does here is how he skillfully hides, in plain sight, such an uncomfortable take on a very toxic individual by simply surrounding it with some gorgeous, grooving production. This results in a very darkly comedic listening-experience. You find yourself joyously humming the melody and as you begin to focus on the lyrics, it hits you: “Holy crap, this person is horrible.” You might consider this some kind of bait-and-switch, but I consider it the perfect way of bringing important, necessary conversations into the fold. Gaslighting is a very real thing, and I don’t feel like people take it seriously enough. By falling into Alex Cameron’s trick, you end up listening to a story you might normally avoid, and in turn, you learn something new. You, if all goes well, end up empathizing with the situation that’s being portrayed in the song. And that’s one hell of a trick.
“Baby talk to me, you’ve been acting strange
I can see in your eye that there’s something wrong
And these texts are all crazy, I’m not surprised
’Cause I’ve seen it before
Don’t go lying now, baby your dates are all hazy
Hear me out, I’m a nice guy
In the night, use my gaslight”
“Far From Born Again” delves into the subject of sex-workers and proves to be a scathing takedown on those who judge them. “Marlon Brando” is about toxic masculinity and how it brings out the worst in us. “Candy May” is about a porn-obsessed, lonesome man who is creepily infatuated with the titular character who sees him as a pathetic outcast. And so on…. Every single song, every single line is filled with some level of understanding. He is well aware that these people are far from being perfect, but aren’t we all a little imperfect? What makes Alex Cameron so special is that he’s more than willing to talk about anything or anyone. He wants to be as objective as possible towards every person, every character. And we, as an audience, stand to gain so much from such an ingenious type of artist. An artist that is willing to delve into the darkest depths of our collective psyche to mine some much needed empathy.
It also doesn’t hurt that he’s one hell of a lyricist and a fitting provocateur in an age of sterilized pop. I’m gonna wrap this up by saying: Give Alex a shot. Best-case scenario, you’ll laugh and learn. Worst-case scenario, you’ll be disgusted and learn. Either way, you’ll come out as a more knowledgeable empathetic person. Besides, what else are you gonna do with your spare time? Listen to Bieber’s “Yummy”? No, we both know you won’t.