- Alex Cameron is not especially one of the biggest names in Australian music. But the Sydney indie-pop export, who is releasing his third album Miami Memory, is a genuine star overseas - duetting with indie darling Angel Olsen and touring stadiums with his other collaborators The Killers.
That kind of success dichotomy is unusual, but even more surprising is his popularity given his style of music is cheesy electro pop with a conceptual lyrical theme - of Cameron playing the role of a failed alpha male clinging on to the last vestiges of masculine pride. It hardly seems like the usual route to pop stardom.
To be honest my main association with Alex Cameron before this record was a widely shared article written by Jared Richards that critiqued the ironic macho posturing of him and similar act Kirin J Callinan. It is possible for po-faced political commentators to miss all the subtlety of art, but I think Richards had a point.
For a start, you have to be careful especially in the internet age to make sure people realise your art is satire. Cameron has maintained that his songs are critiques of toxic masculinity, but in a way he can justify or even glorify the worst elements of that culture for those who don't get it. And as a white male, there is no real risk in his macho characters - like the edgelord comedian making racist gags, Cameron can afford to joke about masculinity because he is never on the receiving end of its worst attributes.
As well as that there is the fact that, as stories continuing to come out of the #metoo movement prove, those worst elements of masculinity are not limited to the chauvinist underclass types Cameron parodies. Sensitive indie men are as prone to those same issues. By pointing at problems "out there" in the bogan reaches, Cameron skips any self-reflection of how this thing we call the patriarchy affects all of us born male.
On this album, a track like PC With Me could be seen as making fun of those who take issue with his lyrics. "You don't have to be so PC with Me", says a woman to the narrator; "the meaner they are, the harder I fall for them." The song fits with all the bad boy alpha fantasies of your average Jordan Peterson devotee.
Elsewhere though, Cameron makes clear concessions to those critiques. Gaslight is still in character and somewhat ironic, but even by its use of the title it shows an affinity with feminists trying to highlight everyday micro aggressions. Bad For The Boys meanwhile is a song seemingly about the #metoo movement and the men caught up in it. And by the end of the song it drops the irony to say "Guess I don't feel so bad for the boys"
Miami Memory seems to walk a balance between between irony and sincerity, feminism and machismo. The album ends with a bizarre spoken word soliloquy, seemingly delivered to his real life girlfriend. It would be an odd end to any album, but for Cameron it seems to signal a bit of a turning of the page - a realisation that ironic detachment can only ever get you so far, and at some point you need to show some vulnerability to connect with an audience or another person.
- Andy Paine.