Dove Cameron… Alchemist, Part 1
After Disney had in front of her a launching pad towards the sky of fame, the time had come for American Dove Cameron to escape from the orbit of the giant ancient artistic institution, and begin her own endeavor to establish her independent artistic brand as a singer, actress and songwriter. Thus, at the beginning of last December, she released the first part of the 27-year-old’s first album, recorded in a studio, under the title “Alchemical: Volume 1,” consisting of eight tracks.
Cameron starred in the 2015 Disney film “Descendants,” which resulted in a long-running television production, and she was only nineteen years old. “Child Star,” as people like her are described in the American entertainment industry, previously spoke about her experience in an interview, saying: “If you started your artistic career at that young age, you consigned your life to an illustrated guide (catalog) for it to be followed.” Interpreted by the masses through images that contradict reality, you begin to look at yourself from an external perspective, and you no longer see any validity in your subjective experience.” In other words; The artist turns into a media commodity and a public property, deprived of a private space without attaining the process of maturity through engaging in the battlefield of life.
Cameron was not the first, but another star who started as a child with Disney and did not end up with it. Selena Gomez, the heroine of the children’s fantasy “Wizards of Waverly Place” produced in 2007, when she was still an adult, attracted millions of children and teenagers, through her performance of the film’s song entitled “Magic”, which prompted the production company to… To reissue it as a single track (Singal) to gain wide popularity. As a result, she paved a path for herself to stardom in the world of pop singing.
Another name that has become popular recently is Miley Cyrus. She gained attention after her appearance in the Disney series “Hannah Montana” released in 2006. In it, she played the role of a teenager who lives a double life, in one of which she is a famous singing star, while in the other she seeks to hide her identity from those around her, hoping to live in a normal way away. About the spotlight. The success of the series enabled Disney to return to its brilliant era in the field of musical drama in the 1990s. At that time, young singing and performing talents such as Britney Spears were exported to the artistic market.
Perhaps eight tracks, not exceeding 22 minutes in total, should not be sufficient in the tradition of music production for Cameron’s release to be considered an album. If this indicates anything, it indicates the general trend among producing companies to avoid long periods of time and a lot of content in line with the inability of the public, in the era of “Tik Tok” and “Instagram” clips, to consume a single artistic product for long periods of time, let alone listen to An entire album.
In addition, the viral spread achieved by the video of the song “Boyfriend”, which was uploaded to YouTube at the beginning of last year, with a viewing rate exceeding 65 million, and which will be included in the new release, has, on the one hand, ensured good reception for the album, and on the one hand, necessitated caution regarding… Releasing all the songs at once, and releasing them in two batches as a two-part album.
Following the same approach followed by the star Billie Eilish in her first publications, Cameron distances her artistic brand from adopting the image of the sweet, delicate child, to take a path that is compatible with the feminist awakening that the West is witnessing in recent times. With this, she chooses a musical genre for herself, and although it still targets the younger generation of teenagers, it remains darker and lighter, such as Gothic Rock, which became popular between the seventies and eighties of the last century, where its music and the behaviors of its musicians suggest gloom, influenced by legends of magic and sorcery. It is distinguished by its black, medieval costumes, arousing apprehension and terror.
The gothic tendency is also evident in the album’s opener, “Lethal Woman.” The song begins with the eerie sound of a piano playing, acoustically designed to echo in an abandoned house. Shortly thereafter, Dove’s distorted, broken voice, synthesized using digital audio, responds to the pounding of a roaring electronic beat. Soon, the singing will intersect with a choir composed of harmonious harmonies, filling the ear with an element of dread and anticipation. The melancholy gothic style is manifested through meaning as well as song. The lyrics talk about a woman who walks like a saint, walks like an angel, and is sharp as a knife under the table. This is even though the expressions still refer metaphorically to the consequences of falling into the trap of love more than they are a description of a crime scene.
As for the fourth track, entitled “Sand,” it sounds more poetic, away from the Gothic atmosphere. The song begins with melodious minimalist harmonica strings played on the piano, reminiscent of the popular Sufi music popular among meditation and yoga practitioners, known as “New Age music.”
In a hoarse, exhausted voice, Cameron enters the track, repeating stereotypical words describing the state of love and its torment, even though she smacks of the poet’s tone of loneliness, preoccupied with existential anxiety, to ask: “What is worse? To be wanted but not loved, or to be loved but not loved.” The song is distinguished by its distributional intensity resulting from highly professional exploitation of technological capabilities in order to create psychological climates of diverse color spectrums, thus acquiring the characteristic of music accompanying a cinematic film.
By moving to the Internet in 2019, through the Disney Plus platform, the entertainment industry company that was founded by Walt and Roy Disney in 1923 and for an entire century remains one of the poles of the star industry. However, it has always resembled a bird’s nest. Once a bird grows up, it is able to flap its wings until it leaves the nest to fly far into space. Dove Cameron did the same, as did many girls before her, who were destined to pursue an artistic career as adults, transcending the “child star” phenomenon.
