Dove Cameron — FINAL GIRL (Album Review)

Dove Cameron delivers a masterclass in alt-pop on her debut album FINAL GIRL.

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TOP 5

5. silver screen baby

I knew that I’d love FINAL GIRL when the opening track was “silver screen baby.” The song is about how Dove Cameron has wanted fame since she was young, partially because of the tragedies she experienced at home after her father took his own life when Dove was fifteen. The lyrics are both beautiful and clever. My favorite line was “spin on a Golden Globe.” I like the combination of wanting the award and feeling on top of the world. She acknowledges that desiring fame is seeing that world through rose-colored glasses, and that’s a fitting way to start the album.

4. maybe heaven is a jazz club

Dove has experienced a lot of loss in her life, including the passing of her father and her friend Cameron Boyce, both of whom are featured on the track in the form of old recordings of their voices. Dove sings that her father and friend are playing music for her from above in heaven, which she imagines as a jazz club. The song ends with some jazzier instrumentals, which one can’t help but imagine as her late loved ones after the context of the lyrics. The song is heartbreaking and hopeful. It’s a moving closer to the album that works as a lovely bookend with “silver screen baby.”

3. breaks open

“breaks open” is the best song on FINAL GIRL, vocally speaking. This is one of the songs where my jaw dropped while listening. It’s fantastic alt-pop with cinematic strings and some pop-rock sensibilities. There’s a real sonic journey on this track. It goes from classic alt-pop to a full choir and symphonic layering, sometimes at the same time. I was on the edge of my seat as I anticipated what was coming next at any given time. Dove gave everything to this song, and it pays off.

2. hot girl

“hot girl” is the first jaw-dropping song on FINAL GIRL. It combines alt-pop, dark pop, dance pop, and alt-rock in a fascinating way. It’s not a country song by any stretch of the term, but the melody would definitely lend itself to a country cover. It’s about Dove meeting a hot girl in the club and having the time of her life. It is so badass, and her belting is to die for. She says that “God is a hot girl on drugs / Looking down on me from above.” It reminds me of a Rebecca Black song, particularly a more rock-like Age of the Exhibitionist track.

When thought about in conjunction with “maybe heaven is a jazz club,” it represents the interesting dichotomy of the album: the instant gratification of the physical and the emotional fulfillment of human connection. Every song plays with one or both of those ideas, and “hot girl” and “maybe heaven is a jazz club” being highlights on the album makes sense. She clearly thought about those two tracks in particular.

1. emerald

“emerald” is the second track on FINAL GIRL, and it is absolutely fantastic. I knew I’d love the album from “silver screen baby,” but I knew I’d adore it after hearing “emerald.” Sapphic jazzy alt-pop is something I need more of in my life. It’s the jazziest track on the album, and I need Dove to sing more songs in this style right now. The jazzy alt-pop here is the perfect combination for Dove’s skill set. I need Dove to star in a movie about a fictional Old Hollywood starlet, too. I have an idea. Dove, call me.

I love how “emerald” expands upon the theme of the rest of the album. It’s subtle, but after realizing the theme, this song’s place in it is clearer. “Diamonds are forever / Emeralds do it better” is an example of the prioritizing of instant, physical gratification over the constant, permanent beauty of the diamond. The woman she sings about in “emerald” isn’t even interested in her in the same way, but chasing the ephemeral emerald is easier than sitting with the need for the diamond. This is not to devalue the coveting of the woman at all—rather, the song serves as an introduction to the physical themes of the album, and by comparing them to a valuable gemstone in their own right, it shows their importance in her life.

SONG BY SONG RATING

silver screen baby (4.5/5)

emerald (5/5)

when in rome (4.5/5)

good on you (4.5/5)

do the math (4.5/5)

hot girl (5/5)

skin over bone (4.5/5)

hands of man (4.5/5)

breaks open (5/5)

immortalized (4.5/5)

maybe heaven is a jazz club (5/5)

RGM RATING

(A)

FINAL GIRL is a fantastic first album. I’ve been a fan of Dove’s for over a decade, and I am thrilled after this. I love the prevalence of the theme of physical pleasure, instant gratification, and external validation being seen as both a distraction from grief and valuable in their own right. Dove doesn’t belittle those things. Instead, she embraces them, while the emotional center is truly her relationship with the people in her life who have passed.

Even the title FINAL GIRL represents the themes of the album—the “final girl” trope is about being the woman at the end of the horror movie who survived (similar to her surviving her father and friend). She has made it to the point of being a “silver screen baby,” since the final girl is often one of the most famous actors in her film, or becomes a star afterwards. Being an actual final girl is far less exciting or triumphant. It’s traumatic. That character is wounded forever by the events of the film.

Queer, grief-stricken alt-pop with Old Hollywood and alt-rock vibes is a genre I need more of in my life, and Dove Cameron is certainly the woman for the job. She has so many fantastic unreleased tracks that I hope make it into a hypothetical deluxe. FINAL GIRL is in my top five albums of the year.