Adam on the AMAs tomorrow - Updated post-AMAs

I wouldn't be doing my job here if I didn't notify you that Adam will be performing live at the American Music Awards, tomorrow, Sunday, Nov. 23, on ABC from 7:00-10:00 CST. There will be 17 performers (including Lady Gaga, whom I trust you now love). Adam will be closing the show. Expect scantily clad dancers and fireworks while he sings For Your Entertainment (the song).

Update 11/23: I think that was a disaster of epic proportions.

Update 11/24: I should clarify. It wasn't disastrous because of the kiss. Or the simulated oral sex. Or the crotch grabs (his own or the stripper-pole girl's). Or the flipping-of-the-bird. Or the fall, which was amazingly ninja-like -- did not know that theater guys were rigorously trained in the tuck and roll -- and through which Adam sang well. What was disastrous to me was the batch of bad notes and overall awkward sounding vocals. I've never heard him sing a bad note, so that was shocking. It's a song that didn't translate well to a live version. It didn't help that the audio mix was bad on TV. (Reports are that it sounded better in the room.)

Update 11/24: Rolling Stone gave him a pass on the singing and loved the performance:

It’s already hard to remember what the world was like before Adam Lambert showed up, less than a year ago — but we can be sure it was a colder, drearier, and less pervy place, and moments like this epitomize why we’re glad to have this lady-stardust guy in our lives.

Update 11/24: HuffPo has video that should remain available, so I'll post it here for convenient reference. I've seen a slow-motion gif of the fall that is pretty cool and I'd like to share, but it's not legally postable. Adam's younger brother Neil was proud of the athletic feat:

On another note, ABC says they got 1500 calls complaining about the performance (not sure if it was the OTT sexuality or the musical quality). That's not very many, I don't think, considering the audience was something like 14 million.

Lady Gaga before she was Lady Gaga

Although you may not recognize her without a crazy outfit, here she is:

The first three and a half minutes, in particular, are fab.

(The poster claims they have rights to post the video and they made it available for embed, so I have.)

Adam's album is streaming

on his MySpace page. Holy coyote. I'm not all the way through but it's just one amazement after the next.

Update: It's also streaming on Facebook here and on iLike here.

And I take it back about it sounding all like pop music. It doesn't. It also does not sound like rock. It's something else.

Update II: If you don't listen to anything else, you should try out the odd-then-glorious passage from 2:21-2:43 of Pick U Up, culminating in the "money moment", as labeled by Rivers Cuomo of Weezer who wrote the song. Pick U Up is just plain odd. It's disco. It's a show tune. It has a guitar solo. It has moments that remind me of the theme song from Greatest American Hero, "Believe It or Not".

Update III: Adam talks about what he was trying to achieve. I've heard his explanations a gazillion times, but maybe this is news to the non-obsessed:



Update IV (11/18/09): "Broken Open" is a work of art. It's melodically/harmonically really simple. It's repetitious and trance-inducing and mezmerizing. The vocal prowess he shows here isn't in fireworks but in control and restraint. The lyrics are lovely. Adam said this about the song, that he co-wrote, in a recent Rolling Stone interview:

"Broken Open” you could put it in the same category as a downtempo Goldfrapp song or even like Radiohead, there’s shades of that in there, very electronic but mellow, very ethereal. The lyrics are basically encouraging someone to feel safe in being vulnerable. “Lay here, it’s safe here, I’ll let you be broken open.” It’s about that moment where someone really opens up emotionally to you. I just wrote that from some experiences that I’ve had with certain people in my life, and I hope that it comes across that way.

And this in a USA Today interview:

Broken Open is a recurring theme in my life. I've known people who were cool socially, but when we got close, they'd fall apart. I'd think, am I a therapist? I guess I was offering some safety. The song says it's OK, break apart, be a wreck, I'll hold the pieces together.

Partial lyrics:

I know the battle of
Chasing the shadows
Of who you wanna be
It doesn't matter
Go on and shatter
I'm all you need

Broken pieces
Break into me
So imperfectly
What you should be
Lay here, it's safe here, I'll let you be broken open
Hide here, confide here so we can be broken open

Update V (11/19/09): Houston Chron's Joey Guerra likes the album.