20th Century Boy again

I just saw Velvet Goldmine for the first time. In the film, Placebo performs the song 20th Century Boy as a fictitous band, the Flaming Creatures. Adam has been covering 2CB during encores for several weeks. I posted one video of it earlier. Here's one with good audio and gorgeous video from September 15, 2010, in Atlanta. (Adam and the band are wearing dreadlock wigs in honor of this being the last night that Longinue Parsons, their dreadlocked drummer, was with them on this tour before leaving to return to his band Yellowcard.)



Adam has cited Bowie as an influence many times and has talked about his love for the film Velvet Goldmine. Adam has paid homage to both in several ways in his first year of his career. As I mentioned before, the album cover for FYE nods to the Hunky Dory cover. There's a favorite image of Adam, taken by Lee Cherry, that you'll see in the beginning of the video, in a feather collar thing that nods to the feather collar that Brian Slade wears in VG. He may have borrowed some tongue action and homoerotic stage antics from Slade, though maybe that's just Adam being Adam.

Velvet Goldmine explores the issue of artifice in the pop/rock world. Every artist has to find the right blend (for them) of artifice versus authenticity in their work and their image. I think this is a tricky thing for Adam to navigate. He's happy adopting a character and wearing costumes and being all artifice, but it's difficult when you've established a fan base via American Idol to suddenly hide yourself behind a character. He's also personally charismatic and plenty talented enough to not need to rely on gimmicky artifice, but he can't compete with singer/songwriter types for angsty authenticity. At present, he sort of comes in and out of character based on a song's mood or lyric. Fans get this about him, but it may be confusing for non-fans and that may make it difficult to grow fandom.

This video is compelling to me because it's apparent that by this point in the tour he's so much more comfortable and skilled at being a rock star on stage than he was at the beginning of this tour. He knows, by this point, exactly what his audience enjoys from him. As skilled a singer as he is and as comfortable as he has always looked performing, he had some stagecraft to master when he started the tour, and now he's developed that.

I also find the video compelling because of the blend of masculine and feminine that I've mentioned before. The wig is supposed to read as dreadlocked rasta. But it doesn't. He looks like he's in drag. The lipstick probably contributes to that. And he's gorgeous. But then his performance is sprinkled with masculine, aggressive, body language.

Yeah, the "Indian giver" reference is reprehensible. He heard about it from fans.

Update: I should note that for the encore songs (like 20th Century Boy and Whole Lotta Love), Adam is just Adam - no character.

Adam on Nightline

Adam was on Nightline's Playlist last night (video here) talking about musical influences. I share since he mentioned Bowie.

In the past, Adam has identified the Hunky Dory cover as a reference for the cover art for his album.

For Your Entertainment

Adam debuted the first single "For Your Entertainment" off his album this morning. It's dancy; it's synthy. Usually those are disqualifiers for me, but I can't stop listening to this. It's completely infectious. The use of autotune is judicious, so I'm tolerating that. Young people will like it and that's what matters.

The lyrics work on a couple levels. It's a literal lover-to-lover declaration. But it's also a more metaphorical command from Adam to fans. See subtitle. (Update III: Ann Powers, LATimes says this so much better than I did: "It's a game that's led from the dance floor to the bedroom: seduction as a wicked parlor trick fully enjoyed by the master and his victim, the light fantasy of dominance and submission that's a metaphor for what happens between performer and fan.")

Houston Chron's Joey Guerra's review is here, including embedded audio. Update IV: You can stream it or buy it from www.adamofficial.com. [Our friend Asta will tell you she doesn't think his voice sounds manipulated as much in the higher quality recording of it. I think she's right, but I still think it sounds auto-tuned or manip'd in spots.]

There are illegal downloads floating around, but you'll be able to buy it later today on iTunes, so do that instead.

Update: Full lyrics courtesy of ontd_ai:

So hot out the box, can we pick up the pace
Turn it up, heat it up, I need to be entertained
Push the limit, are you with it, baby don't be afraid
I'm hurting you good, baby
Let's go, it's my show, baby do what I say
Don't trip on the glitz that I'm gonna display
I told you I'ma hold you down until you're amazed
Give it to you til you're screaming my name

No escaping when I start
Once I'm in I own your heart
There's no way to ring the alarm
So hold on until it's over

Do ya know what you got into?
Can you handle what I'm 'bout to do?
'Cause it's about to get rough for you
I'm here for your entertainment

Oh, I bet you thought that I was soft and sweet
You thought an angel swept you off your feet
But I'm about to turn up the heat
I'm here for your entertainment

It's alright, you'll be fine, baby I'm in control
Take the pain, take the pleasure, I'm the master of both
Close your eyes, not your mind let me into your soul
I'ma work you til you're totally blown

No escaping when I start
Once I'm in I own your heart
There's no way to ring the alarm
So hold on until it's over

Do ya know what you got into?
Can you handle what I'm 'bout to do?
'Cause it's about to get rough for you
I'm here for your entertainment

Oh, I bet you thought that I was soft and sweet
You thought an angel swept you off your feet
But I'm about to turn up the heat
I'm here for your entertainment

Do you like what you see?
Let me entertain you til you scream.

Do ya know what you got into?
Can you handle what I'm 'bout to do?
'Cause it's about to get rough for you
I'm here for your entertainment

Oh, I bet you thought that I was soft and sweet
You thought an angel swept you off your feet
But I'm about to turn up the heat
I'm here for your entertainment

Update II: Rolling Stone describes it as "like the love child of Lady Gaga and Bowie’s 'Lady Stardust.'" Bowie fans want to weigh in here? I don't hear any Bowie, but I'm not familiar with his full catalog. The Wall Street Journal says "the song is funky, glam-y, has a pulsating beat, and more importantly, is perfect for top 40 radio." There you go, WSJ -- find the money.

Adam's album cover

Adam's album cover was revealed yesterday:

Fan response is mixed. I post it, though, because there is nary a critique/commentary in the media that doesn't include a reference to Bowie.

Rolling Stone says:

Do not adjust you computer monitors: the above image of Adam Lambert is in fact the cover for his post-Idol debut album For Your Entertainment, due out November 23rd. The album cover was confirmed by Lambert’s Adam Official website today, and judging solely by the art, his debut is venturing to a glammed-out galaxy far, far away from his image on his 2012 single “Time for Miracles” — probably landing someplace where there are Spiders from Mars. From his bright blue hair to For Your Entertainment’s straight-off-Purple Rain font, this album looks like it’ll live up to Lambert’s Twitter promise that “Glam is back!!!”

The Wall Street Journal says (yes, really, the WSJ is spending money on staff to comment on album covers; isn't there some naked short-selling you should be investigating? oh wait, Rolling Stone is doing that. Well then, carry on with your album art critiquing):

The cover art for Adam Lambert’s debut album “For Your Entertainment” has just been released, and in typical Adam fashion, it’s glamtastic (As Lambert himself tweeted: “Glam is back!”). The “American Idol” runner up is pictured with blue hair and hyper-colored lime and navy eye shadow, and a finger-less glove adorns in his left (black nail-polished) hand. Oh yeah, and his head seems to be floating around in space. David Bowie would be proud.

Michelle Collins (who loves Adam) writing for The Best Week Ever says, colorfully, that the cover sends notice to unicorns:

This album cover is the FANCIEST THING WE HAVE EVER WITNESSED. Unicorns may not exist, but gay ones certainly do, and this album cover is more of a warning to that endangered species: Step your game up, you cashmere soft, ivory horned, glittery hooved m******f**kers. ... In other news, I just plunked down some hard earned bloggin’ bucks on a ‘78 Camaro so that I may airbrush his visage unto its hood and become my town’s classiest lady. It’s going to be a great year.

After considering it for a day, I've decided I like it except for the fonts which look cheap to me and the neck-less shoulder awkwardness. But maybe it's retro font and I am failing to appreciate that. (It doesn't look that much like the Purple Rain font to me.)

Update: Adam mentions Bowie too, when interviewed by Access Hollywood:

“I’ve loved David Bowie since I was a kid [and] artists like Michael Jackson, Prince [and] Mick Jagger,” Adam told Access Hollywood’s Tony Potts at the Los Angeles premiere of “This Is It” on Tuesday night. “There’s a lot of male rock stars in history that have kind of played with androgyny and I [am] just fascinated by that look so I wanted to do something like that for the album cover.”

Update II: There's more going on here than meets the eye at first glance. A Chinese fan site has played around with this image, cutting out just the eyes and rotating them to horizontal, then producing two versions, one with the left eye mirrored and one with the right eye mirrored. The result is that one looks completely masculine (using Adam's left eye) and the other feminine (using Adam' right eye).

Update III: Adam tweets:


Update IV: And the world is having fun with Photoshop and Adam's cover. Rolling Stone here puts Adam's face into several famous covers (including a Bowie one, with Kris Allen tattooed near Adam's collarbone). Jim Cantiello of MTV puts himself into eleven Idol album covers, including Adam's. Fan sites are having their own fun too. Seems like alot of buzz about an album cover and all generated in less than 24 hours.

Update V: Houston Chron's Joey Guerra blogged about Adam's cover:

Androgyny? Check. Fierceness? Check. Makeup and blue hair? Check. (Loves it.)

H/t hooplamagnet (content locked).

Update 8/8/10:  Just dawned on me that it would make sense to link to this post which also mentions the cover for FYE.

Adam is on tour

I can hear you all asking, "What's Adam Lambert up to these days, Steph?" Happy to oblige. He's been on tour with the other Idols for the past couple weeks and will be through the middle of September. They visit about 50 cities this summer, including Dallas this Thursday.

Adam's five-song set is (with links to fan videos of varying quality - UPDATED to add second video links):

1) Whole Lotta Love (also here and in Newark)
2) Starlight (Muse) (also here; and in Dallas and in Newark)
3) Mad World (also here and in Newark)
4) Slow Ride (duet with Allison Iraheta; in this video, Adam demonstrates his skills at handling fan-tossed undergarments) (also here and in Newark)
5) Bowie medley (and in Newark).

Update II (8/9/09): Added the links to the Newark videos which are good quality.

I must admit that Adam's dancing in the Let's Dance portion of the Bowie medley gives me a little secondhand embarrassment. It's more Richard Simmons than rock star.

Reviews of the tour have been uniformly enthused about Adam.

There has been just a teeny tiny bit of protesting by the crackpot Westboro Baptist Church at tour venues on the grounds that "fags" are an abomination to God. Avowed-Christian and admittedly-formerly-not-so-cool-with-gay-guys-but-has-been-learning-tolerance Michael Sarver, Texas resident and 10th-place Idol contestant, stuck up for Adam via Twitter: Sort of akin to "Don't mess with Texas." (It's really an oddly defensive slogan for a state. What's up with that?)

We'll get a single from Adam in September and an album in November. (Winner Kris Allen and Allison Iraheta will also have albums coming out in November.) Adam's album will be a solo album (i.e he's not forming a band right now), with songs that have resulted from collaborations with Linda Perry (who was a singer in 4 Non Blondes and who wrote that 4 Non Blondes' song that Adam sang at the Upright Cabaret and who has written some great songs for Christina Aguilera), RedOne (producer for Lady Gaga), Sam Sparro, Ryan Tedder, and Kara DioGuardi (gulp; here's hoping for something better than the Idol anthem this year). Every time Adam describes what his album will be like, he mentions something about it being synthy and dancy. So I'm afraid that I won't be able to bear it and I'll have to listen to my compilation of his Idol recordings for the remainder of my days.

We may also get an unofficial Adam album ("On With the Show") in September that will be a compilation of things he recorded prior to Idol. It will include some songs that are songwriter demo tracks like Want (a bad song that Adam still manages to turn into something I've listened to many times) and others that are songs Adam co-wrote with Monte Pittman (Madonna's guitar player).

Since Scooter was unimpressed with Allison's No Doubt song during the season, I have to point you to her tour performance of Cry Baby where she more than competently channels Janis. Reminder that she's 17 years old. (I'll keep an eye for a tour video with better quality audio.) The girl is a musical savant, I tell you.

Adam Lambert compared to Secretariat and other things about Adam

For an athlete analogy for Adam Lambert, Paula used Michael Phelps; we use LeBron James; Rolling Stone, May 28, 2009, p. 38 goes with Secretariat and gets it just right:

Ever see that clip of Secretariat at the 1973 Belmont Stakes, where he's running 25 lengths ahead of the other horses, but he's still all "Wheeee! Fast is fun! More, please!" That's the joy Glambert shows when he sings . . .

This is the first Rolling Stone issue I think I've ever purchased and I bought it just to read the AL story. Such is my obsession.

I'll offer a couple other snippets from the story that reference Bowie (since Adam spawned our previous Bowie discussion):

Where the hell did they find this guy? There's a "boy who fell to Earth" quality about him, like David Bowie's Lady Stardust come to life.

We don't know for sure if Glambert is gay -- all he says is he has nothing to hide or deny -- but if not, it's the gayest embodiment of flaming youth by a straight guy since Bowie sold the world.

You know how your basic glam-rock epic ends with the hero dying because he's too beautiful for the cruel world? Adam has left this fatalistic aspect of glam rock behind; he's picked Bowie, Queen and Roxy Music clean in term of stylistic cues, but he's not content to be a beautiful loser - he wants to be a beautiful winner.

I sure don't hear any Roxy Music in him. I hope to hear Queen on Tuesday. He's already covered the Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin, Johnny Cash, Michael Jackson and U2. He's just checking icons off the list and Queen has been conspicuously absent. It's really quite an opportunity to unapologetically put out cover versions of great songs and he's made the most of it, generating an album's worth of masterpieces, IMHO. He's described that he's put his season together like it was a set, so we have to expect he's saved the biggest and best for last.

As I type this, I'm hearing Adam coming from the Magneplanar speakers in one of my partner's offices. He's "sharing" from my iTunes via the office network.

That last RS quote touches on something I've been mulling. It seems to be a truism that stars that shine the brightest, shine too briefly. Adam couldn't really shine more brightly, so I fear some sort of tragic end. But he just doesn't have any signs of self-destructive behavior, no angst, no brooding, no signs of a tortured soul. This past Wednesday (results night for those who don't know), Ryan Seacrest had some time to fill while waiting for the stage to be set for guest performer Katy Perry and he turned to contestant Danny Gokey to ask how he was doing. Danny said something about just wanting to get it over with, just get to the results, displaying that his nerves were shot. Adam chimed in gleefully (gayly, if you wish), "I want to see Katy Perry!" No stress, no nerves, just joy in the moment. As further evidence that he's not on a path to a heroin overdose, I've noticed that in the thousands of pictures of him plastered across the web, many of which are in clubs, in wild dress, at parties, his eyes are always completely clear -- no sign of even being tipsy, much less wasted. He's all about his body and voice being one, and taking care of his voice. (When asked what item his missed most from home when he moved into the Idol mansion, he listed his humidifier to keep his vocal chords in shape, but noted that he'd eventually gotten it sent over.) Maybe vanity will do him in via botched plastic surgery. It seems way too good to imagine that he'll crank out great music for decades.

Back in the states

I wasn't really able to read or react to posts while I was gone. I do have some comments about Bowie songs, the BBC and the UK in general. Give me a couple of days to decompress.

As long as I'm posting about the Bowie song...

Eno, and Lou Reed period, I can't forget about Iggy Pop.

Scooter, Bowie/Mercury and Lambert

New subtitle inspired by Scooter's Lions' work -- and by Bowie/Queen via Adam Lambert (in a way) who's a fan of both of them and needs to sing a 1982 song on Tuesday. (Did I mention that I'm obsessed?) Under Pressure fills the bill. Or, you idiom-policers, is it "fits the bill"?

Stangest Christmas Carol Ever

Little Drummer Boy, David Bowie and Bing Crosby.