Adam Lambert: Poptimist of the Year?
Nov. 30th, 2009 05:21 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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poptimistsNot really. But yeah, new Adam Lambert strikes me as a rare instance of a mainstream US artist taking on what I can only think of as "Eurovision style," a hodgepodge of hyper-glam, synth-pop, torch songs, and soarin' male falsetto. Somewhere between BWO and the Ark, or something?
Anyway, dramaqueenage abounds and the whole album is worth a listen -- as![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
girlboymusic put it, "simultaneously mediocre and fabulous." Its mediocrity scans to me as workmanlike, but it's a different sort of work than I'm used to from American artists.
Do any other major American artists from the past few years sound anything at all like this? All I'm coming up with is Scissor Sisters -- but anyway they're way more popular in Europe.
Obvious echoes of Lady GaGa, who probably deserves some mention in this convo, in fuh-fuh-fuh-"Fever":
Synth-struttin':
No-that's-not-The-Feeling pop in "Pick U Up":
Etc. So what the heck is going on?
Anyway, dramaqueenage abounds and the whole album is worth a listen -- as
girlboymusic put it, "simultaneously mediocre and fabulous." Its mediocrity scans to me as workmanlike, but it's a different sort of work than I'm used to from American artists. Do any other major American artists from the past few years sound anything at all like this? All I'm coming up with is Scissor Sisters -- but anyway they're way more popular in Europe.
Obvious echoes of Lady GaGa, who probably deserves some mention in this convo, in fuh-fuh-fuh-"Fever":
Synth-struttin':
No-that's-not-The-Feeling pop in "Pick U Up":
Etc. So what the heck is going on?
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Date: 2009-12-03 01:47 pm (UTC)"This album REALLY needs to be renamed "The State of White American Popular Music in 2009". The mishmash of some of pop's biggest artists contributing songs - from Pink and Lady Gaga to Matt Bellamy and Rivers Cuomo - means the album overall doesn't have much of an artistic vision on Lambert's behalf. As a showcase for the songwriters, it's obviously uneven - the low points being Linda Perry's typically uninspired facsimile-pop, and the highs Pink's "Whataya Want From Me" - a perfect fit for Lambert's glam-inspired style. On the other hand, Matt Bellamy's theatrical "Soaked" sounds EXACTLY like a Muse cover, which would be utterly laughable if it wasn't so convincingly sung and produced.
As much as the inconsistency stops For Your Entertainment from being anywhere near cohesive, it's proof that pop on a wider scale is alive and well - and more importantly, still creative. If this is where pop music at its most high-profile is at, I'm definitely looking forward to where it's going."
And I thought I was onto something, but then you mention a Eurovision vibe and I start to second-guess the whole thing...