HEAR AND NOW: Adam Lambert’s debut: A little Gaga

By Rebecca Lee, The Dartmouth Staff

Published on Tuesday, December 1, 2009

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Music these days is a lot less about an emotional connection with the audience and a lot more about shock and awe.

We see this trend with Rihanna, whose constantly changing hairstyles and bold outfits bring her just as much if not more attention than her songs.

Another case in point is Lady Gaga, who has taken avant-garde performance art to the next level — I am still trying to get over the bird’s nest she wore on her face at the VMAs.

Now it seems Adam Lambert of “American Idol” fame is the latest entertainer to adopt provocative antics.

Lambert’s solo debut album, “For Your Entertainment” (2009), dropped on Nov. 23, just a day after his controversial performance at the 2009 American Music Awards.

The album is really everything I expected it to be — that is, a guilty pleasure resurrection of the glam rock movement.

With this album, he wants to be the male version of Lady Gaga, an overproduced singer in perpetual costume.

The album is catchy, theatrical and showcases Lambert’s incredible range, which is so vast that it makes him sound almost androgynous at times.

In songs such as “Sure Fire Winners” and “Soaked,” which are dominated by piano strains and 1980s bass lines, Lambert demonstrates his love for Queen-esque theatrics.

In “Strut,” he sounds uncannily like Muse with a heavy beat and almost-spoken lyrics.

Of course, the crowd killer is the eponymous “For Your Entertainment,” a pure-pop ballad complete with snare transitions and whip snaps serving as the background beat, oddly reminiscent of Britney Spears.

All in all, Lambert’s album is a giant conglomeration of flamboyance and excess, which should go over well given the current climate for weird musicians.

On the whole, however, the album is a bit of a disappointment in light of his stellar performance on “Idol” — remember the haunting “Mad World” and his ethereal arrangement of “Ring of Fire?” Those were great. This is only very good.