OUR EYES OUR EYES

Gosh is everyone in the pop music industry on a mission to render us blind and offend our aesthetic sensibilities so violently that we stab our own face with a cheap, shiny court shoe? What is actually happening? Did all the graphic designers in America take the day off, and it was left to an intern with a fondness for distressed fonts to take the job? Ugh.

A basic La Lambert video...

This, to our ears, is one of the most ordinary, middle of the road and least exceptional songs on Adam Lambert's album and we would have gone with something much more exciting, but everyone else seems to think this is fantastic so I guess WHAT DO WE KNOW? We suppose what they're trying to do is distance themselves from that whole trivial matter of flamboyancy and gayness and edge towards 'serious adult orientated rock artist' (i.e. boring).

It's a shame considering the wealth of glitteringly fun and genuinely 'glam' songs on For Your Entergayment (THAT WAS A CHEAP AND HUMOURLESS SHOT ESPECIALLY FROM A USUALLY MILITANT HOMO - Ed.), but if it means Lambert gets to make more albums and spread the long-forgotten message that you CAN be a popstar and openly gay, then who are we to criticise it.

Anyway.

A glossy Lambert video...

Click for snakes, hetero posturing and a rather amusing dance routine featuring a cane (the male disco stick?). It's all good in the hood for Adam and his posse as they party on down 'underground'. Glossy, attractive, exactly what you'd expect. Quite good.

'Flamboyant' is a compliment, not an insult...

Almost exactly a year ago we wrote about Beyoncé's latest album (although due to the nature of the article we shall henceforth only refer to it as 'an opus') and described it as "officially the campest, silliest, cheesiest, funnest, gayest album in the history of music ever".

Well it STILL is, and probably always will be. But vying for second place is Adam Lambert with her (christ, that was a genuine typo... we meant HIS) debut 'opus', For Your Entertainment. We're unsure of how all this is going to play out. The first single isn't setting the American charts alight, and last night Lambert performed it at the American Music Awards during which time he rubbed a male dancer's face in his crotch!

We think Adam's a brilliant idea, and welcome the concept of a wilfully gay pop star. He's also a brilliant singer and apparently fairly intelligent, but if you want to win over America, isn't it best to wait until you've established yourself as ubiquitous before simulating gay fellatio live on stage? It's a tricky subject, and we wish (in an ideal world) that every gay artist could be open and unapologetically themselves, but you have to sort of be a Trojan horse, because we don't live in a perfect world (and we are still riddled by homophobia).

It's not just gay-related, though. Imagine if Madonna had released "Erotica" or "Justify My Love" as her debut single? Or Björk had done "Pagan Poetry" for her very first video... Imagine if Tori Amos... oh wait, her first single was about rape, that's a bad example. Anyway, if you're going to try (emphasis on 'try') to be sexually controversial, especially if you're gay, maybe you should build a fanbase first, or at least work up to it, no?

Anyway: we'll write you an album review when we've listened in more depth. Or maybe we'll forget. Probably we'll forget. Sorry, Adam, we're busy people.

How does this make you feel?

This is an undeniably solid pop song, but aren't the lyrics erring tremulously on the side of horrifically cliché? "I'm about to turn up the heat...", "I'm in control" etc.? No?

If you're not already gay, you will be now...

We LOVE the concept of Adam Lambert. He's not just an openly gay pop star, he's an OVERTLY gay pop star. And god knows we've needed one for a long time. So, yes. We love Adam Lambert. Not sure how we feel about this, though. It's not that it's too camp, or too much, it's just that it looks a little... cheap. A little fan art. A little myspace drag queen.

Never fear, though, because it's all about the music isn't it? So that'd better be good.