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 |  Subject: Adam Lambert on For Your Entertainment  07.06.10 0:24 | |
| - Quote :
- Wednesday's press conference to kick off the Glamnation Tour found journalists asking Adam Lambert questions not only about the tour but also about his debut album, For Your Entertainment which dropped in November. It entered the Billboard chart at #3 behind Lady GaGa and Susan Boyle and has remained in the Top 100 for the past 27 weeks. The album reached RIAA gold status in the U.S. in February with 652K now sold as of 5/19/10. The second single release "Whataya Want From Me" hit platinum in April. His third single, "If I Had You" is in rotation on some radio stations with more adding daily. The video is due to be released some time this month.
For Your Entertainment is a very bold experiment on the part of a brand new pop artist and his label. Lambert has stated in interviews shortly after the end of the Idols Live tour that he wanted to make a record that was a combination of classic, glam, electronica and funk. He wanted to bring it all into the 21st century though. RCA had enough confidence in Adam's ideas to start rounding up some of the best in the biz. The album includes tracks written by Pink, Justin Hawkins, Rivers Cuomo, Matt Bellamy and the Lady herself-GaGa. Producers included Rob Cavallo, Linda Perry, Max Martin and Greg Wells. Mr. Lambert even has writing credit on tracks such as Strut, Aftermath and Broken Open.
In the conversation with Lambert earlier this week, while describing the concept for the tour, he stated that he discovered that the album itself lives in a world of mystiscm, sensuality, adventure and intrigue. There really is continuity to it despite the fact that each track has its own distinctive personality.
Speaking on the general creation of For Your Entertainment, some reporters were curious as to how much room Lambert had to move in based on rumors over the years of Idols being limited by labels and management. Asked if he was required to conform to commercial formulas, he had this to say: "I mean clearly conformity really isn’t my thing. I think that as an artist and a business person both that I looked at this opportunity, this is a mainstream major thing. So I want to make a thing that has mass appeal quality to it Then I want some music on the album to be a little more specific. I felt pressure of expectation. I thought that people were expecting something, and one of the things that was a choice that I made was that even though I performed a lot of classic rock on Idol and it’s music that I’m really fond of, I felt like in the challenge of making new music and coming up with my own music, to do a bunch of derivative sounding rock music would have been kind of too much of an expected choice."
Later in the conference, the Idol runner-up revisted the subject of the albums diversity: "every song on there I wanted to reflect me as an artist. I wanted there to be different elements of my personality. I think it’s really easy in today’s music market because there is so much to choose from and generally things kind of come and go so quickly. I think it’s hard to find artists that are trying to show you all different dimensions. A lot of albums kind of sound all alike for the commercial benefit of that. But for me it was really important to have an album that was super diverse showing different sides of who I am. I find that one of the best things about being in the position that I’m in is that you get the chance to make people feel something and inspire people. And so I really believe in that current message as a way to connect with y audience.
On the subject of producers, the rocker was posed with questions regarding his most challenging one and about one of a reporter's favorites. When queried about who taught him the most, Adam spoke of Linda Perry. "It was a really educational experience. She has a history of amazing songs and music and she has worked with some amazing artists. And she is a really strong personality and she just kind of reminded me that yes, you are in a position to make commercial pop music. But you also have the opportunity to do something different because you set yourself up that way, because you are different. And so that definitely encouraged me to have a balance on the album of music that was for acceptable and then music that was a little more experimental."
As for Max Martin, Jennifer Boyer asked about Adam's experience: "He’s great. I think Max is obviously one of the best in the business. He just knows what is going to sound the best. And I trusted that because I’ve heard his music and I’ve always been a fan of it. I remember we did "Whattaya Want From Me" over the summer and I remember, after hearing the first demo and being so thrilled with it going back to my management and saying we have to ask him to do another song. We have to. He’s so good. He’s so, so good. And he sent this one ("If I Had You") and he wrote some lyrics specifically about me, kind of for me. So it’s a really great song. I love it."
Two songs reporters asked about were "Soaked", an anthemic power ballad inked by Matt Bellamy of Muse and "Fever", the catchy dance number the Lady GaGa offered to Lambert. Adam is a huge fan of Muse and has stated in the past how much it blew him away that they had given him a song. When presented with the question this week of how that came about, the rocker said, "Well, my A&R guy, he knew their A&R guy and they had this song that was part of their catalog. I mean technically it’s a song written by Muse but it’s an Adam Lambert song because they never released it. So he wrote the song, Matt Bellamy, and gave it to me. And it’s a beautiful melody and I think it really is a great addition to the album because it’s definitely throw back and
nods to some of the classic rock and vintage pop ballads. And I think that it’s a great sound to contrast all the rhythmic elements on For Your Entertainment."
Another reporter asked about "Fever", the song given to the artist by Lady Gaga and the possibility of it eventually being released as a single in the U.S. For those familiar with the song it does include the male pronoun when referring to romantic attraction. Lambert confirmed that getting the song onto American radio may be a challenge due to the lyric but somewhere down the road it might be released in Europe first. If it were well received there, then the door could be opened for it here.
As for singles released so far, Adam explained that the way they have played out wasn't really planned but it is working well. In his own words: "For Your Entertainment", the first single, was definitely about sexuality and I was kind of in the hot spot on that, having recently come out and done a lot of press about that. That felt like an appropriate first single because that’s what it was about. And then it subsequently ended up kind of scaring some people as sexuality often does. "Whattaya Want From Me" was a response to that. It was the hey I’m human and I’m doing the best I can and thank you for believing in me and this is me being honest and scared. Then the current single is "If I Had You". It’s about joy and connection and realizing that happiness comes from that and not from success. I think it’s a great song. It’s really positive, it’s upbeat, it’s catchy. The message in it I think is one of the better messages on the album, which is you can have all this success, the fame, the fortune, the lifestyle. But if you’re not connecting and there’s no love in your life and you don’t have true friends and loved ones then it doesn’t mean anything. That’s something that I have learned personally over the past year is that all this is great but happiness really comes from a different place."
For Your Entertainment, so far, is turning out to be an experiment that is working for the artist, his label, and the fans. None of the tracks are the cookie cutter stuff currently playing on terrestrial Top40 radio. Although there are many electronic elements and effects, you won't find a lot of vo-corder or other vocal enhancement. Adam's voice is the connecting thread that ties this record together and it is unlike any current male vocal out there. A range that covers every note on a guitar, slides seamlessly from chest voice to falsetto and goes from power hitting in some numbers to almost a whisper in "Broken Open". And in an era ripe with lip synched concerts, this album translates amazingly from recording to truly live performances. Lambert changes up arrangements from show to show and his band has adapted well to it. http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-32278-Hartford-Music-Examiner~y2010m6d5-Adam-Lambert-on-For-Your-Entertainment?cid=sharing_twitter%3A32278 | |
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