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Adam Lambert's defense of performance holds no water

Idol Watch fans might wonder why I haven't reviewed Adam Lambert's For Your Entertainment yet, given how much I championed the finalist who I'd praised as the most interesting Idol contestant to date. Adam Lambert saved American Idol last season and made the show worth watching.

I'd stand by that claim. His rendition of Mad World still occupies a proud place in my iPod.

I haven't reviewed the CD because Sony, until moments ago, had yet to send me a physical copy for review. I won't review off a stream. A download's just been made available. I will post a review of his debut CD by week's end if time permits.

But I can weigh in on the flap surrounding his tasteless, train wreck American Music Awards performance. A colleague pronounced him a "black hole of charisma," meaning he was so charmless he couldn't elevate that awful, screeching song above the tawdry, desperate performance.
Former Idol finalist, Jon Peter Lewis, called Adam's AMA performance "art" a "sham." Much as I hate to agree with that little weenie (the Idol finalist, not my colleague, altho I hate to agree with him, too) I have to agree with both of them.

And now there's a backlash, much of it centering on Adam's defense of the act and the insinuation on Twitter that ABC would be practicing "discrimination" if they were to edit his act. He's also complained of a double standard -- that women have been doing these kind of sexual gestures for years (hello, Madonna) and no one complains but when a man does so, a gay man at that, all hell breaks loose.

Good Morning America dumped Adam afterward, feeling its early morning audience and advertisers might not enjoy watching a guy jam some other musician into his crotch for simulated oral sex or French kiss another while screeching an unappetizing song like For Your Entertainment.

Adam's defense is hogwash. I find his bogus "discrimination" charge as unsavory as that performance and the song. We aren't bigots or homophobes if we refuse to accept someone on TV so desperate to sell a bad song and trite performance that they have to resort to generic sex moves to get attention.

If the song was great, Adam wouldn't have had to do the hard sell shock value. And if he had more imagination, maybe his act would have been memorable for the right reasons like Lady Gaga's earlier performance of Bad Romance.

And he's saying that women have been doing it for years and it's time for a man to get to do something raunchy or sexy? Uh, dude, I remember Prince. I remember Bowie. I still see Mick Jagger. Steven Tyler. Nothing you're doing, Adam, is defendable or new to males discovering they have sex appeal to use, too.

And then there are all the interviews he's given with Rolling Stone, Details, EW, et al where his whole focus is on his sexuality and way TMI about his previous sexual encounters in his teens and early 20s. Enough, Adam. If your music was worthwhile maybe you'd talk more about that for a change? Here's hoping the rest of the CD is.

Follow Howard Cohen on Twitter @HowardCohen