Much Ado

So, the fallout from the Adam Lambert at the American Music Awards thing, huh? Interesting.

I actually saw the performance. Unlikely given the fact that I’m fairly anti-award show. And also, given the fact that most of the acts up to that point were pretty meh. That chain coat that Alicia Keys was wearing looked like she stole it from a Fly Girl. Probably Jennifer Lopez, because she was obviously digging in her old Fly Girl costume closet. And when even I, who would lick Billy Joe Armstrong from nose to toes, find Green Day’s performance a bore, you’ve got problems. Pretty much only Gaga broke the malaise miasma that hung over the AMAs.

Then we ended with Adam Lambert. He tried. But let’s face it, the kid has a lot a larnin’ to do when it comes to big stage performance. He got a little big for his britches and would have probably pulled it off if he’d scaled the entire performance down by half to a quarter. But, points for ambition. Which is more than can be said for most performers Sunday night.

Which leaves us with the “acting out” behavior. As far as the boy-on-boy kiss, I did not really realize that he was kissing a boy. In fact, my thought was, “For a homosexual, he’s really snogging the heck out of that girl. Too many Katy Perry plays on his iPod?” But I approve of Universal Love Gods, and actually thought it was a little edgy that he was shmenking a girl. So, I have to admit I’m a little disappointed that he was just kissing a boy. Yawn. Way to play to type.

Which leaves us with the rather blatant simulated oral cop (as they’d call it on the SVU). That was in poor taste (ahem), and way over the line for the AMAs. In his own stage show? Certainly and brava. On MTV? Borderline, but it is cable so go for it. But miming a blow job on network television, that’s just not cool. And it wouldn’t matter whether it was a guy or a girl with their face smashed against his groin. I’m just hoping it was an artistic miscalculation, and not just a cheap publicity move timed to coincide with his album dropping. Adam has enough talent to make it on just being a cute guy with a great voice. Knock ‘em dead with your pipes. Not by faking getting . . . oh, nevermind.

[Sidebar note: Why are all of these people so phenomenally poorly mic’ed? Seriously. If we expect people to actually perform, without artificial help, go to the trouble to make them not sound like they’re singing through a tin can.]