Review Summary: Good voice, bad production....
American Idol is a show that sets out across the country every year to find an alleged “American Idol,” or in other words, a phenomenal singer that can rake in some decent cash. In 2009, the easy-going acoustic rock singer Kris Allen unexpectedly beat out Adam Lambert on the show. Lambert, who essentially is the direct opposite of Allen, used his flamboyant glam looks and singing ability to dominate the show, because surprisingly enough, Lambert can sing really well, probably better than Allen can. After coming in second on the show, the rock band Queen tried to get Lambert as their front man. Yes, the band Queen wanted Adam Lambert to be Freddy Mercury’s replacement, but for good reason. Even before this offer, the public had been comparing Lambert to Mercury because of his dramatic and enormous vocal range. The biggest mistake of his life was that he turned them down. Lambert decided that before joining a band, he wanted to go solo first. This solo departure resulted in
For Your Entertainment, an album that combined pop, rock, and dance elements into each of its songs; basically equaling out to exactly what fans were expecting.
For Your Entertainment is a no surprise attempt for Lambert to expand from beyond what people saw on the show, with this in mind he tried to put on a hard edgy image to draw in appeal. This image was easy to see as a sham, but the public bought into it anyway.
It’s probably better that Adam did not win the competition because if
For Your Entertainment is what Americans idolize, then America is ***ed.
For Your Entertainment is basically everything that’s wrong with the music industry these days as it is a decent singer literally taken over and manipulated by his recording company, through over-produced and auto-tuned vocals, to horrendous song writing. Both of these factors stand out on the title-track “For Your Entertainment.” This lead single starts and finishes with the exact same loud thundering beat from start to finish that is just layers over layers of effects that over-power all the vocals by a long shot. The vocals too consist of multiple layers of high and low pitches, while one layer is singing in a normal range, the other is screaming in an unnaturally high pitch. The lyrics themselves are nothing to be proud of, “So hot/Out the box/Can we pick up the pace?/Turn it up/Heat it up/I need to be entertained.” The song is just a mess of sounds that is more confusing than entertaining…what a misleading song name! The song that had preceded it in context of the album degrades “For Your Entertainment” even more; “Music Again” is easily the most standout and most authentic song of the album. The song is simply a straightforward rock song that makes use of Lamberts excellent singing range. The guitars are not anything extraordinary but are atmospherically entertaining to the songs tone.
Another problem with the album is the big names that were attached to writing for the album. That may sound like an odd statement, but it is undeniably true, just by listening to a song on the album you can guess who wrote it because it makes Lambert sound like he is doing a cover of their work, not his own solo album that
For Your Entertainment barely is. This is most notable on, “Whataya Want From Me,” written by Pink, a pop singer full of angst, an image that Lambert tried to but on for the song. Compared to the previous single, “Whataya Want From Me” is a musical improvement, but its sounds too much like Lambert trying to be Pink, rather than taking what she wrote and making it original. Falling to this same curse is “Fever” a song written by recent pop-princess Lady Gaga. “Fever” is lyrically the best song on the album, (“Oh baby, lights on/But your mom’s not home/I’m sick of laying down alone/With this fever – fever, yeah”), but again, sounds like a flimsy cover of a Lady Gaga song rather than a strong Adam Lambert song. It did not help that Lady Gaga had her own version of the song circulating around the internet for the past year. Anyone who has heard the two different versions can pick out Gaga’s own rendition as the clear superior. Despite some of the horrendous things on this album, it is very marketable and will sell many copies around the world, it would not come as any surprise if Lambert becomes very successful in the pop world.
For Your Entertainment is the true definition of sellable pop music, but that does not make it good by any means.
He should have gone with Queen….
