BMG Rights Management (US)
Pop, 2023
Brace yourself, people: Adam Lambert’s High Drama is an album full of cover versions.
Why an album of cover versions? It can’t be for money, surely, as the bulk of the dough would go to the songwriters. If Mr Lambert wants a kick out of performing covers, these days one can do that on one’s YouTube or TikTok space, no?
Whatever the reason may be for the existence for this thing, I suppose one good thing about it is that there is some attempted transformation to the songs here.
However, the attempts for the most part boast very similar dancey background tracks and beats and Mr Lambert trying very hard to channel George Michael during the Fastlove era of the latter. Sadly for him, no one can channel urbane erotic sophistication like the late Mr Michaels, and poor Adam Lambert comes off like a wannabe as a result.
I mean, the songs are okay. The problem is that his cover versions make me miss the original songs, even appreciate them even more at times, and this is not what an album of covers should do!
I hear his version of P!nk’s My Attic, and I find myself thinking that the original is more heartfelt with more evocative and powerful vocals. I hear his gospel-techno version of the late father of glam rock Jobriath’s I’m A Man and I find myself missing the raw sex and danger vibes of the original version.
He covers Lana Del Rey’s West Coast and again, it feels wanting compared to the quiet seductive femme fatale vibes of the original song.
Okay, he sounds a lot like Prince on his version of Sex on Fire by the Kings of Leon, but sigh. I pause to go listen to the last Prince for a bit, and then wonder at how, even at how unappealing I find the Kings of Leon to be in terms of sex appeal, they still manage to sound like the incomparable Boss compared to Mr Lambert. This leads me to listen again to the Boss’s I’m on Fire and… let’s just say that mama is very happy today.
Oh yes, back to Mr Lambert. Where was I again?
His version of the Culture Club’s Do You Really Want to Hurt Me has me pausing the song after a bit to go listen to the original. Then, I go listen to Boy George’s immaculate cover of The Crying Game, squeal with joy when I stumble upon his duet with Gary Barlow on Take That’s Patience, and damn, I don’t know how old he is now, but Boy George still sounds so good on my ears.
Right, right, Adam Lambert. Let’s see, he also has a cover of Sia’s Chandelier, and I don’t get it. Sia has all the screechy sex appeal of a bath rug, but Mr Lambert sounds so lethargic in his version of that song that he makes Sia hot to listen to. I can never imagine such a thing can ever happen… until now.
There are a few more songs on the album, but they all produce the same effects on me: they make the original songs a hundred times sexier, which is disconcerting when the original songs are by people like Sia and Billie Eilish.
I guess Hot Drama is just a roundabout way of letting the world know that Adam Lambert just isn’t very sexy.
That’s not a bad thing. It could be worse: this could have been something by present-day Sam Smith.
