Adam Lambert’s – sexy or raunchy, take your pick – performance on the American Music Awards is still causing reverberations, especially at ABC, which unceremoniously booted him from “Good Morning America.” But Adam, in full rock star mode, is blowing off the hoopla.
“I had a good time and I was merely interpreting the lyrics of my song. It wasn’t meant to piss anyone off, it wasn’t meant to hurt anyone or cause any problems,” he told. Ryan Seacrest in an interview post on Seacrest’s Web site.
“I don’t feel like I owe anyone an apology,” he added. “I did something female performers have been doing for years. All of a sudden a guy does it, and it’s crazy. I do think there’s a slight double standard.”
Right on, say a lot of his fans.
In this day and age, when rock and roll has gone corporate, a lot of musicians bend over backwards to load up on product endorsements and become “brands.”
As rock legend, Robert Plant said earlier this year: “We used to call this selling out.” And, he was just accepting a Grammy.
It doesn’t hurt to have at least one rebel in the bunch – even if he does wear eyeliner, and paints his fingernails chartreuse.
Lambert, 27, is no Johnny Cash. The “Ring of Fire” singer once took out a full-page ad in an industry trade paper so he could flip off his record label.
But Lambert’s still a rebel with a cause – sexual expression — which may be the naughty first-cousin of political expression, but is protected by the First Amendment, nonetheless.
“I’m sexual person, and maybe people didn’t see that on “American Idol,” he says. “But now … they do.”
The suits at ABC obviously saw it and decided it was too much for a “family oriented” network to bear. (Didn’t anyone go to the rehearsals?).
After receiving more than 1,500 complaints – out of millions of viewers why is that a problem? – they signaled their disapproval with Lambert’s French-kissing, crotch-grabbing and oral-sex-simulating performance (all with male dancers) by yanking him for his already scheduled GMA performance tomorrow.
The network says it doesn’t feel he’d be appropriate for a morning audience. They kind of have a point there. That’s a lot to take in before the first cup of coffee.
But in a tit-for-tat (among networks not Lambert) CBS asked the “American Idol” runner up to perform on its GMA rival “Early Show” Wednesday (Nov. 24) instead.
“I think the adrenaline kind of took me over,” Lambert told Seacrest. “I admit and I’m kind of proud of the fact that I did get a little carried away.”
“I’m not a babysitter, I’m a performer,” Lambert added, “The spirit of rock and roll is alive and well.”
Indeed, it is.
