Seems to me that Adam had a "glass half full" moment last night. Reflecting that five years ago he was standing on the cusp of possibilities waiting for his audition for Idol to air. He had heavily invested in himself, left a good paying, steady gig (for the second time, so, if this new gig didn't work out, he would never be able to go back to the Wicked producers and get another job), and taken a huge leap of faith in his talent and hard work. Now, he is returning from a business meeting in New York where he probably signed contracts previously negotiated that will allow him to create the art he wants the way he wants with the input he wants. For an artist and entertainer, that is HUGE and very rare. Heck, just flying first class to and from NYC to sign a contract of any kind is huge.
As long as Adam feels he is free to create and perform, and as long as he has kindred souls to join him in his work, and ---- as long as he doesn't get distracted or seduced by people telling him what he SHOULD be doing to be a superstar, and what the measure of that is ---- Adam will be happy. I think he wanted to reflect on that and remind his fans to do the same. No matter what "forward motion" ends up being, if Adam is happy creating music (and making enough money to support himself and a little bling) then we fans should be happy as well. IMO.
YES to all this. And here are my tea-leaf reading interpretations of all that has transpired:
a) When he left RCA he knew that he was leaving the old contract type arrangement that he had coming out of idol, behind. He knew that any major label today would only sign him using what is commonly called a 360 - contract, which obviously, from the artists perspective is less beneficial, because more revenue streams are diverted to the label, not just recording related revenue streams. Adam did not care, artistic vision was way more important to him than the implications of profit sharing.
b) Besides the financial implication, these 360deals have the additional consequence that the artist is even more shackled, because now the label (or whoever is the partner in these deals) now wants to have a say in all areas, fashion, accessories, publications, media events, everything, because they basically 'own' the artist. Can you see where that is going...?
c) One consequence of tightening of reigns, is that many artists perceive that as suffocating and are asking what that business partner is doing for them and why they have to subject themselves to such a contract. Well, there is an alternative: Be your own boss and treat every business partner as a vendor from whom you are acquiring services, i.e. you engage a record distributor or promoter, you engage a concert promoter, who then will bill you for services, but in the end, you are calling the shots and you are taking all the risk yourself.
d) In my opinion, Adam has been working towards that type of arrangement since years, and now in 2014 he is fully going for it. The reality is that he used much of 2013 not only to write A3 as much as we were hoping, but rather to set his business up on all levels.
Here is what Adam has done in the past:
- He has squirreled away money from day one. Adam's net worth was estimated at 10 mil recently (forgot by whom). I don't even care how accurate or not accurate this number is, the truth is, he did not pour money into Hollywood villas or cars, he saved it. For what? Well to have a solid capitalization basis for his business. The only expense Adam consistently splurged on were clothes and accessories and I will get back to that topic later. Otherwise, he was totally frugal.
- Adam made every effort to learn about the business side of things and not only about the music. I always thought that his executive producer title was more about wanting to be on the inside of the business wheelings and dealings, rather than about musical control. He could have had most of the latter without the title, tbh. And he compromised on a ton of things about TSP anyhow, even though he had the title. But the behind the scenes look was probably eye-opening to him.
- Adam built his brand since day 1. His tweet yesterday now gave us the vision statement and scope for this brand: "singing, writing, acting, listening, dressin up, and working w other talents". Adam does not see himself only as a recording artist. He sees recording music as one leg of the Adam Lambert brand and corporation.
He had to make sure, via his own style in clothes that he visually created a concept for the fashion part of this brand. For that he had to invest and so he did. He has clearly succeeded in establishing within all of us a sense of what his style is, and what this Adam Lambert brand stands for.
Interestingly, he has done so to such an extent, that a few days ago, when he linked to a blog of somebody who wore great outfits, but a much more commercially mainstream version of what he himself usually wears, people on twitter and here were confused. Imo, this was a test balloon. If Adam wants to ever sell fashion via his brand, then selling 595 USD arm bracelets is not exactly going to cut it. He needs to bring the high fashion that he gets to enjoy for himself down to a commercially feasible level.
Tbh, I liked or even loved what this guy was wearing, but was thinking, that this could be and probably was bought at any major high quality retailer selling men's fashion and I did not see how it would be Adamized. But then, I also don't have any creative fashion sense, so if he can come out with something that does exactly that, then great for him. Wonder whether he will start with only men's fashion first? It kind of would make sense for him, if he wants to go with what he knows best. But he sure has most of his customer's on the female side, so not sure what he is thinking there. He certainly needs to move away from treating women's bodies as if they were men's (cheap t-shirts in the past). He has not yet built any brand here, so that remains to be seen.
- Adam has written music over the last year and was in seemingly no rush to find a label for the writing process. He viewed this as an investment and has gone at it alone. I presume that his negotiations were to find producers partnering with him as an independent, and otherwise sorting out arrangements for distribution and promotion. He clearly re-engineered the web-site to be commercially ready for prime-time. While the forum over there is still a bit of a mess, all the other parts are beautifully done and he already had a few pre-sales tests and clearly the store works and the logistics behind that are worked out (except for exorbitant shipping costs, lol). No Obamacare-Oct1 scenarios on adamlambertfans.com. He is ready.
- In NYC, Adam probably officially started a new phase of managing his new company as a small (or not so small) business with complete business plan, financial statements, bank loans and the whole works. While he had Glambert Inc and More is More LLC since 2009, I suspect that he has entered a new phase of overall business arrangements and partnerships, for which he prepared during much of 2013. While we can be almost certain that the usual suspects, Cherry's, Shoshanna, DMG will be part of it, I suspect that we will be introduced to other players in this arrangement over time.
- Adam has established a customer database and worked early on to take control of that asset. Modern technology made that simple, but he has worked out communication paths, infrastructure, and he has secured the value associated with that solid fanbase very early on. I would have to go back, but I think he took charge of that with ground ctrl in 2010 already. He made sure that was not slipping away, if he ever left RCA. I thought even back then, wow, he knows where to put his priorities, because he sure did not put them into making that fan club all that sexy and valuable for the fans. He needed his customer data base and he got that out of it.
So, bottom-line, I am pretty convinced that Adam negotiated whatever he did negotiate in NYC as a corporate partner and owner of a brand and not just as a little artist looking for a label.
There won't be any 360 deals in Adam's future and I am loving it. And with this I end my tea-leaf reading segment of the day.
@--- 
You can call it tea-leaf reading if you want....but I love everything you can "see"! I was already excited about the coming months.....Now? 
#mustbookmarkthisposttoseeifallcomestrue....puhleeeeze!! 