9.1.14 Wrestling, Slippers and Big Shoes!!

He may have said it more than once, but here you go, from the 2012 UK promo for Trespassing, Next Magazine:

And yes indeed, they are fierce!

What a lovely review in the Brisbane Times, above .

Okay, now that I've got the something nice down for the record, I'm gonna be a little naughty. 8-)

I honestly meant not to wade into the "Adam's signature sound"/"Was Trespassing a flop (and why)" discussion going on today in the thread (besides, glitter, and a few others, seemed to me to be doing a find job holding up the side ), especially as it seems to have mostly simmered down, but apparently I have no self control, lol. (Sorry!)

I should probably say first off, Talon, that I admire your, uh, fortitude in taking up this argument here, and I also admire the grace with which it has, on the whole, been countered. Look at us all pretending to be grown-ups .  So why am I stirring the pot? Maybe it's because a comment you made yesterday, Talon, with the best of intentions, I know, has been lingering with me a little: "If A3 tanks," you wrote, "and [Adam] still wants to be a musician, QAL might be a more welcome outlet." And he still wants to be a musician? Who do you think Adam is?  What do you think he's in this for?  I confess that this thought totally threw me for a loop.  How successful does Adam have to be for it still to be worth it for this man with extraordinary musical talents to make music for a living? We know that your definition of "tanking" includes a number one album that was very well reviewed, charted world-wide, and sold several hundred thousand copies. Well, according to that definition, the vast majority of musicians practicing and touring today are just kidding themselves. Listen, I hope with all the rest of you that A3 is a roaring worldwide runaway superstar success.  That would be kick-ass awesome. But my own bar for satisfaction is much much lower than that, and I strongly suspect Adam's is, too.  As long as Adam can still make a decent living writing and performing music that satisfies him and his fans, I hope that that is what he does with at least a good chunk of his time. And I have no doubt that he can be happy doing so.

As for this "signature sound" business. Um, maybe I'm way off the mark here, but it seems to me, Talon, that your comments are transparently those of a rock fan wishing Adam were singing more rock music.  However, not making music with the rock sound you want from him is not the same as not having a signature sound. And sorry, but when you offhandedly dismiss Shady, Kickin' In, and Broken Open—arguably (or at least I would argue it) both Adam's best songs and those closest to what I would identify as the kind of signature sound you're talking about (in Adam's case: smart lyrics set to a sexy, voice-driven beat with that stretches across tempo and genre, frequently with retro inspirations)—as "not really doing much for me," I'm not sure there's all that much point to our having this conversation. You like a certain kind of music from Adam, and he's not really giving it to you, which is a totally valid reason for you personally to be disappointed in him. But to me he definitely has a kind of signature sound—as much of one as one can ask for from an artist defined by his voice first and foremost,  who's famously uninterested in genre boundaries. (By the way, just as an aside: I think a signature sound for a band is a very different thing from a signature sound from a solo-artist—a band, as a fusion of four or more different musicians, necessarily is an accumulation of more specific quirks and styles and limitations and tastes; Queen is perhaps the ultimate example of this.  A solo artist is, in this sense, a freer entity, in both good and bad ways, maybe, in terms of establishing an identity.)

As for the argument that all of Adam's songs sound like versions of someone else, bitch please , you stan a band that has a song, "Crazy Little Thing Called Love," that everyone STILL thinks is an Elvis cover, despite the fact that not only did Elvis never sing it, it was written years after Elvis died! Fuck, that's what pop music, and ROCK music, for that matter, is—it builds and borrows off the rest of pop and rock music.  That's what makes it so accessible to so many people, and so easy to love!   That's what makes Queen so easy to love, too!

OK—those are my 52 cents worth! Sorry if, like I said, I'm just stirring the pot.  For my part, as much as I agree with every word of the wonderful review above, and as much as I've adored the utter fabulousness (to borrow your daughter's word, T) of this summer's QAL fun, I am SO READY to move on to the A3 Era, and for Adam to be judged entirely on his own terms once again!  Lucky me, I'm about to get my wish !