5.23.12 TRESPASSING #1, AOL, Q102 Springleball

Queerty ‏@queerty
Why Adam Lambert Having The Number One Album In America Is Such A Big Deal -

www.queerty.com/why-adam-lambert-having-the-number-one-album-in-america-is-such-a-big-deal-20120523/?utm_source=wordtwit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=wordtwit

Why Adam Lambert Having The Number One Album In America Is Such A Big Deal

Whether or not you’re a fan of Adam Lambert’s new album, Trespassing (and we are), you should be thrilled the record debuted this week at Number One on the Billboard Top 200 Album Chart. It’s the first time an openly gay artist has ever done that.
Given the increasing visibility and acceptance out stars are seeing nationwide, that might not seem like a big deal, but it is. Even just a few years ago, Lambert was disinvited from Good Morning America for—gasp!—kissing his male guitarist at the American Music Awards.


Full story here: www.queerty.com/why-adam-lambert-having-the-number-one-album-in-america-is-such-a-big-deal-20120523/#ixzz1vj5wL1OA



Full story here: www.queerty.com/why-adam-lambert-having-the-number-one-album-in-america-is-such-a-big-deal-20120523/#ixzz1vj5kmu1J

My computer isn't cooperating, so I snuck onto dh's.
Gotta be quick ~

Any Glamberts in the Houston, TX area:
There is an organized campaign in Houston by Glamberts to contact the radio stations to get Adam's music playing.
They have an email list of Glamberts, and have instructions and mediabase forms for 3 stations on the Houston area. If you are not on the list and want to be, pm me and I will get you added. Although I am not in Houston, I have connections there.

Also, the Trespassing Release Party at the Sun Beach that gelly posted earlier, that is in Houston, and is being sponsored by Joey Guerra, Houston Chronicle Music Critic, and another guy, who I think is that really cute DJ that did the Houston Radio M&G/Performance with Adam, the one Juniemoon was at.

www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2012/05/23/153316590/the-end-of-idol-there-are-no-more-songs-left-to-be-sung#more

The End Of 'Idol': There Are No More Songs Left To Be Sung
Categories: The Week In 'Idol'

May 23, 2012
by ANN POWERS

Listen to the Story
Morning Edition [4 min 24 sec]

Tonight, when Ryan Seacrest announces who has won the 11th season of American Idol — when the confetti falls and Jennifer Lopez sheds a perfect dewy teardrop and Randy Jackson's thought bubble explodes with "Dude, that was a moment moment MOMENT" and Steven Tyler purses his immortal lips in that vampire-connoisseur way he does, smelling the perfume of another sweet young victory — I will be out to dinner with friends, far from the agony and ecstasy finalists Jessica Sanchez and Phillip Phillips will endure. After six seasons of following Idol as a critic and unashamed enthusiast, I've finally found myself truly bored while watching the show. Not even the soul ministrations of my latest favorite, third-place finalist Joshua Ledet, could cure my disaffection.

I'm not alone. Since this season's first episode — the least-watched in the show's history — this year's Idol story has been the program's wilting status, a symptom of a larger loss of interest in the singing competition format. Interest is flagging across the board: Erstwhile Idol honcho Simon Cowell's English import, X Factor, tanked spectacularly enough that he dumped his loyal sidekick Paula Abdul for the riskiest stock on the market, new judge Britney Spears. The Voice, a show with cooler celebrity panelists and better song selections, briefly threatened to out-buzz Idol but then suffered a ratings drop. Variations keep surfacing — the latest is Duets — but none has captured the public's full imagination.

Commentators usually cite the same reasons when discussing the Idol fade. The judges don't really judge; the same kinds of contestants always win; the song choices are predictable. (I talked about these particularities on Morning Edition today. You can listen by clicking the audio link.) These are merely symptoms, however, of an overall failure of purpose.

Once, American Idol exposed the dream of pop and distilled the essence of fandom. That time has passed.

Great television rivets us when its narrative, unfolding over time, reflects and heightens a particular kind of experience. Cheers did it for bar life. Friends did it for, well, friends. American Idol did it for the dream of pop, exposing the starmaking process and even allowing fans to become part of it. Just as online music began pushing the corporate music industry toward a radical new reality, American Idol laid its essence bare, and let average people (contestants and voting viewers) taste it.

But now, Idol and the programs that emulate it have played out all the stories mainstream music once offered. The ingenue rising from innocent obscurity; the contender getting another try; the marginalized person pushing her way into the center — these scripts have been exhausted. The songs aren't the only things repeating; the basic plotlines of each series have been exhausted and feel increasingly irrelevant.

Before we say goodbye to the golden era of singing competitions, let's acknowledge Idol's impact. The show launched Carrie Underwood (12 million-plus albums sold) and Kelly Clarkson (10 million and counting), along with a slew of solid hit makers from Chris Daughtry to Jordin Sparks to the redoubtable Adam Lambert. It brought back the culturally dead, renewing the careers of Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler and taking Paula Abdul and Randy Jackson from the margins to the majors.

Idol also reshaped the American songbook. It helped establish relatively obscure gems, like Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" and Nina Simone's "Feelin' Good," as mainstream essentials. More often, extolling the likes of Elton John, Journey and the Diane Warren-era Aerosmith, Idol lent legitimacy to music previously dismissed as less than canonical. In a world dominated by Idol, the glitz of Queen makes a stronger impression than the grit of The Rolling Stones; craftsmen like Phil Collins count for as much as do visionaries like Stevie Wonder, and the interpretive art of selling a song again finds equal footing next to the introspective act of writing one.

Most important was the way Idol led us toward a new way of viewing ourselves in relationship to mainstream popular culture. Its moment coincided with an economic boom that made the glory it promised seem attainable — remember how everything seemed attainable in the go-go early 2000s? — and then a collapse that has made Big Everything, including big music, seem deeply suspect. As the top-down society crumbles, new paths toward fulfillment emerge. At its best, something as corny as a singing competition can stand as a metaphorical bridge on one of those paths, connecting the classic Hollywood dream to the multicentered popular culture of the future.

Idol and shows like it have significantly contributed to what the theorists Charles Leadbeater and Paul Miller called "the Pro-Am Revolution": the rise of a new creative class pursuing passions on a freshly built bridge between hobby and career. Artists have always been cultural entrepreneurs, but as "pro-ams," they shift their trajectory, finding ways to expose and establish themselves before partnering with a bigger machine. E.L. James, the author of Fifty Shades of Grey, is a pro-am. So is Mark Zuckerberg. So, I'd argue, are the most interesting Idol and Voice alums, like Adam Lambert and Juliet Simms.

...

What really seems irrelevant about singing competition now isn't the song selection, the garishly lit set, or even the useless advice doled out by the judges. It's the idea that a centralized medium like network television could guide anyone toward a successful career. Pop now still may have old-fashioned stars, from Beyonce to Adele; but they aren't taking us into the future. Neither is Idol, with its focus on that fixed astral pattern. What feels new is the universe of rogue satellites orbiting that old home planet, gathering information, sending their own signals back.