See ya! Wouldn't want to be ya!

See ya! Wouldn't want to be ya!


So the South rose again and the semi-talented worship leader from Arkansas nudged out the SoCal showstopper. Proof again that America will almost always pick mediocrity over talent, just to feel better about itself.

Still, Glambert had the last laugh. After toning it down a little for Tuesday night’s competition, boy did his freak flag fly on Wednesday, as he went toe to toe with the likes of Gene Simmons and what remains of Queen, leaving Kris gasping in the dust towards the end, not even trying to keep up vocally or in terms of stage presence. I almost felt sorry for Kris, who must possess an instinctive sense of fair play, to witness that and then “win” anyway.
Still, it’s not all bad. Kris is a decent enough bloke to admit on live TV that even he thinks Adam was robbed, and Adam was enough of a pro to instantly understand that she who laughs last laughs best. No sobbing here: he was already plotting his next career move behind that guyliner and hair dye.

The two former roommates seem to genuinely like each other, and I’m sure Kris will go on to make a perfectly, acceptably bland Jason Mraz/John Mayer-esque record with Christian overtones.

But what will become of our Adam? Free of the winner’s curse, he won’t have to release that awful single. But he’s not home free until he gets the right talent around him and persuades the recording industry to release the kind of record he should make. My nightmare is that he may end up a Blake Lewis-esque novelty also ran, who was much more interesting on the show than after. Of course, Adam can always go back to Broadway, and he probably should, but not immediately. I want to see him bend the music industry over first, and spank it a little.

Luckily, there seems to be so much respect and support from him, and he’s so much of a canny pro already, that he just might do that. He could be the first contestant to actually take the whole bloated Idol machinery and turn it immediately to his personal advantage.

My two cents? Get Linda Perry to write, get out of the teeny bop Idol summer tour as soon as possible and get back to center stage, find some way keep doing surprising things with old rock gods (like show up as a guest vocalist on Slash’s album?) and, most important, use the public coming out to cut the Idol cord sooner rather than later. If he does it soon enough, like next week, it might even upstage Kris’ win.

And yes, I actually think coming out matters. The fact that “everyone knows” Adam’s gay makes it even harder for him talk about it, which is the paradox of the open secret everyone knows but no one is supposed to admit they know. I’m sure the reason he won’t want to talk about it now is that everyone will ask him if its a reason he didn’t win, and he is too much of a gent to dwell on sour grapes. But part of what could be “transformational” about him, as Ann Powers likes to say, is that he could be an out pop star that openly appeals to fans across gender and generation, not because “sexuality doesn’t matter” but because he could transform the way sexuality actually does matter in pop.