disco Archive

Adam Lambert Feeling Good

Adam Lambert Feeling Good

by Amelia G : April 29th, 2009

Adam Lambert Feeling GoodAdam Lambert was feeling good tonight on American Idol. The producers of the show chose to put him in the final performance slot of the night and it is a good thing they did because nobody else on there could have followed him. He took a fine strut down the towering American Idol staircase and sang a terrific rendition of “Feeling Good”. My only quibble of the evening is that Adam Lambert was wearing a white suit with a black shirt this week and a shiny black suit last week. This week is Rat Pack week and last week was Disco. Maybe the American Idol stylist and tailor were running behind schedule on the John Travolta Saturday Night Fever white suit outfit and ahead on the updated mobster chic black suit. Or maybe Adam Lambert was just looking to defy expectations and I can get behind refusing to be predictable, especially when the guy is that talented. And looks that fine in both black and white suits.

“Feeling Good” is a song made Rat Pack famous by Sammy Davis, Jr. It was, however, originally written for a critically-acclaimed, Tony Award-winning, commercially unsuccessful musical called The Roar of the Greasepaint – The Smell of the Crowd by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley. Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley wrote a lot of songs and musicals and are some of the most successful modern composers on the planet. Blue . . .

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If I Can’t Have You, I Don’t Want Nobody, Baby or It’s Like Studio 57 Up in Here

If I Can’t Have You, I Don’t Want Nobody, Baby or It’s Like Studio 57 Up in Here

by Amelia G : April 22nd, 2009

Adam Lambert If I Can't Have You, I Don't Want Nobody, BabyHow is it possible that a pop treacle show like American Idol can suck at disco? When collegiate-cutie-marketable-to-preteens Kris Allen did a slowed-down version of Donna Summer’s “She Works Hard for the Money”, I thought he totally owned it because Kris Allen is not a guy anyone would really see doing disco and the song was still enjoyable. I liked it the same way I liked Adam Lambert’s industrial world music take on Ring of Fire. Only, ya know, less so. Because I really really liked Adam Lambert performing “Ring of Fire” and would listen to that again repeatedly on purpose. Unfortunately, almost all the American Idol contestants tonight failed to do disco. What is the point of having a theme, if nobody does anything which really fits it?

Then again, this is a show where they inexplicably added an actual judge who can confuse Saturday Night Fever aka the movie which made disco a phenomenon with NBC’s successful comedy sketch show of the last three decades Saturday Night Live and the revered and legendary disco nightclub Studio 54 with Studio 57 aka the imaginary nightclub in her otherwise less-than-full head. (PS Dear Kara DioGuardi, the guy from Saturday Night Fever is actually John Travolta and Clark Kent is really Superman.) I understand that Kara DioGuardi is otherwise very accomplished and live television is very difficult, but . . .

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