Tracks

“Time for Miracles”
Adam Lambert

David Bowie’s eyes did not make him glam. Marc Bolan’s boas did not make him glam. Kiss’s boots did not make the band glam. Their stomping drums and crunching guitars made them glam—which isn’t the same as tacky (say, resembling a Japanese cartoon character and singing like Celine Dion). The biggest disappointment about Adam Lambert (and Lady Gaga, while we’re at it) is his inability to back the talk and sparkle with some bold, audacious tunes, or at the very least something remotely cool. Because glam is cool.

With Lambert’s ridiculous coif, it’s no wonder the first notes of his solo career sound ready for a Hair Cuttery waiting room. In this factory-built snooze, an orchestra and steel guitar argue over which sounds more synthetic. The goopy strings cling like a ring of gelatinous fat around a cat-food blend of tear-jerking Nashville horse meat and the triumphant tripe played at the end of disaster-porn blockbusters.

NEXT>>

• More "Tracks"
• More Music articles