Let’s take a look at Adam Lambert’s “If I Had You,” the
third single off of his debut album. The video for “If I Had You” was released
in 2010 and was directed by Bryan Barber. There’s less of a plot to it than
most of the videos I examine here, but the visuals are fun, the outfits are
great, and Lambert is always entertaining to watch. Here we go:
Adam’s sitting in his living room, tweeting up a storm,
rallying his troops for a spur-of-the-moment bacchanalia in Griffith Park. What
we see of his abode looks spare and modest, all modern lines and minimalist
furniture and muted lighting, much like his home (or rather, his “home”) in the
“
Whataya Want From Me” video. Yeah, nice try, set designers. Like we’re supposed
to believe Lambert would be caught dead kicking back in a place this
unassuming. I’m 100% certain the décor of Lambert’s
real home more
suitably reflects his, ah, exuberant personal style. I’m picturing chandeliers
made of bones, velvet curtains embroidered with images from 17
th
century Japanese erotica, high-backed armchairs upholstered in snakeskin, a
glow-in-the-dark mural depicting
Día de Los
Muertos entirely covering one wall. Maybe a live peacock wandering
about. And a circus tent, complete with a dangling trapeze, over his bed. This
is at a bare minimum.
Note how one of the reply tweets is from former child star
Alisan Porter. Yep,
Curly Sue is all grown up, and she’s game for cavorting in
the woods with Adam Lambert, smart girl.
These two have some history: Porter appeared with a pre-
Idol
Lambert in the much-lampooned
Ten Commandments musical
that hit
Los Angeles back in 2004, the one that starred Val Kilmer as a singularly
improbable Moses (quoth the
NYT’s Charles Isherwood of Kilmer’s performance: “He is not a gifted singer”).
A filmed version of the stage production is available on DVD, and… yeah, the
critics aren’t wrong. It’s pretty impressively ungood, start to finish, though
the camp aficionado in me did appreciate the bit in the opening sequence where
one of the Pharaoh’s goons chases after an infant-toting Hebrew woman while
bellowing “GET THAT BABY!” Still, Lambert and Curly Sue both sing their sandals
off, and Lambert scampers around the stage without pants for the first half,
so, y’know, it’s worth tossing in the Netflix queue.
So next we have Lambert stomping purposefully through the
woods en route to the festivities.
The sharp minds at MTV have pointed out that
this part bears certain thematic and stylistic similarities to the classic
(“classic”) video for Men Without Hats’ “
Safety Dance,” and gadzooks, they’re
sort of right.
I love “Safety Dance,” and I’m only moderately ashamed to
admit it.
And I feel absolutely no shame about my love of “If I Had
You.” This is the song that kicks off with, “So I got my boots on, got the
right amount of leather…”, a lyric so irresistible and so ludicrous that my
brain pretty much short-circuits right there every time I hear it, making me
unable to focus on the rest of the song. Something about how love is even
better than stripper heels and Maseratis, I think. Judging by this video,
Lambert’s definition of the right amount of leather is roughly eight times more
leather than any other person would deem the right amount. Leather overcoat?
Check. Leather boots? Check. Leather pants? Check. Leather fingerless gloves?
Check and check. This kid never does anything half-assed, by gum. He commits.
Before long, the bacchanalia is in full swing. Singing!
Dancing! Lasers! Fog machines! Attractive people in outlandish skimpy costumes!
The spark of inspiration for this video reportedly came from
Lambert’s real-life experiences at the Burning Man festival. Here’s the thing: Lambert is
so bizarrely charismatic and magnetic he can even manage to make
Burning Man
sound kind of appealing:
Hmm, yes, I see, several days of life-threatening desert heat combined with
inadequate sanitation and a shitload of hallucinogens, why, this does
sound like a mighty fun time! Tell me more, Adam.
Quick costume change! Hey, he’s whipped out the shoulder
spikes
again! Lambert is not a small guy—he’s over six feet tall and built like
a gladiator, and he tends to dress to exaggerate his size: spikes in his hair,
spikes on his shoulders, bulky coats, platform boots. Everything about his
public image is cranked up to maximum volume. He’s the Mae West of contemporary
pop music, raunchy and larger than life and iconic and hilarious.
Another costume change! Now he’s got dreadlocks, a jazzy
silver top hat, a sequined coat, a bunch of dangling jewelry… you know, I can’t
even tell what’s going on with the rest of his outfit; I just know that it’s
kind of awesome. There are elements to Lambert’s style that defy analysis.
The revelry and mayhem continue. The crowd grows. If this
video were a Bret Easton Ellis novel, someone would be found the next day bound
to a tree with his throat slashed and his entrails ripped out by coyotes. Since
this is an Adam Lambert video, though, the worst that will happen is that
everyone will slink home in the wee hours of the morning reeking of patchouli and
burned hair, pants missing, shoes sticky with Red Bull and melted banana
Popsicles, dehydrated and bewildered but strangely happy.
Apparently this video is chock-full of cameos from members
of Lambert’s inner circle, including all his friends from his days performing
with the
Zodiac Show (Wikipedia editors seem to think Ke$ha is in there
somewhere, and hey, they could be right). Disgracefully, the only person I can
identify for certain is
American Idol’s adorable Allison Iraheta.
One of these days, I’m going to write a long, rambling,
brainy doctoral thesis about Lambert’s entire American Idol experience,
in which the viewing public received its first balls-out blast of his
unstoppable charisma. Ten years from now, this kid is going to be ruling the
world. At least odds are good he’ll be a benevolent dictator. Glitter-covered
platform boots and peppy dance tunes for everyone!
I adore Adam, but at some level, it’s got to be exhausting
to be friends with him. I get the feeling this video depicts a pretty average
evening for him. Like, he invites you over for what he claims will be a quiet
night of Netflix and wine, and then he gets the idea to go for a moonlit hike
in the Hollywood Hills, and the next thing you know, he’s texted a few hundred
of his closest friends, assembled his band members, and packed a couple of
steamer trunks full of wardrobe changes. Then all of a sudden he’s shooting off
fireworks and frolicking with Chinese dragons and singing up a storm, and you
realize your low-key evening has turned into a huge, glamorous, all-night event.
Not that I’m complaining. He makes it all seem pretty
awesome. This is the magic of Adam Lambert.
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Great job!! thanks