So the thing with Mad World and a lot of Adam’s stuff that makes it seem shallow or hollow to me, is that he is almost just using the material as a showcase for his performance and his voice.

A lot of people like it, obviously. But considering he is so talented and has such a great voice, I wish he would not rely on staging, make-up, costumes, lighting, etc. to put himself across, but would try to just focus on the meaning of what he’s singing first. The rest is not really very important. But that’s just how I think.

Ross: I don’t think a lot of people like Adam because they like what you’re talking about–I think they like him because they disagree with you (and niks) about him as a singer and a performer. : ) They love him precisely because his astonishing voice and unusual, theatrical performance style combines with his total dedication to the meaning of the lyrics and the music, and the emotional depth of his connection to whatever he’s singing, no matter how serious or purely fun the material, is intensely powerful. It’s Lynne said so well, it’s a different story form what most music conveys, and it’s not a story that everyone will enjoy, but it’s a story that many do. Which I think can be said for a number of artists, actually.

I don’t like empty prettiness, or singers who use music as a “showcase for their voice.” That’s boring, and irritating, and it’s never going to hold my attention. Right now the top 5 most played artists on my ipod (besides Adam) are Radiohead, Gillian Welsh, Bowie, Tom Waits, and TV On the Radio. I’m not sure that any of those artists have technically beautiful voices–maybe Thom Yorke and Gillian Welsh?–but what they do have is musical complexity and emotional depth.

I’m not saying that you should feel that from Adam or that there’s something wrong with you if you don’t. Plenty of people with overall very good taste in music find Kris pleasant and sincere but insipid, and plenty of people with overall very good taste in music find Adam pretty but overly theatrical. No one, no matter how talented or heartfelt, is going to connect with everyone emotionally’”and it’s probably better that way, since different tastes can make for more interesting and varied discussion.

But that’s what people who love Adam love about him: the emotional depth and musical complexity. The voice itself is part of that love, obviously’”just as people who love Kris love how smooth and honeyed his voice is. Adam’s voice is, by itself, pretty astonishing in terms of its beauty and range and power. But that would be just an empty exercise without the depth of that emotional connection to the music that he has.

I had literally never watched an episode of AI before’”it always seemed full of pop sludge and Nickelback-style faux-rock’”but this political website I frequented during the election kept posting clips of Adam’s performances, which I ignored until I saw that one of them was of Mad World. Donnie Darko was one of the main movies of my high school years, and the Jules version was a big part of that, so I watched it’”and to my complete and utter shock, about half-way through, found myself crying. Jules’ version is chilling’”it always struck me as the voice of someone who has moved beyond the pain of isolation to a complete detachment from the world round him, which fit that film perfectly.

But Adam’s version is heartbreaking’”he doesn’t seem detached, but rather like he is trapped in the middle of all that pain and soul-killing loneliness and self-loathing and no matter how desperately he searches, he can’t find any way to escape it. I had never heard the lyrics of the song, the self-annihilating anguish of lines like ‘The dreams in which I’m dying are the best I’ve ever had,’  so clearly, and it was one of those moments where you know you’ve stumbled across someone really special and unique. I’ve had that experience several times’”and I think we all crave the emotional journey that music can take us on when it’s sung by someone who really feels it in his or her soul, so finding someone who feels music that deeply, who can take you on that journey when he or she sings, is a pretty exhilarating sensation.

And that’s the journey Adam takes me, and I think pretty much everyone who loves him, on whenever he sings. In music’”especially in contemporary music’”I’ve rarely come across the kind of emotional depth and passion he invests in whatever he sings, his chameleon-like ability to channel so many different emotions so passionately and to pour them into so many different styles of music so authentically’”and one thing I love about him is that he rarely utilizes just one emotion for a song; he layers them and entwines them in constantly surprising combinations. It’s like he’s transformed by the music from song to song while always remaining totally himself, and I think that’s what some people find off-putting about him and why some people love him so much. It’s definitely not the normal style of music today.

And that kind of passion and emotional depth is addictive’”A Change is Gonna Come might be my favorite performance from the season from him, and the first time I heard it I flashed not to Sam Cooke or Patti LaBelle or anyone else who has sung that song, but to Janis Jopin and the first time I heard her; I remember feeling all that fury and heartbreak in her voice like it was a physical thing, like it was something that could burst out of her and flood the whole room’”and that’s what Adam singing that song felt like for me, like the searing anger and sadness in his voice was going to flood out of him and drown the Nokia theater.

I’m a huge Zep fan and I don’t think anyone can top his version of WLL, but Adam’s is equally amazing to me’”where Plant does sexual yearning, Adam does pure sexual ecstasy and playfulness and confidence, and both are incredible. His Starlight I actually like better than Matthew Bellamy’s; Adam brings this kind of soft longing and trepidation and love to it that gets me every time. And Bowie’”the alien feeling of Adam on those songs, especially Life On Mars, like the music is ringing through him and he’s not really quite of this earth, is enthralling and a little chilling and then ultimately, when he moves into the playfulness and eroticism of Let’s Dance (which is probably most indicative to what his first CD will be like), thrilling and spell-binding; emotional connection of the Bowie variety isn’t just about sadness or love’”people sometimes see to equate those things’”but about feeling whatever the music is saying, whether that’s alienation or lust or joy or playfulness or pure fun or anything else’”in your bones and letting it pour out you. And that’s what I hope his first CD is like.

And Mad World on tour is what it was on the show’”heartbreaking and achingly lonely. Looking at his face while singing that song, he doesn’t actually move his face that much’”it’s all in his eyes. And what’s in his eyes is such deep sadness and even fear that I got chills all over again hearing it live. As often as I’ve heard that song, I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of it because he feels it so deeply, which means that I feel it again each time. I was caught up enough in the song that I honestly didn’t notice the fog except when it first came in, and then only to think that it reminded me of the moors in Wuthering Heights. But people have different reactions to staging’”a number of people have commented that the staging of Kris’s Heartless, with the HEARTLESS beaming all up and down the side monitors and hearts in the background, is really distracting and way too literal to be of any use in enhancing the song. I did find it a little weird and distracting for the first minute, but then Kris did his Kris thing and I focused on him instead of the background. So, that just goes to reinforce the already very obvious point that different people find different things distracting and different things moving.

I just remembered what Slezak said about Adam’s Mad World (I discovered Slezak and loved him for his Kradison love), and it encapsulates a lot of what I feel about that performance, on the show and on tour:

And the best thing about Adam’s ”Mad World” was the way it hit me emotionally ‘” in a way not even his Motown Week take on ”Tracks of My Tears” managed to do. As Adam delivered the lines ”I went to school and I was very nervous/ No one knew me, no one knew me,” he managed to tap into that wellspring of pain and insecurity that pretty much every person on the planet has felt at one time or another: The kid at school who can’t find anyone to sit with in the cafeteria. The panic-stricken worker in the first week at a new job. The guest who shows up at a party and realizes, ”Oh, crap! I don’t know anyone here but the host.” There’s something really special about a musical performance that can transport you to any number of places or scenarios.

Adam is special, I think, precisely because he is first and foremost about the meaning of the song and the music and how to interpret and present it in a way that conveys that. His honesty and depth as a singer and performer are combined with his really astonishing musicality and creativity as an interpreter of songs: the way he can use his voice like an instrument to bring intensely subtle and creative shades and colors and emotional levels to his songs is pretty much unparalleled among rock/pop singers right now, and his phrasing is exquisite and original. He’s not hiding behind anything, he’s just expressing himself in the way that’s natural to him, and people are drawn to that: the way he does that is theatrical, and I completely understand how strange that is and that it’s not everyone’s taste. But just as I love Freddie Mercury and David Bowie and Michael Jackson, I love that Adam can combine that kind of visual creativity with such total honesty and musical depth and passion. It’s not hiding’”it’s simply a different way of being yourself, and that’s just as valid as Kris’s more unadorned style. Kris is always himself’”Adam is always himself but also always more than himself and different from song to song, and both styles are compelling to me. As I said before, not everyone will feel this way. And just because you like one person in a certain performance style doesn’t mean you’ll like all of them’”there are probably people who love Bowie but don’t like Adam, or who love John Mayer but don’t like Kris. And it’s also totally valid to find Adam’s style of music or Kris’s style of music boring or unmoving across the board. But I think that their creativity and the fact that they are pretty much always completely true to who they are as artists, in their very different styles, is why people responded so well to Adam and Kris on the show.

But for me and for many people, it’s not about less-is-more vs. more-is-more; it’s about what’s authentic and true for that specific artist, and for Adam, the way he expresses himself musically and visually is who he is, and that’s what makes him so powerful and captivating for so many people’”because who he is is very out-of-the-ordinary, but simultaneously totally authentic, and that’s a combination we don’t see too often, especially when combined with an otherworldly voice. Any performance style, theatricality included, only works when there is soul beneath it, and with Adam, there is, and I think that’s what made so many people so unusually excited about him during the season and why he’s getting by far the best reviews on tour’”that kind of creativity combined with emotional depth and passion is unusual, and the journey he can take people on is an unusual one, and while none of that guarantees his success, I hope he gets it because I’ve rarely felt this way about a contemporary artist.

Oh dear. I have written yet another novel. I guess I just really like discussing music, and also I feel that people who don’t like Kris seem to think that those who do are just into any vanilla, MOR cute guy with a guitar, and people who don’t like Adam seem to think that those who do are just into great voices and spectacle. And I don’t think either is true. It’s not that people are “wrong,” per se, to not feel that passion from Kris or to not feel it from Adam–but I wanted to explain why I do. I do genuinely love Kris. I personally feel more moved and captivated by Adam’s emotional depth and creativity than I do by Kris’s, but I do find Kris moving and creative and engaging. I feel similarly about Allison, though I think she’s not as musically developed yet as Adam or Kris. And all of this is only opinion, and people are entitled to whatever opinions they want, but I just wanted to explain in (incredibly overdone) detail why so many people are so excited about and connected to Adam. : )

isisdagmar you make some very good points. (You also have one of my favorite usernames on this whole blog!)

Aw, thanks ross, that’s sweet. I made that name up in tenth grade for a character and liked it enough to keep it.

Now, I’m aware that in validating Kris’s experiences, I went too far and invalidated Adam’s. That wasn’t right. I shouldn’t have suggested, in a holier-than-thou way, that Kris’s experiences were better. I have no idea what Adam’s experiences were and shouldn’t make assumptions. So, sorry about that. I just got a bit indignant, I guess.

It’s a natural reaction to get a little indignant and defensive when your favorite is being attacked in a way you perceive to be unfair (and in this case, you were totally right, it was unfair), and I figured that’s what was happening. I’ve had to stop myself from doing something similar a couple of times by reminding myself I don’t really feel that way and that, hey, it’s just the internet.

Whoa. SexyEvey may have suggested that about Kris, but I never suggested anything like that about Adam. You’re putting words in my mouth, there. I don’t think that at all. There also seems to be some suggestion in your post that I was saying Adam is not a good person. I never said that and don’t think that. He seems like a great person.

You said: “You see it as a virtue that Adam focused on acting/singing for years, vs. Kris not doing so. While I see this as admirable, I also see it as narrow and somewhat self-centered, complared to Kris’s broader life experiences, which have sometimes focused more on helping his fellow human beings, and not just getting ahead and becoming a star’ 

I didn’t think you were calling Adam a horrible person, but you certainly seemed to be calling him a “narrow” and “somewhat self-centered” person compared to Kris, which would definitely make him not a great person in my book if that were true. And since you were contrasting Adam and Kris, the comment that Kris was not just about “getting ahead and becoming a star” certainly seemed to indicate that you were saying that Adam was just about that. And someone who’s just about or even mostly about becoming a star clearly isn’t doing it for their passion for the music, so that’s why I thought that you were saying that Adam was less passionate about music than Kris.

But isn’t that the part that you were referring to when you were saying you “went too far” and invalided Adam’s experiences? That’s the only part that I felt was “holier-than-thou.” I know you don’t actually think all that–it just seemed like you were saying those things in your original post out of irritation at what was said about Kris.

And if it’s not already clear, I think that Adam and Kris have both been on equally valid, just different, paths to this point in their lives.

I have total respect for Adam as a performer and artist. I just have the feeling he (like anyone else) can grow, and I just think one of the ways he can grow is to get so lost in a song that he forgets where he is, what he’s doing, etc. I don’t really see that yet. I think his background might make that difficult because musical theatre and other types of shows are all about technique and repetition. The opposite of letting go and not caring at all about the presentation. Which is more what pop or rock can be all about.

See, while no artist should ever be past being capable of growth, I think that people who like Adam feel that his ability to get lost in the music was one of the most fascinating things about him on the show and one of the things that made him stand out from the crowd like he did’”again, that combination of theatricality and deep emotional connection is pretty unusual. I suppose that again just shows that all this is a difference of opinion’”people who are fans of Adam feel that he gets lost in the music, and people who are fans of Kris feel that he gets lost in the music, and people who are fans of both see it in both. Side note: I don’t think forgetting where you are is the ultimate gauge of connection, though, since a lot of intensely connected performers are also fairly audience-interactive’”as both Adam and Kris are at various points during their sets and were during various songs on the show’”but it is a great ability to see an artist exercise sometimes, and they both have and do.

One of my favorite things about Adam during the season, actually, was watching the moment where he came back to earth from whatever mental and emotional space he had been in while performing. Did you ever read Jacob from TWOP’s recaps? They’re hard to follow but hilarious, and he talked about that (he loved Adam and Kris the most):

‘when he’s done singing, as usual, he goes from a snarling Kenneth Anger movie death goddess person to just like this nice boy. That little moment where his eyes clear and he smiles, that’s become my favorite part of the show each week, because you remember you’re allowed to breathe’ 

I loved seeing that after performances from TOMT to IICHY to WLL’”that moment when a performance ended and he looked like he had genuinely forgotten where he was for a moment, and then he leaves whatever world he was in and becomes just himself again. And that ability to lose himself in the music so thoroughly was what made him stand out, for me, and for a lot of people, I think.

Kris always seemed totally heartfelt, more so than any other contestant except Adam, but out of all the contestants, the connection between Adam and the music felt deeper, more elemental and all-consuming’”again, that feeling of him being lost in the music. I remember feeling that while watching BoW and especially TOMT early on and he looked like he was going to burst into tears or break apart. But that was part of Kris’s arc of growth over the season, which was fascinating to watch, and his reprise of ANS was incredibly deeply felt. And really, I don’t know think my opinion that Adam’s connection was deeper is factually true. That’s like trying to gauge the relative levels of connection of Freddie Mercury vs. Bob Dylan’”you may connect to Freddie more than Dylan or vice versa, but you’d be hard-pressed to say that one is objectively more deeply connected to the music than the other when both are so connected in such different ways.

And maybe there lies the heart of the matter: I couldn’t disagree more with your description of theater as ‘all about technique and repetition. The opposite of letting go and not caring at all about the presentation.’ 

Theater is only about technique and repetition if it’s really, really bad theater. : ) Theater, musical or regular, is, or should be, about pouring yourself into the song or the scene in a new way each night and completely losing yourself in it like it’s the first time you ever did it. Sure, you have choreography and you need to make sure you exit and enter in the appropriate places’”but that’s no different from a singer needing to sing or play the same song each night. The steps are the same’”the notes are the same’”but what you do with the song each night or each time you play it should be fresh, not premeditated. If it becomes about repeating what you did the night before, then it’s dead, or at least very boring. And it’s the same with singers and musicians’”they may sing or perform the same songs a thousand times, but each time they should strive to make that connection like it’s all new again.

So, for me, theater is not about artificiality or repetition’”it’s about constant exploration and spontaneous discovery and delving deeply into your soul for creativity and emotion and imagination and pouring all of it into the song or the role that you’re living. It’s about the combination of truth and imagination to create something astonishing and revelatory and deeply, affectingly real, yet different during each performance and from role to role.

And I think that’s why I love Adam so much: he does that. Everything he does, he does passionately and with every ounce of his being and with such joy and deep emotional commitment that it’s like the first time he did it. And that kind of total ease with and ability to lose himself in the music is what allows him to be so free and emotionally true on stage while operating within his natural theatrical style’”it can be seen in how different his performances always were from the rehearsal clips shown, in his mentioning that he never remembered what he did during a performance and needed to watch the video clips to see it, in how intensely different his songs are on tour from night to night, etc.

Adam is maybe the only current singer who manages to lose himself in the music in that particular way, in that combination of truth and imagination, and I think that the power of that, and the rareness of it, is why he dominated this season in the way that he did and why he seems to still have that effect (which does not remotely guarantee commercial success, but it’s a nice start).

But all of this is just opinion, as you said. It seems like theatricality really isn’t for you, and for some people, theatricality is pretty much always going to seem artificial, and for others, Kris’s simpler style is pretty much always going to seem vanilla. I genuinely love both styles, and both of these singers. In fact, I have more singers in Kris’s vein than in Adam’s on my ipod. And really, that rareness also means that I can see why Adam really isn’t for everyone. But for whatever mysterious reason, I just personally find Adam a little more powerful and more deeply emotionally connected to the music in a transformative way. I can try to analyze it, but our connection to music and to musical artists is ultimately mysterious. But there’s room for all these opinions, happily. : )

No, isisdagmar, I wasn’t saying that.

Sorry! I guess I misinterpreted you then. Although’”it doesn’t matter, but out of curiosity’”did you then not mean ’self-centered’  to mean selfish or self-absorbed, like it normally does?

Isisdagmar ‘“ loved your piece on Adam and the way you expressed so articulately much of what I also feel.

Thank you, Lynne! I loved what you wrote too’”it articulated some of what I was trying to say and couldn’t quite find the words for. It’s always fun to read what other people who love Adam write about him’”there’s a complexity to him as an artist that means there’s a lot to think about. : )