Kradam Will Take Over The World
This is gonna come in several parts, but not right away. I'm still working on the other two parts, but wanted to get this out there & started. This is basically my thoughts on Kris Allen's & Adam Lambert's new CDs. Yeah, I'm mega-late on this, but, whatever. Procrastination is in, or something. ;)
So, without further ado, here are some minor ramblings on my first reactions when hearing the CDs, as well as a list of the tracks on both, and a little rant about some cray-cray drama a few weeks ago on ontd_ai & lyrics on the albums.
I was never worried about loving Adam's cd. I knew I would. If the boy can make me LOVE "Play That Funky Music (White Boy)", and out-sing Aerosmith, and make Brian May cry, he can do frickin' ANYTHING musically. Also, he is, ya know, Adam Frickin' Lambert, people! Show me where that's anything but the ultimate in just about any[every]thing entertainment-y. Seriously. I dare you. So, yeah, never worried about the loving of the FYE album. It’s just how much I'd love it that I wasn't prepared for. I knew I'd love it a ridiculous amount, but I didn't know how or in what ways and ohmygawd, people, I’m still looking for a way I don't love every moment of this whole album.
What I was concerned about was liking Kris' album. Why do I do things like that to myself? How could I think it'd be anything less than adorable and awesome (kick-awesome, even)? I can be such a loser sometimes. In light of all my fretting, I feel completely stupid, because Kris' debut cd? KICK.FRICKIN'.AWESOME. Holy mother of chocolate milk making cows. I do believe I grinned to the point of frighteningly during my whole listen-fest. Amazing. What an accomplishment. He should be so, so proud of himself. I know I am. Proud of his-self, that is. This is a milestone and a solid, worthwhile foundation to what is, I'm sure, going to be a fantastic musical career. Well done, bb boy. You done us proud.
Now that those preliminary blurbs are out of the way- and I will get back to the individual fantazmikness of both albums, song-by-song, later; I see you shivering in anticipation- I'm going to begin what I can only imagine will be an obscenely, unnecessarily over-long, linguistically-based flail-spasm. Because, ladies and gentlemen (and all those falling into the multiple shades of grey area), as someone so aptly put it, this is a Kradam Box Set. I'm not even foolin', y'all. Sure, there's the odd song for the masses and such (and one Red Guitar), but, even though I purposely took off and put aside my little tin hat for my audio bliss session, out of 29 songs (including bonus tracks), 14 are either solely or co-written by the boys themselves. And, dear merciful llama mamma, I felt like I was in some Twilight Zone Geiko commercial with that creepy money-with-eyes thing, except it was my tin hat staring me down. It’s almost like they didn't think people would be dissecting each and every syllable, inflection, nuance, and underlying innuendo or something. Really, guys? Or they knew exactly what they (especially Adam, the stinkin' tease) were doing. Even the liner notes/thanks. Silly boys, fangirl/boying and tinhatting are not done by kids. We’re freaking professionals.
As a run-down and reference point, here's the list of both Kris' and Adam's album song titles*:
*those marked with an "!" are ones written/co-written by our boys.
Kris::
1. Live Like We're Dying
!2. Before We Come Undone
!3. Can’t Stay Away
4. The Truth
5. Written All Over My Face
!6. Bring It Back
!7. Red Guitar
!8. Is It Over
!9. Let It Rain
!10. Alright With Me
!11. Lifetime
!12. I Need To Know
13. Heartless
14. From The Ashes
Adam::
1. Music Again
2. For Your Entertainment
3. Whataya Want From Me
!4. Strut
5. Soaked
6. Sure Fire Winners
7. Loaded Smile
8. If I Had You
!9. Pick U Up
10. Fever
11. Sleepwalker
!12. Aftermath
!13. Broken Open
14. Master Plan
15. Time For Miracles
Now, "Time For Miracles" is for the "2010" soundtrack, so that doesn't exactly count, but it's on the cd (totally worth the extra $ for the special edition with photo book, OMFG) so I included it in the list. However, for several reasons, (like, I'm lazy, this is already eleventy-billion pages long, etc) I won't be including it in my lyric analysis. Similarly, I’ll be excluding "Heartless", for the obvious reasons. I will say, however, that this remix or whatever is BETTER than the Idol one, and I freaking L.O.V.E. the Idol version. Deified bovines, it's gorgeous.
Moving on...
Okay, we know these boys. Let’s just agree on that right now. We know they aren't going to sing anything they don't feel, they don't at least somewhat relate to, can connect with. Any of that "but they didn't write it!" stuff can be kept to yourselves, tyvm. Not trying to be rude, and I do agree that writing it and singing something written is different, and doesn't mean ... whatever. BUT, I’ve written stuff I don't necessarily feel personally, it just came out. And then I've heard songs that express exactly- to a degree that is truly eerie and makes me wonder who's watching me- what I'm thinking/feeling/going through. And I had nothing to do with them. So, written personally by them or not, these are two men who knew exactly how they wanted their album to sound, and worked very, very hard to have it turn out that way. They’re not gonna put something out there that they don't or can't get behind (leave jokes here, thanx ;p). How can I be so certain? Because we know these boys. Maybe not one-on-one, obviously, but we're not all teeny-bopping, hormonally whacked-out, brainless obsessive fanatics. Granted, there are some of us who are at least one of those things, but, collectively, we flail and spaz and all that great stuff, but when it comes right down to it, we're (ya know, mostly, sorta) grown-ups with lives and jobs and degrees and families and we live in the real world. We’re allowed fun-time freak outs when something this epic comes along. So, under the surface of our giddiness lies a pretty mature, thoughtful, intelligent, normal group of individuals. And we've seen and heard enough about and from these two that we can make educated, well-thought-out, rational deductions as to the type of people they are.
tl;dr. Basically, that's a whole lot of words to say: we love them, but we're not morons, back off, chill out. ;)
And now that that nonsense is out of the way...
NEXT PART::
Flail Times!!
~TR
So, without further ado, here are some minor ramblings on my first reactions when hearing the CDs, as well as a list of the tracks on both, and a little rant about some cray-cray drama a few weeks ago on ontd_ai & lyrics on the albums.
I was never worried about loving Adam's cd. I knew I would. If the boy can make me LOVE "Play That Funky Music (White Boy)", and out-sing Aerosmith, and make Brian May cry, he can do frickin' ANYTHING musically. Also, he is, ya know, Adam Frickin' Lambert, people! Show me where that's anything but the ultimate in just about any[every]thing entertainment-y. Seriously. I dare you. So, yeah, never worried about the loving of the FYE album. It’s just how much I'd love it that I wasn't prepared for. I knew I'd love it a ridiculous amount, but I didn't know how or in what ways and ohmygawd, people, I’m still looking for a way I don't love every moment of this whole album.
What I was concerned about was liking Kris' album. Why do I do things like that to myself? How could I think it'd be anything less than adorable and awesome (kick-awesome, even)? I can be such a loser sometimes. In light of all my fretting, I feel completely stupid, because Kris' debut cd? KICK.FRICKIN'.AWESOME. Holy mother of chocolate milk making cows. I do believe I grinned to the point of frighteningly during my whole listen-fest. Amazing. What an accomplishment. He should be so, so proud of himself. I know I am. Proud of his-self, that is. This is a milestone and a solid, worthwhile foundation to what is, I'm sure, going to be a fantastic musical career. Well done, bb boy. You done us proud.
Now that those preliminary blurbs are out of the way- and I will get back to the individual fantazmikness of both albums, song-by-song, later; I see you shivering in anticipation- I'm going to begin what I can only imagine will be an obscenely, unnecessarily over-long, linguistically-based flail-spasm. Because, ladies and gentlemen (and all those falling into the multiple shades of grey area), as someone so aptly put it, this is a Kradam Box Set. I'm not even foolin', y'all. Sure, there's the odd song for the masses and such (and one Red Guitar), but, even though I purposely took off and put aside my little tin hat for my audio bliss session, out of 29 songs (including bonus tracks), 14 are either solely or co-written by the boys themselves. And, dear merciful llama mamma, I felt like I was in some Twilight Zone Geiko commercial with that creepy money-with-eyes thing, except it was my tin hat staring me down. It’s almost like they didn't think people would be dissecting each and every syllable, inflection, nuance, and underlying innuendo or something. Really, guys? Or they knew exactly what they (especially Adam, the stinkin' tease) were doing. Even the liner notes/thanks. Silly boys, fangirl/boying and tinhatting are not done by kids. We’re freaking professionals.
As a run-down and reference point, here's the list of both Kris' and Adam's album song titles*:
*those marked with an "!" are ones written/co-written by our boys.
Kris::
1. Live Like We're Dying
!2. Before We Come Undone
!3. Can’t Stay Away
4. The Truth
5. Written All Over My Face
!6. Bring It Back
!7. Red Guitar
!8. Is It Over
!9. Let It Rain
!10. Alright With Me
!11. Lifetime
!12. I Need To Know
13. Heartless
14. From The Ashes
Adam::
1. Music Again
2. For Your Entertainment
3. Whataya Want From Me
!4. Strut
5. Soaked
6. Sure Fire Winners
7. Loaded Smile
8. If I Had You
!9. Pick U Up
10. Fever
11. Sleepwalker
!12. Aftermath
!13. Broken Open
14. Master Plan
15. Time For Miracles
Now, "Time For Miracles" is for the "2010" soundtrack, so that doesn't exactly count, but it's on the cd (totally worth the extra $ for the special edition with photo book, OMFG) so I included it in the list. However, for several reasons, (like, I'm lazy, this is already eleventy-billion pages long, etc) I won't be including it in my lyric analysis. Similarly, I’ll be excluding "Heartless", for the obvious reasons. I will say, however, that this remix or whatever is BETTER than the Idol one, and I freaking L.O.V.E. the Idol version. Deified bovines, it's gorgeous.
Moving on...
Okay, we know these boys. Let’s just agree on that right now. We know they aren't going to sing anything they don't feel, they don't at least somewhat relate to, can connect with. Any of that "but they didn't write it!" stuff can be kept to yourselves, tyvm. Not trying to be rude, and I do agree that writing it and singing something written is different, and doesn't mean ... whatever. BUT, I’ve written stuff I don't necessarily feel personally, it just came out. And then I've heard songs that express exactly- to a degree that is truly eerie and makes me wonder who's watching me- what I'm thinking/feeling/going through. And I had nothing to do with them. So, written personally by them or not, these are two men who knew exactly how they wanted their album to sound, and worked very, very hard to have it turn out that way. They’re not gonna put something out there that they don't or can't get behind (leave jokes here, thanx ;p). How can I be so certain? Because we know these boys. Maybe not one-on-one, obviously, but we're not all teeny-bopping, hormonally whacked-out, brainless obsessive fanatics. Granted, there are some of us who are at least one of those things, but, collectively, we flail and spaz and all that great stuff, but when it comes right down to it, we're (ya know, mostly, sorta) grown-ups with lives and jobs and degrees and families and we live in the real world. We’re allowed fun-time freak outs when something this epic comes along. So, under the surface of our giddiness lies a pretty mature, thoughtful, intelligent, normal group of individuals. And we've seen and heard enough about and from these two that we can make educated, well-thought-out, rational deductions as to the type of people they are.
tl;dr. Basically, that's a whole lot of words to say: we love them, but we're not morons, back off, chill out. ;)
And now that that nonsense is out of the way...
NEXT PART::
Flail Times!!
~TR