Adam Lambert kisses his keyboard player onstage at the American Music Awards
Photo: Kevin Winter/ Getty Images
Just last week, the editor-in-chief of the gay magazine Out was lamenting that Adam Lambert\'s handlers were allegedly trying to ease the out-and-proud singer back into the closet a bit. While Lambert told the gay magazine to chill, he seemed intent on sending a strong message on Sunday night with his pan-sexually charged performance of the title track from his debut album, For Your Entertainment.
In addition to dragging a female dancer around by the ankles, pushing a male dancer\'s head into his crotch and simulating oral sex, walking a pair of male hoofers around like dogs on a leash, and furiously thrusting his hips at every opportunity, Lambert took a moment mid-song to fervently make out with (an allegedly straight) male keyboard player. After the jaw-dropping performance, Lambert told CNN that the forceful smooch was \"in the moment\" and was not a planned part of his routine. Appearing to preemptively strike back at anyone who took issue with the S&M-heavy imagery of the night-closing routine for its risqué nature, Lambert said those who object are engaging in \"a form of discrimination and a double standard,\" considering that for decades, \"women performers have been pushing the envelope.\" Lambert repeated that double-standard line of reasoning with Rolling Stone backstage after the show, telling the mag, \"Female performers have been doing this for years — pushing the envelope about sexuality — and the minute a man does it, everybody freaks out. We\'re in 2009 — it\'s time to take risks, be a little more brave, time to open people\'s eyes and if it offends them, then maybe I\'m not for them. My goal was not to piss people off, it was to promote freedom of expression and artistic freedom.\" The singer, whose glam pop/rock debut was released on Monday (November 23), lamented that when Madonna and Britney Spears smooched at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards, it was not censored, though it did take place on a cable network, not on a prime-time network television broadcast. The West Coast broadcast of the show reportedly kept the kiss with the keyboardist in but cut out the simulated oral sex. Critical reaction to Lambert\'s performance was decidedly mixed, with some applauding his audaciousness and more questioning the over-the-top nature of what Entertainment Weekly described as a bit that \"emphasized shock-and-awe imagery over his standard-operating vocal excellence.\"
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Jennifer Lopez performs at the 2009 American Music Awards
Photo: Jeff Kravitz/ FilmMagic
Fall? What fall? That\'s the line Jennifer Lopez took on Monday morning (November 23) after her apparent slip during Sunday night\'s American Music Awards performance became one of the most-searched items on the Internet. Giggling while reliving the seeming slip-up during her run through her new single \"Louboutins,\" Lopez appeared on Ryan Seacrest\'s KIIS-FM radio show on Monday (November 23) and made light of the incident.
\"Did I? Did I? Did I trip a little bit? I don\'t even remember,\" Lopez, said with a chuckle. \"Yeah, I meant to do that. You should know me better than that. That was part of the choreography.\" The brief stumble (which E! Online reported was edited out of the West Coast feed of the show out of respect for Lopez by the show\'s producers), (took place after the singer climbed up the backs of her shirtless male dancers and then leaped into the air after reaching the top. She seemed to lose her footing on landing and slipped momentarily onto her backside, jumping up almost instantly and continuing with her routine. Seacrest gave her props for what he termed, \"the greatest recovery ever\" and Lopez explained that, \"The measure of things is not what happens when you fall, it\'s how you recover when you fall ... It was fun, it was really fun,\" she said. \"It was nice to be back on stage and doing my thing.\" (It was that kind of night: Adam Lambert also fell during his performance.) After a year of so out of the musical spotlight, Lopez\'s performance was the first major promotional appearance in support of her upcoming album, which is due out in early 2010.
The O.D.: A Mixtape Daily Exclusive Our Main Pick of the week had t be pushed back to Tuesday. Lupe Fiasco dropped a jewel to the Mixtape Daily famo on the red carpet of Diddy\'s 40th birthday bash. Lu is putting out a mixtape Thanksgiving night. Damn, Giants football and a Lupe mixtape after dinner? If only Vince McMahon still put on the Survivor Series on Thanksgiving too. Guess you can\'t have it all. Back to Lupe. He told us he was inspired by the MTV News\' Hottest MCs in the Game list, and he\'s about to go ham on the industry.
\"The last six months, it\'s been like, \'I gotta really, really go out there and show that I\'m nicer than all of them,\' \" Lupe said. \"It\'s like, \'All right, so be it. If it takes three more albums to do it, then so be it.\' That\'s what I got left with Atlantic. Three more after Lasers. I\'m already done with two. The mixtape is coming Thanksgiving. It\'ll be another mixtape after that and an album after that. It\'s really to get that status and lock it in and [and have people] be like, \'Look at this positive dude, the underdog. The positive one who came and murdered all these dudes. And he\'s there, and he\'s good.\' \" Lupe said he isn\'t concerned about what he has to do — he\'s going to prove he\'s the best. \"I\'m finnin\' to house every single mode and arena I can get into,\" Fiasco promised. \"If y\'all had somewhere where it\'s live performances, I\'m finnin to have the best live performances. If it\'s mixtapes, I\'m finnin\' to have the best mixtapes. If it\'s albums again, it\'s gonna be the best verse. If it\'s the best dressed, I\'m going hard as well.\" Lupe said the yet-untitled mixtape will be him going in over other MCs\' beats. \"I got four days to figure it out,\" he said about the title. \"I\'ve been dabbling with some names. I don\'t know yet.\" Concerning the production, Lupe said he\'s not going to let any original production go. \"Why waste it?\" he said. \"I still got my plan. I\'m not finnin\' to diverge off my plan and my career and how I wanna roll my music out.\" For other artists featured in Mixtape Daily, check out Mixtape Daily Headlines.
Adam Lambert performing at the American Music Awards on Sunday
Photo: Kevork Djansezian/ Getty Images
If Adam Lambert proved anything during his sexually charged performance at Sunday night\'s American Music Awards, it\'s that he continues to give good headline. The \"American Idol\" runner-up closed the show with a polarizing set that drew cheers, jeers and a lot of dropped jaws as he unveiled the title track from his major-label debut, For Your Entertainment.
With a kind of mash-up of the top awards-show shock moments from Britney, Madonna and Christina Aguilera over the past 15 years, complete with faux-oral sex (which was edited out of the West Coast feed), S&M play, bondage, crotch-grabbing, same-sex make-outs, serial hip-thrusting and even an accidental stumble, Lambert made it clear that he\'s not the kind of safe pop star typically churned out by the \"Idol\" machine. He also pre-emptively declared that anyone who criticized his display of sexual liberty was endorsing a double standard that says straight women can explore their (bi)sexuality onstage, but gay men can\'t. However, not everyone agreed. The Los Angeles Times\' awards-show blog, \"The Envelope,\" called the performance \"ultra-lewd,\" noting that \"ABC censors had to quick-cut to an odd aerial shot of the audience when Lambert had a male backup dancer simulate oral sex on him mid-song.\" (That bit actually aired on the East Coast feed, but was altered for the West Coast broadcast.) While the blog went on to praise Lambert for making music dangerous again, the newspaper\'s official grade of the performance was tied for the worst of the night at a D, with a critic noting, \"Borrowing some of Rihanna\'s shoulder spikes and torture devices, Lambert dragged women around onstage and got frisky with dudes, all in what seemed like an overly calculated way to show himself off as some sort of glam-gone-dangerous artist — and to instantly distance Lambert from the family-friendly \'Idol\' fare ... Lambert has the voice, and a charisma that stands out in today\'s pop music landscape, but this was provocation by the numbers.\" The review from The New York Times was a bit more kind, saying that the \"caterwauling \'American Idol\' runner-up [will] never have to worry about being confused with Kris Allen after a performance that featured him walking a man and a woman around the stage on leashes, and thrusting his crotch at his various backup dancers.\" E! Online was also relatively tame, calling the bit \"extremely raunchy.\"
2009 AMA Peformances
The knives really came out at the usually \"Idol\"-friendly Entertainment Weekly, which took some issue with the bump-and-maul factor, but also took issue with the sometimes weak notes the typically powerful Lambert displayed during the bit. \"Talk about \'No Boundaries,\' \" wrote \"Idol\" expert Michael Slezak. \"Adam Lambert made his first big post-\'Idol\' splash tonight, closing the American Music Awards with a performance of his debut single \'For Your Entertainment\' that — to my surprise and disappointment — emphasized shock-and-awe imagery over his standard-operating vocal excellence.\" Slezak referred to Lambert dragging a female backup dancer across the stage by her leg, \"as if she were a lace-covered sack of potatoes,\" grasping the head of a \"submissive-styled\" male dancer and pulling him into \"an uncomfortable round of simulated oral sex\" and \"taking a break from his singing duties for an impromptu game of tongue twister with a keyboardist of indeterminate gender.\" Slezak said he was hoping the primo slot on the show would be Lambert\'s big coming-out party, and said that despite the musical theater veteran\'s years of stage experience, he may have suffered from a bit of nerves. \"But the bottom line is that Adam\'s AMA performance felt less like a genuine expression of his high-octane sexuality (so playfully erotic when he fondled the mic stand during \'Whole Lotta Love\' this summer), and more like a carefully planned stab at dominating the post-AMA blogosphere/water-cooler discussion. ... Adam could\'ve had tongues wagging just from his vocals alone. Instead, that golden voice took a backseat tonight at the AMAs, and I\'m not sure exactly who was occupying the driver\'s seat.\" Slezak\'s co-worker, EW TV critic Ken Tucker, appreciated his colleague\'s take on the quality of the performance, but, as a TV viewer, he totally disagreed. \"I thought Lambert\'s performance was a gas, a delight, a blast of brash vulgarity in the midst of merely ordinary vulgarity,\" he wrote Monday morning. \"Lambert was an event unto himself. The song he was singing was beside the point — and the point was, \'Here I am, Adam Lambert, freed from the shackles of \'American Idol,\' I\'ll push this dancer\'s face into my crotch if I feel like it, isn\'t it funny to lead human beings around on leashes, and can you believe how high I got my hair to stand up under these lights?\' \" The point, Tucker said, was that the day after the awards show, which featured equally high-tech, eye-catching, if more nuanced, performances from Lady Gaga and Rihanna, Lambert is what everyone is talking about. \"Using TV instead of music as a way for a singer to maintain prominence: how pure pop,\" he said. For his part, Lambert made no Monday-morning apologies for the spectacle, telling \"Access Hollywood,\" \"You know, honestly, if I offended some people ... it\'s apples and oranges. I\'m not an artist that does things for every single person. ... I believe in artistic freedom and expression, I believe in honoring the lyrics of a song, and those lyrics aren\'t really for everybody either.\" Besides, he said, shock is fun. \"Shock rock is like something that existed, for example, like in the \'70\'s, Alice Cooper ... David Bowie, you had artists that liked to push the envelope and that\'s what made them so fresh. I think that surprise is part of entertainment. I think that it keeps people watching. It\'s fun, it makes you laugh and it should be that way. And if it made you uncomfortable, maybe I\'m not for you.\" What did you think of Adam Lambert\'s performance at the American Music Awards? Sound off below!
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The most important album of Gucci Mane\'s career is scheduled to surface in stores December 8. For Gucci, the title The State vs. Radric Davis took on an all-too-real relevance a couple of weeks ago when the rapper was sent to jail for 12 months. He violated the terms of his probation, and at a time when he should be on the road promoting, Gucc is behind bars. He does have a slew of mixtape tracks holding him down in the streets and the clubs. A Gucci set is necessary for just about every hip-hop dance floor now. For the mainstream, the Zone 6 rep left a calling card: \"Spotlight\" with Usher. Meanwhile, \"Wasted\" with Plies continues its chart success. Things couldn\'t be better for Gucci, career-wise. Despite the LP\'s grave title, The State vs. Radric Davis finds Gucci in many jovial moments. The weightiest part of \"Heavy\" is the beat. Producer Shawty Red makes a track that sounds like it came out of a cartoon and was pimped with roaring bass for the booty-shake clubs. \"Real heavy, real heavy,\" Gucci raps on the hook. \"Somebody help me, my chain heavy/ My ego is toooo big/ It\'s getting\' heavy/ My head is gettin\' tooo big, it\'s too heavy.\" Jazze Pha uses piano as the soundscape for \"The Movie.\" The track sounds as if an old Charlie Chaplin movie was filmed in today\'s ATL trap. \"I\'m jumping out my coupe with the missing roof,\" Gucci raps. He then tells the ladies out there he is not looking for any type of serious relationship. \" \'Do you remember me from last month?\'/ I can\'t remember nothing but my last blunt,\" he jokes. Gucci totally changes his stance on the Zaytoven-produced \"I Think I\'m in Love.\" He raps about a woman he feels is \"God\'s gift.\" \"Bad Bad Bad\" has Keyshia Cole on the hook. That record takes a harsh look at love lost. \"I can do bad, bad, bad all by myself,\" Keyshia sings on the chorus. Meanwhile Gucci pleads his case: \"I\'m a bad boy, but there\'s still so much good in me/ If you take me out the \'hood, there\'s still the \'hood in me.\" The title says it all on the Rick Ross-featured \"All About Money,\" as does \"Sex in Crazy Places\" with Bobby V, Nicki Minaj and Trina. \"Stupid Wild\" features both Cam\'ron and Lil Wayne. The trio stunt and once again plant their flags for being the owners of the rap game. \"Wilder than a jaguar, wildin\' in a Jaguar,\" Weezy spews on the Bangladesh-produced track. \"Please don\'t play with me, I\'ll put this pistol on your grandpa.\" \"Let\'s do the furs, his and hers,\" Cam comes in on the second verse. \"Started gettin\' on my nerves, so I hit with the \'burrr\'/ ... And your wifey, we use her for her food stamps.\"
Are you Britney Spears\' biggest, most enthusiastic fan? Want to prove it? Want to win a copy of Britney Spears: The Singles Collection? Of course you do! Well, we here at MTV News are giving you the chance to prove that you are her fan numero uno. How? Submit a short video demonstrating why you are Britney\'s biggest fan. Shoot the videos on your phone or webcam or whatever, and submit them — by 11:59 p.m. on Monday, December 7 — to Your.MTV.com. Videos should be approximately 30 seconds long and must include contact information, but beyond that, all bets are off! Make up a dance or a song (remember, you can\'t use copyrighted songs!), paint a picture, tell a story — get creative! We\'ll take a look at all the videos, and if you manage to convince us that you\'re Britney\'s biggest fan, you\'ll win your very own copy of Britney Spears: The Singles Collection! The album includes all of her biggest hits, including \" ... Baby One More Time,\" \"(You Drive Me) Crazy (The Stop Remix!),\" \"I\'m a Slave 4 U,\" Toxic\" and \"Oops! ... I Did It Again\" and many more, including her latest single, \"3.\" We\'ll announce the winner at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, December 8. So put on your thinking caps, turn on your cameras, show us why you love Britney — and the prize can be yours! Good luck! With the release of Britney Spears: The Singles Collection, MTV News is looking back on the pop star\'s career through interviews with video directors, music-industry insiders and Spears herself, as she reflects on some of her greatest hits. Keep coming back for all things Britney, and let us know your favorite Brit songs, videos, memories and more in the comments below!
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Lady Gaga Says She Wrote \'Speechless\' As \'Plea\' To Father ');
document.write('Singer says song she performed at American Music Awards was written before father sought treatment for heart condition.By Jocelyn Vena, with reporting by Sway Calloway
Lady Gaga performs \"Speechless\" at the 2009 American Music Awards on Sunday
Photo: Kevin Mazur/ WireImage
Surrounded by fire in a nude-colored bodysuit, Lady Gaga seemed to be defying death while performing her song \"Speechless\" at the American Music Awards on Sunday night. The song, featured on Gaga\'s latest release, The Fame Monster, is, fittingly, a plea to Gaga\'s father to save his own life. As with many of the songs on the album, she\'s fighting a monster of some sort. This one, simply, is her fear of death. \"Well, my dad has had a heart condition for about 15 years,\" she explained to MTV News about the impetus to pen the song. \"He has or he had a bad aortic valve, and his body for a very long time was only pumping a third of the blood that you\'re supposed to get every time his heart beat.\"
Instead of seeking treatment, her dad decided to just live his life. But everything changed while Gaga was on the road pursuing her dream. \"So he [was] resigned that he wasn\'t going to get the surgery and told my mother and I that he was going to let his life take its course,\" she explained. \"And I\'ve been away and on the road and he started to fade when I was gone.\" So what else could Gaga do trapped out on tour, except express her thoughts through music? \"My mom called me and I was very depressed. I was on tour and I couldn\'t leave, so I went into the studio and I wrote this song \'Speechless,\' and it\'s about these phone calls,\" she said. \"My dad used to call me after he\'d had a few drinks and I wouldn\'t know what to say. I was speechless and I just feared that I would lose him and I wouldn\'t be there.\" Gaga\'s father did eventually get the treatment he needed, but Gaga added, \"I wrote this song as a plea to him.\"
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Jennifer Lopez just before her imperfect landing at the American Music Awards
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It must be the shoes. After a few years out of the musical spotlight, Jennifer Lopez was clearly hoping to make a triumphant comeback on Sunday night at American Music Awards with a boxing-themed performance of her new homage to pricey shoes, \"Louboutins.\"
Unfortunately for J. Lo, she lost her footing about halfway into the routine and briefly ended up on her famous derriere. Before Adam Lambert closed the show with a jaw-dropping routine that also included a slip that the musical theater vet deftly turned into a tuck and roll that almost felt choreographed, Jenny from the Block was not so lucky when she stumbled. The fall came after Lopez walked up the backs of five of her dancers, who were arrayed like a set of steps. As jumped off the back of the top \"step,\" her feet slid under her and she fell on her bottom. Always a pro, though, Lopez jumped right up and played it off as she segued into a solo dance spotlight, busting some moves as the phrase \"The champ is here\" played over the thumping beat. Earlier, boxing announcer Michael Buffer gave Lopez the \"Are you ready to rumble?\" treatment as she was walked to the ring/stage by an entourage carrying a fake championship belt and flanked by male dancers in boxing shorts. Wearing a modified boxing robe with, Love?, the name of her upcoming album, on the back, Lopez lip-synched the mid-tempo dance tune. Near the end of the song, she pulled off an onstage costume change when her dancers helped her into a shiny gold mini-dress.
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If you weren\'t aware of the fact that Lady Gaga\'s performances tend to be rather, well, over the top, her Sunday night (November 22) showcase at the American Music Awards certainly did the trick. Gaga brought the audience to its feet with a fiery, fierce performance of a pair of songs from her upcoming The Fame Monster album (don\'t call it a reissue) that saw her dance, strut, smash and very nearly suffer third-degree burns to her lower extremities. ');
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LOS ANGELES — The 39-year history of Aerosmith has had more than its share of ups and downs. Between the successes and failures, the drug use and recoveries, the legendary bad-boy behavior and the tours all over the world, \"America\'s Greatest Rock Band\" has enough material to fill a half-dozen biopics. But those four decades seem almost quiet compared to the hostile events of the past few weeks. And now, with the band on the verge of being torn apart, a visibly displeased Joe Perry told us at the American Music Awards that he and Steven Tyler aren\'t even close to making up.
\"Um, well ... I don\'t know,\" he shrugged, admitting that the future of Aerosmith is in doubt. \"You guys know more about it than I do. Everything is through the press.\" Everything has been through the press lately, from details about Tyler\'s desire to go solo to Perry\'s belief that the lead singer was quitting the band to Tyler\'s surprise appearance onstage recently with the Joe Perry Project. At that show, Tyler told the crowd that he wasn\'t leaving Aerosmith. \"Well,\" Perry explained, \"he says he\'s not.\" As proof of just how bizarre things have become between the legendary Toxic Twins, the duo address each other only through the media these days — or onstage, they essentially speak only to the crowd. \"Actually, he sat in. For one song,\" Perry said of that appearance with the Project. \"Yeah, but we didn\'t talk or anything.\" Getting beyond Tyler, Joe Perry insisted that the rest of the band — Brad Whitford, Tom Hamilton and Joey Kramer — want to keep the train a-rolling. \"I think that you just have to listen to what\'s going on in the press. Because that\'s the only thing I know,\" he explained. \"All I know is that the four guys want to work. I\'m working with my band, playing the House of Blues all across the country. And we\'re rocking out and having a good time.\" \"The band\'s going to be working,\" he said of Aerosmith\'s plans, with or without Tyler. \"I\'m working, right now.\" But, when it comes to his bandmate of 39 years — with whom he became sober, shares more than 80 songwriting credits and even once owned a restaurant — Joe Perry answered in no uncertain terms when asked if they\'re speaking to each other. \"No,\" he said of their non-communicative status, repeating it a second time for emphasis: \"No.\"