American Idol runner-up Adam Lambert is planning a fall debut album. But a company he did some earlier pre-Idol recording for, now says it will release those songs as Lambert’s first album in the summer and Adam is freaking out, to put it mildly. It’s the same as if a sleazy photographer came forward with cheap-o nude shots of a Hollywood starlet just before her tastefully done photo layout in Vanity Fair hits newsstands. It happens.
Lambert recorded some songs over the last couple of years and now they’re going to come out as an album before he gets the chance to fulfill his obligations as an Idol and record a new batch of tunes for a fall release. The singer is trying to distance himself from the summer album as it sits poised to forever be the superstar-in-waiting’s first release. That’s understandable because once you get into the top 10 in Idol, they basically own your butt, including a good chunk of whatever you earn. Oh, they’ll give you a recording contract but they’ll also install strings in your back that they’ll pull for several years to come. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that, necessarily. Some very talented people have been discovered through the competition and the Idol machine gives them a powerful launch to a new career. But the past can come back to haunt them because Adam’s fans – and I count myself among them – will be waiting to hear anything he has recorded, and if it’s good, we’ll buy it, regardless of whether or not it serves his “big picture” career plan.