Adam Lambert's New Video: A Terrifying Apocalypse To Really Sing About

Adam Lambert didn't win American Idol, but he'll get plenty of exposure for his new video. (Kevin Winter / Getty Images)

by Linda Holmes

When Adam Lambert was on American Idol this spring, it was all about the gender-bending, mind-altering, rumor-stoking nature of his unusual persona. Now that he's out there trying to sell records, things are changing a little.

Not entirely -- he's still getting people talking with the new Details photo shoot in which he is tongue-kissing a lady and ... some other stuff (the photos are, in spite of appearing there in the Los Angeles Times, probably not safe for work in some places).

But today, he's also got a new video out called "Time For Miracles," which is the reportedly the closing-credits song from the apocalyptic 2012, which comes out next month. That certainly makes sense given the video, in which Lambert wanders through a world of burning school buses and falling debris singing about his broken heart. The best part is that other people keep fleeing the end of the world and therefore bumping into him while he's trying to sing. About you, and how much he loves you. It may be the end of the world, but he's still your fella, baby.

While it closes with about 45 seconds of screaming (as those who watched Lambert on Idol would expect), what's most striking about the song is how incredibly conventional it is.

See the video, hear the song, chat it up, after the jump.

Time For Miracles

Adam Lambert | MySpace Music Videos

I mean, let's be honest: 90 percent of this video could not only (as many have noted) be Aerosmith's "I Don't Want To Miss A Thing" from Armageddon, but it could be Aerosmith doing anything from that era ... or Creed, for that matter, or lots of other '90s bands. It's an effectively bombastic movie theme, and he sings it well, but for those who believed Lambert was going to be really different -- really daring, really the next David Bowie, really a new direction for pop music, really a revival of glam rock -- it's weird to see him doing something that's perhaps even more conventional than what Kelly Clarkson is doing these days.

What's a little disappointing about this is that, although he wasn't a performer I took to on the show, I covered this summer's Idols Live tour (I know, I know), and I was surprised by how good he was, particularly when he absolutely went for broke. I don't think he's a great musician yet as much as a very talented technician, but during a David Bowie medley, he went pretty thoroughly bazoo, full of slither and inappropriate groping and so forth, and while it wouldn't be up everyone's alley, it was kind of electric.

This is not, so much. He may very well go on to do something more daring the next time around, but for the moment, this is an interestingly conservative bow for someone widely expected to be a revolutionary.