“I’m not known for being subtle,” laughs Adam Lambert, the former American Idol (runner-up) who has been enraging right-wingers with “I'm his unabashed queerness years before Lil Nas X straddled Satan in thigh-high stiletto boots and Sam Smith performed a sexually-charged cabaret number at “The Body Shop” with Kim Petras. It’s difficult - near damn impossible - to envision the current landscape of queer music without Adam’s signature glam-rock aesthetic, vocal command and LGBTQ+ activism. After (not) winning the aforementioned music competition, he blazed a much-needed rainbow trail for queer musicians when he historically became the first openly gay artist to top the US album charts, earned a Grammy nomination for his top 10 smasher Whataya Want from Me and had conservative viewers seething - woo! - when he kissed a male bassist and grabbed the crotch of another during a steamy performance at the AMAs; an act that was deemed “too sexualised” by the - dare we speak their name? - Parents Television and Media Council. And this was all pre-2012. “Now, I think the industry isn’t as scared of [queer identities],” he says of music’s long-awaited LGBTQ+ invasion. “Someone asked me, ‘Are you jealous?’ I was like, ‘Why? It’s great for everybody.’ I’m fucking thrilled.”
This month, Adam continues to brandish his unrivalled vocals - and lack of subtlety-with High Drama, a genre-spanning collection of reimagined classics that he’s flipped to be, like him, flamboyant and
