Essential Covers
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Essential Covers
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Essentials Index
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Essential Arias
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Adam started his career in musical theatre where performing as a team is part of the daily job. In each of the following instances, he remains a very aware and giving partner, never trying to outshine or outsing his counterpart.
Below you will find some highlights from the last 10 years, all taken from official broadcasts with rather good audio quality.
You can find several additional duets in the GLEE section - "Barracuda", "I believe In A Thing Called Love", "Rockstar"...
The only duet on Adam's American Idol Season 8 was with Alison (the "rock chick") during Rock Week on May 5, 2009. So naturally it was very much in both performers' wheelhouse. Other than the other two remaining contestants who tried to outsing each-other on Styx' "Renegade", "Slow Ride" demonstrated how a duet can be a joyful occasion where both singers are having fun.
Adam was invited to the American Idol Season 12 finale to perform with Angie Miller who was eliminated in the previous round. She was considered by many the front runner for a long stretch of her season, not unlike Adam. Notice how Adam does not try to outsing his duet partner, even stops singing when Angie runs out of breath around 2:34. He is also supremely camera-aware when turning around without showing his back to the viewer around 0:50.
Leona won her season of X-Factor UK, so she is Adam's peer in many ways. Both crossed paths with Simon Cowell on their respective shows, both recorded closing title songs for Hollywoord blockbuster movies ("Avatar" and "2012", respectively), both are excellent vocalists.
We have already covered this performance in the Personal Firsts section.
In this case, the song was written by Laleh and Adam, and Laleh is also featured on the studio recording. Their voices complement each-other by design on this piece. This was the first time the song was performed live - they performed it live once more together when the "Original High Tour" stopped in Los Angeles.
At the finale of X-Factor UK, finalist Saara Aalto requested to cover THE Queen song in duet with the current Queen frontman, and got her wish granted. An interesting detail - this was the first time Adam performed the second verse of Bohemian Rhapsody, as up to that point the QUEEN + Adam Lambert live shows used a recording of Freddie Mercury for that part. A couple of years later when the live shows changed with Adam singing the whole song except for the intro and operatic sections, he used the exact same melodic line for "never been born at all" heard here first...
Adam's roots in musical theatre show in every duet he has performed, but this is literally where he came from before rising to fame on American Idol - he had to quit his job as a member of the ensemble and Fiyero understudy in the Los Angeles production of "Wicked" before auditioning for the TV show!
We have already covered the Wicked celebration in the Full Circle Moments section, including some other duet performances of the same song. The video of the actual TV performance was unfortunately blocked by the rightsholder, but the audio-only version is still available:
This was the second time Adam and Cyndi had a live duet - the first was a performance of "Mad World" for Cyndi's "Home For The Holidays" Benefit Concert on December 8, 2012.
We have already covered the Kennedy Center Honours in the Personal Firsts section.
This performance was recorded in 2020 during the COVID-19 lockdown for the Carousel Of Hope TV show. It is both a beautiful duet with an excellent singing partner, and a cover / homage to the George Michael and Aretha Franklin duet.