Believe - From American Idol Cover To Kennedy Center Honors

On February 11, 2009, during the American Idol Season 8 Hollywood Week at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, CA, Adam took the greatest hit by Cher - the auto-tune-on-maximum pop-hit "Believe" - and turned it into a slow, passionate ballad of heartbreak and separation that blew away both judges and fellow contestants:

3605 days later, on December 26, 2018, CBS television broadcast a two-hours recording of the Kennedy Center Honors 2018 program which took place in Washington, DC on December 2, 2018. Adam was invited to reprise his show-stopping version of Cher's "Believe", resulting in tears from Cher and standing ovations from the whole audience including the honoree.

This Full Circle Moment was most probably courtesy of Rickey Minor, the musical director of the Kennedy Center Honors 2018. He was the musical director and band leader on American Idol Season 8 and together with associate musical director Michael Orland had a hand in a number of extraordinary arrangements during Adam's run on the TV competition.

We are using the TV broadcast dates for both ends of this Full Circle Moment arc, because the precise date of the Hollywood week recording is harder to determine, and because those are the dates the broad TV audience witnessed the performances. However, we are using the actual live show date of December 2, 2018 for the Personal First record since that's the day on which Adam experienced it himself.

Just when it looked like it could not get any better, 368 days after the live performance and 344 days after the TV broadcast, on December 5, 2019 Adam dropped a "holiday gift for his fans" in the form of a studio recording. It had the same arrangement, minus the visuals, entranced audience, and Cher crying... and it was an improvement on perfection.

We don't consider it part of the full circle arc, but it would be a crime not to mention it in this context.

Then, as a Cher-ry on top, "The Muffin Man" hit the TVs and the internet on April 17, 2023 via Jimmy Fallon's "That's My Jam" gameshow on NBC. This occurred 5,178 days after the American Idol performance, and 1,573 days after the Kennedy Center Honors. While it was likely more rehearsed and less impromptu than suggested by the program, it garnered almost greater publicity than the sublime Kennedy Center performance, with nearly every entertainment news outlet and even CNN Business reporting on it.

It has always been clear that Adam does not need autotune. But until this performance we did not know that he could imitate the autotune effect naturally if he wanted to...