Adam Lambert Debuts "Whataya Want From Me"

Only two months from the release of Adam Lambert's debut CD "For Your Entertainment" and fans are now getting treated to the third music video from the glam star. The latest video for his second mainstream and radio single, "Whataya Want From Me," premiered on MTV and VH1 on Friday morning. Instead of the over-the-top glam rocker we usually see, American Idol season 8 runner-up appears in the new video as an emotionally raw and vulnerable young man torn between public and private life.
"Whataya Want From Me" was written by Pink, Max Martin, and Shellback. It was originally recorded for Pink's 5th studio album, "Funhouse," but it never made it to the final cut. It was produced by Max Martin and Shellback who have collaborated with Pink, NSYNC, Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, Katy Perry, and fellow Idols Daughtry, Kelly Clarkson, Allison Iraheta and Carrie Underwood.
The music video for "Whataya Want from Me" was directed by Diane Martel and shot on December 20, 2009. The video is starting in his under-decorated apartment, a makeup-free Lambert wakes to begin his daily mope and being harassed by a camera man. There are also performance clips throughout the video where Lambert is performing with a live band. One scene in the video features Lambert in a club and making his way through a crowd of paparazzi and fans into a car. The video also features one of his female fans who is too young to get into the lub. The video, which doesn't feature the same robust colors and saturation as the first two, shows a depressed, emotionally raw and exhausted man, uncomfortable and unhappy with his public life. It's a suitable video for a song full of emotion and strong feelings, but it most likely doesn't represent who Lambert really is at this point, which is someone who seems as happy as a clam living his dream life.
"Whataya Want from Me" has received generally favorable reviews. Jonathan Keefe from Slant Magazine praised the song and called it "phenomenally well-crafted pop single(s) that give Lambert the opportunity to shine". In the Houston Chronicle, Joey Guerra wrote that the song "...[is] probably the disc's most straightforward cut, with a bit of a Backstreet Boys vibe. Not bad." I've to say the new clip for Lambert's "Whataya Want From Me" plays out in such a personal-yet-enigmatic way, it's hard not to imagine that the AI runner-up is feeling a little overwhelmed by all the change that's come to his life in the last 12 months...