Adam Lambert’s Stripped-Down “Whataya Want from Me” Street Performance in Melbourne Still Stuns Fans

Whether fronting Queen or performing his own hits, Adam Lambert never misses when it comes to live vocals. One standout moment in his live career came during a street performance in Melbourne, Australia, where he delivered a heartfelt rendition of “Whataya Want from Me.” Instead of the original radio-ready rock version, Lambert reimagined the song as a delicate piano ballad, accompanied by just one pianist.

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Though the original studio version of “Whataya Want from Me” was a chart-topper, hearing it in this intimate, stripped-down form makes you wonder if it was always meant to be performed that way. The softer arrangement lets Lambert’s powerful voice and the raw emotion in the lyrics take center stage. It’s performances like this that remind fans why Lambert continues to captivate audiences around the world.

The performance, uploaded by YouTuber Rainscapes on August 26, 2012, was part of Channel V’s Guerilla Gig series. The track, released as a single on November 20, 2009, had major success in Australia, reaching No. 4 on the charts—making it a natural pick for his Melbourne appearance.

A Live Favorite Reimagined Again and Again

“Whataya Want from Me” has long been a highlight in Adam’s setlists. He gave the song a different flavor again for his Live from YouTube Space concert in New York City, this time performing it with a three-piece rock band. Fans praised his consistency and talent, commenting things like, “I love how he sounds just as good live as in the studio!” and “He’s a vocal beast! And this song never gets old.”

Originally co-written by Max Martin, Pink, and Karl Schuster, the track was first recorded by Pink for her Funhouse album but didn’t make the final cut. Lambert later released it in 2009 as the second single from his debut album For Your Entertainment, which became his most successful album to date—thanks largely to the popularity of this song.

“Whataya Want from Me” has taken on many lives over the years—from full-band performances to intimate acoustic versions during his first tour in 2010. It remains one of the most-performed songs in Lambert’s career. According to Setlist.fm, he’s performed it live at least 287 times—more than any other solo track in his catalog.

See Adam Lambert Perform New Song ‘Under the Rhythm’ Live Grammy nominee Adam Lambert joins TODAY to talk about his return to music with a new self-titled album. Then, he performs “Under the Rhythm” live as part of the Citi Concert Series.

There might not be a bigger assignment at the American Music Awards than paying tribute to the legendary Whitney Houston on the 25th anniversary of her chart-dominating soundtrack for The Bodyguard. But if you need a big voice to match the biggest voice, you can’t really miss with Christina Aguilera, who brought the house at Sunday night’s (Nov. 19) 2017 event to their feet with a soul-stirring medley of Houston’s greatest hits.

Following a heart-warming intro by Oscar-winning actress Viola Davis, Aguilera leaned in hard from the top, standing center stage in a spotlight to sing an a cappella intro to the soundtrack’s iconc smash hit, “I Will Always Love You.” As the band came in, Aguilera — dressed in a low-cut black silk dress — didn’t disappoint, crushing the high note in her inimitable style and adding in just the right amount of vocal runs to pay homage to Houston’s incredible range.

As the red curtain rose to reveal the band and two big screens rolling footage of Houston and Kevin Costner from the film, Aguilera moved into “I Have Nothing,” rising from a growl to a clear note as the cameras cut to audience members slowing waving their hands and getting emotional at the memory of the fallen pop icon.

A torchy take on “Run to You” appeared to have Aguilera’s former “Lady Marmalade” singing partner P!nk mesmerized, as she sang along from her seat. With a gospel choir filling the stage, Christina took it to church for a raucous run through “I’m Every Woman,” urging the crowd to get on the feet, saying, “This is a Whitney celebration… the greatest vocalist” and dedicating the disco stomper to every woman in the house.

“I am honored and humbled to be asked to participate in such a special tribute of a timeless soundtrack that has been a huge inspiration not only in my own personal life and career, but to countless aspiring singers — touching music lovers worldwide and influencing the history of music itself,” Aguilera said of the honor before the show.

Houston won 22 AMAs throughout her illustrious music career. She died unexpectedly in February 2012.

Adam Lambert releases the second musical preview from his forthcoming album, ADAM, with “UNDER THE RHYTHM.” Offering a message of resilience, the new track samples ATC’s “Around the World (La La La La La)” and immediately transports listeners into Lambert’s dark sonic world.

Directed by Angela Ricciardi, the music video unfolds inside a surreal labyrinth, a liminal black-and-white world that mirrors the euphoric disorientation of a night out. Inspired by the 90’s experimental image-making of Nick Knight, who shot the ADAM album cover, the “UNDER THE RHYTHM” music video blends high fashion, elevated performance, and psychological tension into an immersive fever dream that follows Lambert’s journey from restriction to liberation through surrender to the rhythm.

“‘UNDER THE RHYTHM’ is a song about overcoming life’s hardships through the connective and healing power of music, ” said Lambert. “It encourages the listener to keep pushing forward, one day at a time, one dance at a time, toward joy.”

Today’s release follows the “alluring” (Billboard) and “powerful” (NME) desire-driven track “EAT U ALIVE” that was released last month to critical acclaim. Featuring an infectious, high-energy chorus and dripping with insatiable primal desire, “EAT U ALIVE” shines a spotlight on Lambert’s powerhouse vocal abilities and first introduced listeners to the dark industrial texture that will come to define much of the forthcoming album. Shot in Paris and directed by Vitalii Akimov, the track’s hyper-contemporary music video is an artful capture of the tension-filled song’s dark pop edge and was first premiered by Purple Fashion Magazine.

Lambert’s sixth studio album, ADAM, is set for release on Friday, July 10 via his own label/distributed via The Orchard (pre-save now). Largely inspired by the 90s alternative and electronica, ADAM expertly blends multiple genres to create something timeless. Featuring artwork by renowned fashion photographer Nick Knight and executive produced by Pete Nappi (Jon Bellion, Jon Batiste, Jonas Brothers, Rihanna, Pharrell Williams), the self-titled LP features 12 diverse new songs and marks a fully realized exploration into all facets of Lambert’s humanity and otherworldly artistry.

To celebrate the release of ADAM, Lambert will perform can’t-miss album release shows in select cities across the U.S. and U.K./E.U.. Tickets are on sale now for the special live shows that kick off on release day, July 10, in Los Angeles before making stops in Brooklyn, London and more before concluding July 23 in Berlin.

This could be the best album no-one hears this year. Adam Lambert, American Idol runner-up who landed the number one position as frontman of Queen, has gone back to his formative 90s inspirations for this rock-solid record. But, as his main reference point is Nine Inch Nails, this is no techno or indie nostalgia affair; rather, Lambert and his two producers have created the perfect industrial-pop-metal backdrop for his top-drawer vocals.

Of Adam’s 12 songs, all of which come in under four minutes, opener Rat City and closer Do Ya See Me Now are probably the most jawdroppingly good. Elsewhere, Cloud 9 sounds the most chart-threatening, with solid gold hooks and Weeknd-style lifts and drops.

Lambert is an artist who deserves to be hugely successful in his own right. You get the feeling, though, that this is another collection which will appeal to his hardcore fanbase but not take him into the stratospheric heights of chart dominance.

Adam Lambert didn’t have a boyfriend until he was 24.

Adam Lambert talks falling in love

The 44-year-old singer admitted that growing up he had to conceal his sexuality, so had to “wait” for all the teenage rites of passage others go through.

In an interview on Josh Smith’s Great Chat Show podcast, Adam said: “When I grew up, it was [having relationships with boys] was an off limits thing. So I didn’t have my first kiss, I didn’t have a dance, the first boyfriend. I didn’t date anybody. I didn’t have a dance at a high school prom with a boy. All these rites of passage that teenagers go through when they’re straight. I had to sort of wait for…

“Falling in love for the first time [was a my biggest moment of queer joy]. I was about 24 when I first had a boyfriend and I fell in love.”

While Adam admitted he was “so afraid” of “being vulnerable” or putting himself out there in his 20s, he eventually took a gamble after clicking with someone on Myspace.

He said: “I was 24 and we just clicked. And then we met at a bar, and we had a drink and it was just like an instant attraction. We had a few drinks, then we went back to my car.

“We got in my car and made out and dry humped each other. It was just a really instant chemistry.”

Nowadays, Adam considers himself in “a new frame of mind” when it comes to relationships.

He explained: “For me, I’ve put so much focus and energy into my career. I’ve always put my career at the top over my own happiness, in some cases over my own social life or personal life. And I’m

thankful that I did because I think had I not, I don’t know if I would be where I am.

“I really put a lot of energy into it. But now, looking back, I can see that maybe in some ways I could have found a little more balance, because now I’m starting to recognise, ‘oh it’s important to have something outside of your career. You need a balance. You need a work play balance.’

“So over the past couple of years, I’ve definitely tried to refocus and rebalance my priorities a little bit.”

Listen and watch Josh Smith’s Great Chat Show on Spotify.

Adam Lambert says that he is “lucky” to be able to pay tribute to the late Freddie Mercury by touring the world with QUEEN.

Lambert, drummer Roger Taylor and guitarist Brian May first shared the stage during “American Idol” in May 2009 for a performance of “We Are The Champions”. They teamed up again in 2011 at the MTV European Music Awards in Belfast, Ireland for an electrifying eight-minute finale of “The Show Must Go On”, “We Will Rock You” and “We Are The Champions” and in the summer of 2012, the singer performed a series of shows with QUEEN across Europe as well as dates in Russia, Ukraine and Poland. They have since completed a number of tours and performed at some of the biggest festivals in the world.

Lambert, who was the openly first gay man to have a No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart, spoke about his ongoing stint with QUEEN in a recent interview with Jane Kennedy and Mick Molloy of Australia’s Triple M radio station.

He said (see video below): “I’m so lucky that I get to pay tribute to [Freddie] and celebrate him as an artist and as a person, as a writer, as a singer. And I think I relate to some of the stuff that he, obviously, has gone through; I can kind of draw some comparisons there. And I hope that in some way I can carry on his spirit. I think that there are certain intentions with which those songs are supposed to be sung, and I try to go there. And I’ve asked a lot of questions and learned a lot about him, and I really try to keep him in the forefront of my mind. Not to imitate, but to do it for him — kind of, like, celebrate him.”

May previously described Lambert as the only singer the band had found capable of filling the shoes of Mercury, who died in 1991 of complications from to AIDS. “Adam is the first person we’ve encountered who can do all the QUEEN catalog without blinking,” said May. “He is a gift from God.” Taylor echoed the guitarist’s sentiments, adding: “[Adam‘s] incredibly musical, and we certainly take anything he says quite seriously.”

This spring, QUEEN + ADAM LAMBERT will play their first European dates since the worldwide box office sensation that was the “Bohemian Rhapsody” film. The biopic introduced QUEEN‘s music to new audiences with record-breaking results. Apart from becoming the highest-grossing music biopic of all time, in the U.K., it is also No. 1 biggest-selling film of 2019 on home release.

In a new interview with Billy Sloan of BBC Radio Scotland, legendary vocalist Paul Rodgers reflected on his experience fronting QUEEN between 2004 and 2009. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “Brian [May, QUEEN guitarist] said to me, ‘Can we get together and just do a couple of shows for fun in Europe?’ And I said, ‘Well, it sounds good.’ ‘Cause we’d played ‘All Right Now’ together and we played ‘We Will Rock You’ and ‘We Are The Champions’, and it sort of made sense at that point in time. They’re very versatile; their music is, I mean, wow. There’s so many great songs that they’ve actually — hits that they’ve got. I said, ‘Sure, let’s just do that. Let’s do a couple of dates and see how we go.’ Well, that couple of dates turned into four years. We toured the world twice, and we made a studio album, so it really got involved. At the end of the day, though, I did think that I was getting too far away from my own kind of music and I wanted to step away from it. But it was a wild and exciting run.”

Regarding his approach to singing songs originally written and recorded by late QUEEN frontman Freddie Mercury, Paul said: “Well, I wondered, really, what people would make of it, but basically I always have followed the music wherever my whole life; I’ve just followed the music. And it seemed to me that when we played together — if we hadn’t had played together, I might have had very much second thoughts. But we had done, and it was such a musical success playing ‘All Right Now’ with the guys — and we also, later on, we did ‘Feel Like Making Love’, we did ‘Wishing Well’, and every one of them, they performed fantastically. Brian‘s a great guitar player, so there’s no problem there. And I said to myself, ‘Now, how do I do this, because I don’t really wanna be stepping into anybody’s shoes. I wanna be myself.’ And actually, Brian Johnson from AC/DC, I’d read an interview by him, and when he was gonna join that band, and the first night on stage, the guitar player said to him, and he looked very nervous, and he was very nervous, so he says in this interview, and he said that, ‘Hey, don’t worry about anything. Just go and be yourself.’ And I’d read that interview, and I thought, ‘Well, that’s what I’ll do. I’m not gonna try and replace anybody, I’m just gonna be myself.’ So what I did was I set out, really, to basically interpret their songs in my way, and that’s really how I handled it.”

Asked what he thinks of Adam Lambert, the 2009 “American Idol” runner-up who is fronting the current incarnation of QUEEN, Paul said: “Well, you know, I think he’s perfect for the band… I haven’t really followed them since then, but from what I’ve seen, he’s great.”

Paul previously discussed his QUEEN stint last month in an interview with TalkShopLive’s The Rock N Roll Channel. When interviewer Steve Harkins noted that Rodgers “energized” and “breathed life” into QUEEN, Paul said: “They hadn’t toured. They’d done lots of one-off shows with various great people — Elton John and George Michael. They’re some great singers, but they never toured with them. And I was able to get them out touring, because they knew that they had the songs, but they just didn’t feel confident enough to get out there and actually, you know, do a tour. And that’s what we did together. And the fans were lovely. They were beautiful.”

Paul‘s latest comments are similar to those he made in a 2019 interview with SiriusXM‘s “Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk”. At the time, he stated about the experience of fronting QUEEN: “Well, it was a wild ride, I’ll tell you. And it came out of the blue. When Brian asked me if I wanted to do a couple of shows just for fun in Europe, I was pretty taken aback. And I must say my first reaction was, ‘Well, I really don’t see that.’ But then I said to myself, ‘Well, it’s a challenge. Let me see if I can do it. Maybe I’m chickening out here.’ So I did it. And it turned into four years, actually. We toured all over the place. We toured the world twice, and we finished off with a studio album of all-original material. So it was a wild and crazy ride, as they say. And we are still friends, and I love the guys.”

With Rodgers at the mic, QUEEN embarked on two world tours and released an album, “The Cosmos Rocks”, in 2008. They amicably parted ways a year later when Rodgers returned to BAD COMPANY.

“When I sort of joined forces with [QUEEN], they were not touring,” Rodgers recalled to “Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk”. “They were doing one-off gigs — they were big one-off gigs, but they weren’t touring. And with me, what we did [is] we went out… They wanted to play 50 percent of their music and 50 percent of mine, and I said to them, ‘People haven’t seen QUEEN live for a long time. We should make it QUEEN heavy.’ So we did four or five of my songs… But it was great. It was good.”

Rodgers has said in previous interviews that he performed all of the QUEEN songs in Mercury‘s original keys. “A lot of people drop the keys,” Paul said. “But, to me, the challenge was to do this material the way it was done, but in my interpretation of it.”

The current incarnation of QUEEN, featuring Lambert, was created in 2011 and has gone on several tours, including worldwide runs in 2014-15 and 2017-18.

In a 2014 interview with the Toronto Sun, May and drummer Roger Taylor admitted that their collaboration with Lambert is a better fit than their previous involvement with Rodgers.

“Paul has one of the greatest rock voices but it’s more blues- and soul-orientated, I would have thought,” Taylor told the Toronto Sun. “I would say, with all due respect to Paul, that Adam is more suited to a lot of our material and whereas we had great tours with Paul, I think Adam is more naturally at home with us.” May concurred and added that Lambert‘s remarkable range and flamboyant stage presence are much more in line with those of Mercury. “Yeah, I think the styles match more closely in a sense,” May said. “But we had a great time with Paul, no doubt about it, and it kind of stretched it to a new place and, I think, a thoroughly good experience. But Adam is really… Like us, he has many, many colors, so we can explore some of those strange excursions that QUEEN likes to.”