Apr 09 2009
Mad World, Sorry Adam Lambert, Gary Jules Does It Better
In case you have been living in a cave somewhere and don’t know. On American Idol this week, Adam Lambert sang Mad World, and got an extremely rare standing ovation from Simon Cowell. People seemed to be going crazy about his performance. I heard about it on the talk radio show I listen to, people were talking about it at work. When I looked at Google Trends Adam Lambert and Mad World were HOT! for hours. Everyo once in awhile I would hear someone say they didn’t think the performance was all that great… but even they were talking about it. American Idol is one of the few shows that you can’t watch for free online, so I usually set my DVR and watch it over the weekend. However, it looked like this time the plan may have backfired on me. American Idol had run long, and the DVR quit recording before Adam Lambert sang.
Not to worry. I knew the folks at Fox would not let me down. I went to the American Idol site and found videos of all the night’s performances. I did miss out on the judges comments, I didn’t get to see Simon Cowell give a standing ovation, but I can live with that.
After watching the video of Adam Lambert singing Mad World I was smitten. Not with Adam, he’s a little young for me, but with the song. I just love the melody. I played it more than a few times, and then like many people, went hunting on YouTube for the original version. I found the 1982 Tears for Fears version sung by Curt Smith. And honestly, I thought Curt Smith did a better job than Adam Lambert.
Then I found the 2003 version done by Gary Jules and Micheal Andrews as a soundtrack for the movie Donnie Darko. (From what I hear the movie is a must see.) All I can say is you need to watch the video, which hopefully is right here in this post. Not only is the singing amazing, but the children in the video are mesmerizing. You’ll just have to watch to see what I mean.
I am still a big fan of Adam Lambert. As far as the American Idol contestants go, he is by far the most creative and entertaining of the group, however, as great as his performance was on Tuesday night, I still think Gary Jules did it better.
