The liveliest contestants on this year's American Idol are Allison Iraheta, a sixteen-year-old with an arrestingly smoky chest voice, and Adam Lambert, a glam twentysomething with an upper register to rival David Daniels's. Well, not quite, but he's the favorite in this household. Who was the first music critic to take notice of America's unlikely new sweetheart? Naturally, Mark Swed of the LA Times, who, back in 2004, heard Lambert in some kind of ungodly Ten Commandments musical and singled him out as a glimmer of hope amid musical catastrophe. This week, on more accustomed turf, Swed sums up the Age of Salonen.
Previously: Kurtág in depth, Claim.
