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The first single and title track from Adam Lambert's soon-to-be-dropped debut album couldn't be more of an announcement. "For Your Entertainment" strides into the room, snaps its fingers and declares 2010 the year of Our Gorgeously Airbrushed Overlord.

With a toy whip in his hand and a glittery gleam in his eye, Glambert croons familiar phrases about making it hot, getting rough and staying in control. Scandinavian hitmaker Dr. Luke wrote and produced the track, and it has that compressed, noisy rock 'n' roll circus sound he's created for others, including Britney, Pink and that other neo-vaudevillian troublemaker, Katy Perry.

Some Glamthusiasts may bemoan the restraint (and processing) applied to the song's vocal, but Lambert is making another move in this song, one likely to become a signature. He sings with an arched eyebrow, executing a come-on that wryly takes the pffft out of itself.

As on his blockbuster-movie power ballad "Time For Miracles," Lambert practices some pop restraint at first, only really letting go at the song's three-minute mark. "Let me entertain you 'til you scream," he wails, his voice fully entering the androgynous zone. It's a game that's led from the dance floor to the bedroom: seduction as a wicked parlor trick fully enjoyed by the master and his victim, the light fantasy of dominance and submission that's a metaphor for what happens between performer and fan.

Though Madonna and Britney have both traveled this ground before, Lambert does it in a way that's very male. The song's beat is definitely contemporary, traceable to early-2000s electropop artists like Goldfrapp (thanks to critic Barry Walters for that observation) and typical of work by the aforementioned female pop stars, who push the dance floor in ways that are distinctly reminiscent of rock.

For a male artist like Lambert, the move is a resurrection -- of glam (his often-stated goal) and its later streams, New Wave and Brit-Pop. With his way of combining camp with the humor and solidity of an All-American Boy, Lambert finally might accomplish what sometimes expat Robbie Williams and Euro favorites the Scissor Sisters haven't quite yet done: inventing an American take on comfortable male androgyny.

I should qualify my point by saying, a white American take. Little Richard, Sylvester, Prince and Michael Jackson already have proved that dance music and rock can come together in a sound that has both rough edges and a certain softness, a hard thump and a high wail. Hair metal sometimes got there too, but in that world, cartoonishness or a certain fear of losing male credibility usually took over.

In recent years, mainstream rock has cultivated a masculine frown, with only a few outliers -- Of Montreal, Scissor Sisters -- treading the ground artists like T. Rex, Roxy Music and David Bowie first mapped. "For Your Entertainment" takes that lineage into today's clubs. It's deliberately light fare, but with a big sparkly ring on a slightly calloused finger; it points in a good direction.

Produced by Dr. Luke and written with Claude Kelly, For Your Entertainment walks the same fine lines that Adam did during his time on Idol. You can hear echoes of '70s glam-rock and '80s synth-pop as well as more contemporary styles. Its decadent imagery (pain, pleasure, fallen angels) is overtly sexual without being explicit. And while the song's breakdown gives Adam plenty of room to show off his vocal chops, he never goes overboard within the main body of the song. This is much closer to what I was expecting -- and hoping -- to hear from Adam than Time for Miracles was. I've got to think it's going to meet just about everybody's expectations for him, including mine.

New Single Premiere! Adam Lambert Is Here For "For Your Entertainment"

After much twitterverse and blogosphere speculation that Adam Lambert's official (i.e., non-2012-affiliated) debut single would be the Pink/Max Martin-penned "What Do You Want From Me," the Kara Dioguardi-authored "Strut," the Muse song "Soaked," or his as-yet-untitled Lady Gaga collaboration, the "Glamerican Idol" finally announced this week, via his Twitter, that it would in fact be the title track of his upcoming album, For Your Entertainment. And then, for the entertainment of Glamberts everywhere, he premiered the slinky new tune this morning on Ryan Seacrest's syndicated radio show..

"For Your Entertainment" didn't sound like anything else Ryan normally plays--or like almost anything else on the radio in general, actually. This is both a compliment and curse. I previous described the song, which I sneak-previewed last week, as sort of the quadruple-headed glittery alien baby of Mika, Sam Sparro, Robbie Williams, and Kevin Rudolf...and now, after compulsive repeat listens in my Hello Kitty headphones, I stand by my impressed first impression. The song is three and a half minutes of glowstick-brandishing, disco-stick-wielding, rump-shaking, mojo-oozing, party-starting, floor-filling, life-celebrating, genre-blurring awesomeness:.

Yep, pure fun. But let's face it: while Kevin Rudolf has made headway on the airwaves here, Mika, Sam, and Robbie have sadly never received much U.S. radio play. Abfab artists like them and, say, the Scissor Sisters are massive in other countries...but they have continually struggled on these shores. (It seems like only female pop artists--Lady Gaga, Pink, Madonna, et al--are allowed to superflamboyant in America. I have many theories as to why this is, but this is not the space for that tangent.) .

Of course, none of those aforementioned acts had the herculean power of the American Idol machine behind them--Mika wasn't beamed into viewers' living rooms for months via the nation's most-watched blockbuster talent show--so Adam does have a distinct advantage here. But it still remains to be seen if America's radio audience will accept Adam as enthusiastically as America's TV audience did. Marketing and promoting this uniquely unicornian mythical musical creature--with his penchant for obscure electro artists and rainbow-brite, K-Tel-inspired album covers--will not be easy. Adam Lambert is polarizing. Adam Lambert is not Carrie Underwood. .

But Adam Lambert is one of a kind--in my never-all-that-humble opinion, it's GOOD thing that he doesn't sound like everything else on the radio--and his acrobatic vocal skills and theatrical showmanship are undeniable. And speaking of undeniable...this song's funk-pop hook is under-skin-wedgingly catchy. Hopefully radio programmers won't deny any of this. And if "For Your Entertainment" gets the airplay it deserves, then who knows--maybe that'll help break down some programming doors, and even acts like Robbie Williams and the Scissor Sisters might get a few deserved U.S. radio spins someday. Additionally, Adam might be the first American Idol since Kelly Clarkson to be a truly huge star overseas..

And as another plus, the public will probably dig the single's cover--with its interestingly Beyonce/"Single Ladies"-like cyborg glove--more than Adam's oddly controversial album art. People if you dig the song, now put your hands up!