Heretofore, I’ve always considered spending time with American Idol as an investment of time on par with sticking my head in a plastic bag full of spiders.

Earlier this year, though, my pal Elissa Bass, whose enthusiasm for the show makes me suspect she actually sunk the family savings in a corporation called Simon Cowell Limited, asked me to participate in weekly compare/contrast videos. We’d watch each episode and then dissect the action on videos posted with some popularity on theday.com.

Watching week after week of the competition's homestretch, I still found the whole AI phenomenon pretty laughable and not remotely reflective of what I love about music — and yet the by-now-omnipresent Adam Lambert actually impressed me with his flair and vocal range and apparent wonder and enthusiasm and appreciation for the possibility of it all.

The guy who ended up winning, the generically likable Kris Allen, interested me not at all — he was the musical equivalent of ordering a Big Mac, then scraping off all the secret sauce and cheese and bread and just staring at the grayish meat heaps.

Now: here we are all these months later and, in the same week, Lambert and Allen released their debut major label albums. I decided to listen to them.

Surprise!

Lambert’s is pretty awful. I thought, here’s a guy who could follow the path of David Bowie’s Diamond Dogs or move T. Rex into the 21st century or — obviously — recreate the glory and metallic-edge days of the first three Queen albums when they rocked in splendidly fresh fashion.

Instead? Hell, I don’t know what Lambert — or his handlers — did. The songs are all over the map, they’re across-the-board mediocre and, worse, timid, and even Lambert himself seems like a bizarre vocal puppet in which some … accountant or something was manipulating his performance.

Ugh. Which only reinforces my long-held belief that the Power People behind major labels and the Music Industry are their own worst enemies. Trust me: they can ruin anything. And did again.

As for Allen’s album, well, at least the kid stayed true to his vision and, to that extent, he’s done a nice job. I’m listening to it as I type this, and I’m on track nine, and eight of them are absolutely interchangable. Slickly produced, formulae hookage in which Allen masterfully walks the vocal tightrope between Daughtry and the guy from Rascal Flatts.

The chorus of the first tune (and first single), "Live Like We're Dying," knocked me over -- one of those power hooks you associate with Bon Jovi or Sheryl Crow back when she was ripping off Kevin Gilbert. I really like it and had cautious hope that this could be a really nice commercial pop album — but instead it turned out the sorta thing Bryan Adams might have done if he came along 20 years later.

Sigh … What’s good for Allen and his fans, though, is that at least he knows what he wants to be and is doing a nice job of following through. And his fans will like it. 

OK, at this point Allen’s doing a power ballad on track 11 and I’m out. I think he’ll have big success doing this stuff. Lambert? Either he gets rid of the clowns "advising" his career or he’ll be doing road show musicals in three years. Look for him in Carousel at the Garde.

Now: anyone heard Night Is The New Day by Katatonia? It’s remarkable. Don’t look for them on American Idol. But definitely look for them.