At this year’s American Music Awards, the unthinkable happened: Adam Lambert, once everybody’s favorite American Idol, despite not winning the title in the last season of the show, fell from grace with a performance that was labeled anything from tacky to disgraceful and shameless. Complaints continue to pour in with ABC as we speak but, according to Joal Ryan of E! Online, it’s in a rock star’s nature to shock and push the envelope, otherwise music remains stuck in the same loop for eternity.

Adam himself said shortly after the performance, while lamenting the poor sound quality, that he did not do anything out of the ordinary. That is, female artists have been kissing female dancers on stage for years and no one seems to complain about that, so finding offense with his performance would be double standards and discrimination. Ryan agrees: ever since Elvis Presley, who had his appearance on Ed Sullivan censored because he danced swaying his lips, true rock stars (with emphasis on “true”) are made to shock.

“Criticizing Lambert for what he did, smooched and pawed at the AMAs is like criticizing that Paula Deen lady on the Food Network because she made something with butter: It’s what they do,” Ryan says. “And the other night, Lambert did his job very well. It should be left to music critics and Ellen DeGeneres to judge whether Lambert’s vocals and song selection were spot-on. But any doubt the performance was off the mark should have been erased with every angry word from the PTC, every angry phone call to ABC (1,500-plus and counting, per reports) and, above all, the network’s censored AMAs broadcast for tender West Coast audiences too young to see Jennifer Lopez fall down and go boom,” the editor further argues.

Ryan goes on to say that Adam did not disappoint fans for straying from his Idol image, the one that made millions desperately fall in love with him even before he had a studio album out in stores. On the contrary, it was back then that Lambert was being somebody else, simply because he did not have the liberty to do what he wanted. At this weekend’s AMAs, the singer was being true to his own nature and those who felt “disappointment” in that were never true fans to begin with, Ryan believes.

Moreover, if there’s no one to break the mold as Lambert aims to do in the following months, then who’s to say music will not remain the same and consequently be boring. “Lambert wasn’t straying from who he was; he was being who he is. He wasn’t dishonoring the stage; he was honoring music’s shock-and-awe tradition. […] Ultimately, Lambert was doing what he was supposed to do, and if it was displeasing that a child somewhere saw him do it in prime time, then somebody’s bedtime needs to be moved up. ‘All hail freedom of expression and artistic integrity,’ Lambert tweeted Monday. And, the certified rock star could’ve added, the satisfaction of a job done right,” the E! Online report concludes by saying.