TVNewser reports Lambert’s planned performance on ABC’s Good Morning America has been canceled.

An ABC News spokesperson told TVNewser, “Given his controversial live performance on the AMAs we were concerned about airing a similar concert so early in the morning.”

But don’t expect Lambert to be held off ABC’s airwaves for long – GossipCop reports Lambert will be named one of Barbara Walters‘ “Most Fascinating People of 2009,” and will be part of her special on December 9. Still, there won’t be a performance.

The media push for Lambert’s new CD seems to be a combination of good and bad publicity for the pop star and his management team at RCA records, from the AMA closing performance to magazine covers. The buzz is certainly huge, but being canceled on a morning show watched by millions is a step backward. One question that has to be raised is whether the fact that Lambert is gay and the performance contained Lambert kissing (and more) male back-up dancers led to the cancellation? Would Lady Gaga’s sexual performance have led to the same result? When Access Hollywood caught up with Lambert after his AMA performance, he said he “wished people could open their minds up and enjoy things.”

In the same interview, he talked about what was coming up, teasing an appearance on Late Night with David Letterman for Monday night. That performance seems to have been pushed to tomorrow night, but will be taking place. Of the performance coming up on CBS, Lambert says, “the thing is, the song I’m performing on Letterman is a totally different energy.”

Here’s the Access interview:

> Update: CBS’ The Early Show booked Lambert for a performance and interview tomorrow morning instead.

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Instead, they’ll be about Adam Lambert‘s hip thrusts, J-Lo’s fall and a near nip-slip. Let’s take a look at the AMA moments you’ll be talking about today.

Adam Lambert simulates some oral sex with both a male and female back-up dancer. ABC decided to cut away from the performance to an awkward audience shot during the male-thrusting:

Jennifer Lopez performed her new song “Louboutins.” Right before her big dance break, she takes a spill jumping off a back-up dancer. The key part was after the performance when they cut to Lopez getting angry in a backstage look-in:

Kate Hudson had either a near nipple slip or an actual nipple slip that ABC blurred out. Either way, it was close, and when she adjusted her dress, the audience laughed in acknowledgment:

> Related: Rachel Sklar looks at “post-sexy”, and the performances of Lady Gaga and Adam Lambert.

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There’s no question that Gaga — and Glambert too — stand firmly on Madge’s muscled shoulders, but after pushing the envelope for so long it seems to have gotten pushed into something different. In this seen-it-all age of the meta, the dramatic, fearless, hyper-sexualized personas of Gaga and Glambert are less transgressive than reflective — two operatic baroque, characters less pushing the envelope than wearing it. Call it “Post-Sexy”: Incorporating and heightening the conventions of a sex-charged culture, so as to move beyond it.

Madonna delighted in shocking (think back to that Like A Prayer video) and revealing (think back to that coffetable Sex book). She loved forcing the
world to look at stuff. With Gaga and Glambert it’s less a reveal than an acknowledgment, of this era in which bootylicious women dance nakedly on boats and Miley pole-dances and Kate Hudson’s dress is commonplace. It’s even there in their nicknames — Glambert and Gaga. They roll easily off the tongue, and for some reason they don’t sound at all goofy when you say them (like “blog” and “Twitter” always will. Or “Mediaite”).

Watching them, you almost forget that they have boatloads of talent. Glambert can wail on a high note like nobody’s business, and the singing, dancing, piano-playing, songwriting Gaga is every kind of threat there is. There’s one kind of threat Gaga has that Lambert doesn’t though: Confidence. Lady Gaga has perfect confidence on stage — not bravado, just a serene comfort in who she is, what she is doing and why she is doing it. Lambert has confidence too, of course, but tonight showed it to be more the aggressive, defiant bravado of the over-confident. Lady Gaga and her dancers were flesh-toned, nearly naked, gyrating on the ground, but that wasn’t the focus, it was part of the whole rather than a distraction from it. That, alas, could not be said of Lambert, whose performance lacked the pure, art-for-the-sake-of-art theatricality of Gaga (or, really, his album cover). It felt a little like a starlet timing her crotch shot just so for the paprazzi. S&M-garbed dancers and that already-infamous head-grab (yes, that one) are not exactly subtle. Or, really, even that edgy; crude gestures are nothing new to rock music, which is part of the in-your-face legacy that Lambert has inherited. Like Gaga, he wore rather than pushed the envelope; he just didn’t wear it well.

Lambert’s talent and presence are equal to far more than that number gave him (or really, that fairly forgettable song) — there’s nothing brave or edgy about being in a suit when everyone else is in S&M gear (indeed, the frame at 2:41 made me think of this). The irony is that Lambert, who counts among his fans the gay, straight and bi-confused of all ilks, was far from his usual thrilling, sexy self, perhaps because the number had such a manufactured, mean edge. It was far, too, from the “unapologetic flamboyance and sexual swagger” of his thrilling Idol performances (that description, incidentally, is Out editor Aaron Hicklin’s, and judging from the lack of freshness and fun in that number, he may have a point).

Despite being given some lame material to work with, though, Lambert is still a star, capable of Gaga-esque heights as soon as he — and his team — trusts himself to do it, with some cheek and risk and authenticity and emotion (he reminded me a bit of Ted Neely in there — see 3:07 — and man, would I love to see him sing that one). “Bad Romance” is an awesome tune, but amid the flames and smashing glass and bare assed-ness of “Speechless” the real star was Gaga and that voice. God I would have loved to have seen something similar from Glambert. Next time.

Compare and contrast below:

By the way, I feel like there must be a connection between the blatant, explicit sexual nature of Gaga and Glambert — whose performances wear the permissive mores of our society like a fancy headdress or a harness — and the repressed, charged, yearnful yet chaste world of Twilight, which is the other thing burning up the Zeitgeist right now. I’m still in the throes of early infatuation for all three — Gaga, Glambert and all things Twilight — so I’m not quite there yet. But, after careful consideration, I will say this: TEAM EDWARD.

(Lady G photos via FYLadyGaga)