When you're as over-the-top as Adam Lambert is, your album cover is just as important as the music you're recording. So when a pic taken behind the scenes of his album photo shoot leaked over the summer, the glam rocker was disappointed, particularly because the photo — showing the singer in a rubber-and-sequins getup — instantly became a target for snarky gossip sites.

"It's funny, because when you take something like that out of context, it kind of looks silly, like the Michelin Man," Lambert told MTV News. "But in context, in the set that we had, which you didn't see in the leaked photo ... it works."

Lambert confirmed that the much-blogged-about Michelin Man outfit is, in fact, one of the looks fans will see in Lambert's CD artwork and said it definitely fits in with the bigger picture of what he's going for. "[The look] was supposed to be kind of high-fashion, avant-garde 'space,' and I think it works really well, actually."

To the makeup artist who leaked the photo (along with sneak peeks of Lambert's fashion-forward eye accessories and a spiky leather jacket), Lambert sarcastically quipped, "Thanks a lot for leaking it."