In his latest video, FRESHtival headliner Adam Lambert shows us a dystopian future where the population are controlled by drugs and security guards — oh yes, and he shows us some hot dance moves.

Lambert’s alternate reality is a scary place. He wakes up in a high security institution where everything is shades of grey and people run through assembly lines with no emotion or awareness. It could be a commentary on our society’s dependence on prescription drugs (and other mollifiers like television) to blot out our real feelings.

Adam Lambert FRESHtival Photos

In a behind the scenes interview from the set of the video Lambert says, “There’s certain lyrics in the song that are really important. It only gets better if we want it to.”

Glambert and the extras make their way into some sort of retinal scan machines that systematically turn everyone’s eyes into full pupils — but shortly after the drone people start to rebel while scrubbing the floors.

“It’s kind of like magic,” Lambert explains. “It’s not literal. It’s meant to kind of be the seed of revolution.”

And that’s where the dancing begins. Much like in Footloose, in Glambert’s world dancing can set you free. Lambert and several dancers end the video in neon outfits, dancing through a cloud of smoke. It’s as if a Michael Jackson video and Aldus Huxley’s novel Brave New World were mixed together.

Director Dori Oskowitz created a clip that perfectly suits Lambert’s vision. The singer says, “The one thing that I was excited about was maybe something sort of science fiction. Something kind of ‘new world order, in the future.’ Something not of this reality.”

-Courtney E. Smith, CBS Local