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Nashville Star: Melissa Lawson nails her performance

10:20 PM Mon, Jun 23, 2008 |  | 
Mario Tarradell/Music Critic    Bio |  E-mail  |  News tips

NUP_131231_0487.jpgArlington's Melissa Lawson brought so much raw honesty and real emotion to her nuanced performance of Cyndi Lauper's beautiful ballad "True Colors" during pop-goes-country night on Nashville Star. The wife and mother of five delivered a much-improved stage stint in comparison to her uneven turn last week. All three judges, Jewel, John Rich and Jeffrey Steele, had nothing but praise for her. The rest of the evening's numbers either fell horribly flat, such as Justin Gaston's "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" and Shawn Mayer's "Bye Bye Bye," or soared a la Pearl Heart's bluegrass take on "Love Shack" by the B-52s. Mr. Gaston was eliminated by viewer votes. That's for the best, since it's obvious he's not a country singer and barely a singer at all. The guy's a model-actor waiting to happen.

Photo: Melissa Lawson (courtesy of nbc.com)



Comments

What is Billy Ray's current claim to fame?

He needs a haircut, a shave and some clean clothes.


Don't ya' love how Jeffrey Steele brought up Melissa Lawson's weight, as if it had demonstrable bearing on the matter at hand (her performance).

Save your breath about "but that's what commercial music demands is good-looking and skinny performers." All of that goes without saying.

It's the fact that he brought it up publicly. I say, in the words of Simon Cowell, "...it's a singing competition." It's not "The Biggest Loser" we're watching here. Would Mr. Steele have said that to a male contestant?


This TV show just has major problems. The biggest obstacle: The judges keep saying, "You've improved so much ... from the beginning ... from last week ... etc."

I can understand that line of criticism on Dancing With the Stars because the very premise of that show is to take people who are complete rank beginners and see if they can be taught to dance, and then, be taught to dance well.

But the premise of a singing competition should be that the contestants already know how to sing. Why would any judge be complacent with "improvement," when being better than the other contestants to begin with should be the object?

The other problem last night: Jeffrey Steele's arrangement of "Pretty Young Thing" - el stinko. That could have been done a lot better. Too busy in the chorus - they should have just harmonized in the chorus and not done the Bach-like imitative counterpoint - it was definitely a case of guilding the lily.

Speaking of guilding the lily: Putting barely-legal-to-drive teens in strapless dresses was very inappropriate. And the double entendre's just never stop on that show. The judge's comments are too racy.


I was confident that Melissa would be the highlight of this show. And probably will next week too. And down the line when she wins the whole thing, Jeffrey Steele will need to scuttle off with his "skinny" tail between his legs.


I watched this show when it was on cable and enjoyed it, but now that it's on broadcast TV something is so wrong with it! I can't put my finger on it, [aside from Billy Ray and the inane judges' comments] but I certainly am not investing as much time in it as before.



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