Nashville Star: Week Three Recap

Pop goes country this week on Nashville Star, which means one thing — backup dancers! Just what every self-respecting country singer needs. Speaking of country singers, two of them are asked to step to the front of the stage at the very start of the show. One of them is safe this week, the other is in the Bottom 2. Since the producers don’t even want to try and trick us, those two singers are Tommy Stanley and Gabe Garcia. Gabe ain’t Bottom 2 material, so he’ll be the first to perform this week, right after a group version of Madonna’s “Like a Prayer.” During the song, Tommy cements his Bottom 2 status by letting out a wince-inducing sour note.

Gabe Garcia has chosen to countrify Ricky Martin’s “Livin’ La Vida Loca,” and he gets the night off to a rollicking start, letting his Texas out, as John Rich had suggested last week. This week’s theme probably took Gabe out of his comfort zone but, for the most part, he didn’t show it. He absolutely nails the last note, and receives nothing but glowing reviews from the judges. We liked him, too. Our rating: 4 stars

Next up is Pearl Heart, who are performing “Love Shack” by the B-52’s. Wait … what? Turns out the trio knows what it’s doing, because the sisters turn the party song into a badass bluegrass tune. Jeffrey Steele instructs them to keep trying to “make a heart out of that triangle,” but since we have no idea what the hell he’s talking about, we’re going to ignore that criticism. The performance probably merits 4 stars, but we’re going to tack on one more for tackling such a tricky song. Our rating: 5 stars

Our disdain for Alyson Gilbert has been called out in the comments section in past weeks, and we know from looking at our data that a lot of you have found our blog by searching for Alyson’s name. After a fairly strong performance last week, we’re willing to give her a fresh start. She’s singing “I Think We’re Alone Now,” by Tiffany (actually by Tommy James & the Shondells, but we’re going with what Billy Ray Cyrus says). In her pre-performance video, Alyson says she’s worried that the arrangement will be boring. Well, it starts off fine, but as she descends the stage’s staircase in her impossibly high heels, her performance descends as well, and her fears are realized. The judges called her pitchy and pop, and John Rich says it sounded like she “gargled with vanilla” before taking the stage. Surprise, surprise — we agree. Our rating: 2 stars

Ashlee Hewitt is up next, performing “(You Drive Me) Crazy” by Britney Spears. Aside from Alyson, the acts tonight have been challenging themselves, and the results have been really good. Ashlee continues that trend. While we only like her vocals on this song, we absolutely love the arrangement. It shows that Ashlee might have more to offer than cuteness — there might be a serious artist in her somewhere. The judges like her, too, and John Rich informs her that she’s getting better every week. Then Billy Ray Cyrus says the performance was so good it made him want to shave his head. Ugh, did the Hannah Montana writers give you that one, Billy Ray? Our rating: 4 stars

One of our favorites, Coffey, takes the stage next, and he’s taking possibly the biggest chance of the night so far, singing Rihanna’s “Umbrella.” This has a chance to be either the breakout performance we’ve been waiting for or a complete and utter disaster. Coffey has been inconsistent so far in this competition, but he’s got something that most of the contestants don’t have — he’s a natural performer. We’re nervous for him as the song begins and — wait a second, did he just beatbox? The song is neither a complete hit or miss, meaning that we’re still waiting for Coffey to justify our faith in him. The judges are split on the song, with John Rich loving it, Jeffrey Steele hating it and Jewel standing somewhere in the middle with her giant hula hoop-sized earrings. We give him credit for taking on such a tough song. Our rating: 3 stars

The adorable duo of Laura & Sophie are up next, singing Michael Jackson’s “P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing).” They look positively horrified when Jeffrey Steele suggests the song to them initially, but they turn it into one of the highlights of the night, if not the season so far. The arrangement is awesome, though it seems most of the credit for that should go to Jeffrey. The girls take a little flak for looking like “little Madonna cupcakes” in their matching dresses, but there’s really nothing else to criticize. Their voices sound great together, whether they’re singing in unison or trading lines as they did tonight. We’ll ignore Billy Ray’s awkward Michael Jackson joke and just hand out some stars. Our rating: 4 stars

We take a brief break from the competition for a performance by Danity Kane, the girl group formed by Diddy on the MTV reality show Making the Band 3. Since we’re watching on our TiVo this week, our break will be especially brief, since we’re just fast-forwarding through this mess.

When we hear that Shawn Mayer will be taking on “Bye Bye Bye” by *NSYNC, we’re tempted to press the fast-forward button again, but we have a responsibility to watch, so we will. John Rich loves that Shawn isn’t afraid of anything, saying that it’s the most country thing about her. Jewel also appreciates that Shawn was willing to go outside of her comfort zone and dance tonight. Jeffrey Steele thought it was too ambitious, not country enough and not the real Shawn. We just thought it was horrible. Our rating: 2 stars

We’re getting to the tense part of the show, where only two acts are awaiting their status. One will be safe for the week, the other will be joining Tommy in the Bottom 2. Melissa Lawson will be singing Cyndi Lauper’s “True Colors,” which means Justin’s fate still awaits him. Melissa delivers what is undeniably the best vocal performance of the night. Last week Melissa gave herself a 7 or an 8 for her performance; Jeffrey Steele tells her this week’s was a 10. It’s hard to argue with that assessment. Our rating: 5 stars

We admit, when Justin announced that he’s singing “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” — undoubtedly making this the first time in Nashville Star history that contestants have sung two consecutive Cyndi Lauper songs — we thought to ourselves, “Here we go again.” The guy has given no indication that he’s aware this is a country music competition — or that he can really sing. But tonight he blows us away. Everything about his performance, from this arrangement of the song to the pink and black checkerboard background and pajama-clad dancing girls, is great. His vocals, save for one weak falsetto note, are spot on, as well. The judges love it, and Jeffrey Steele literally eats his words after doing nothing but criticize Justin to this point. It’s a shame that Justin might not make it past tonight based on the voting from last week’s show. Our rating: 4 stars

The last performer of the night is poor Tommy Stanley, who has spent the whole night worrying about whether or not he’s going home. Like Justin, Tommy’s fate has little to do with what he does tonight — which is good, since he’s just plain awful. He sings “Maniac” by Michael Sembello, and he doesn’t turn it into a country song, he turns it into a different pop song. And a bad one at that. The judges don’t like it, either, with Jeffrey Steele feeling the need to reveal that it didn’t get his “country bone going.” Our rating: 2 stars

Justin and Tommy are left to suffer through one last commercial break before finding out that the guy going home is … Justin. Well, that sucks. It turns out the teenage girl vote wasn’t enough to keep him around, which is a shame because he was just beginning to show that he deserved some other votes, too. It just goes to show that you’ve got to bring it every week in a competition like this. As for next week’s results, we wouldn’t feel very safe if we were Tommy, Shawn or Alyson. Coffey might be in danger, too — and we don’t know what we’d do if he pulled a Justin and finally stepped up his game on the night that he’s going home. Let us know what you think in the comments section below. We’ll see you next week.