The Sad Case of LeAnn Rimes
LeAnn Rimes

By omophagia
5/1/2001

So, I was really bored this past Saturday (I had just moved back home from college for the summer and didn't particularly feel compelled to leave the sofa all day), and I watched portions of the re-broadcast of the Academy of Country Music Awards on CMT, so I was finally able to see for myself exactly what LeAnn did at the ceremony.

During that cloying, self-pitying opening number, I was just praying that Dwight Yoakam-- one of just a handful of genuinely intelligent, talented individuals at that awards show-- would take off one of his boots and throw it at LeAnn.

You don't want people to speculate about your considerable, rapid weight loss, LeAnn? Then don't perform really uncomfortable "sexy" dance routines that include tear-away outfits that accentuate your new "figure.". PROBLEM SOLVED.

I'm sorry, but weight loss and whorish make-up haven't changed the fact that LeAnn Rimes looks like a Gremlin, which was really the problem with her "image" in the first place. That said, I personally don't care about whether or not MUSICIANS are particularly attractive, since physical appearance has no bearing on whether or not someone is talented. "Image" only becomes an issue with me when the celebrity is the one drawing attention to it.

So, now that I've gotten the You'll-Never-Look-Like-Britney-Spears-So-Don't-Even-Bother-You-Whore rant out of my system, let's talk about the reasons I actually can't stand LeAnn Rimes.

1). LeAnn Rimes assumes that people want to hear her sing absolutely anything. For instance, the world did not need a cover of "You Light Up My Life," just as the world didn't really need treacle like "You Light Up My Life" in the first place. Really, LeAnn, did you think that your ACM Awards closing performance of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" is going to become THE definitive version of that song? If you're hell-bent on defining your career by framing performances of "How Do I Live" with nothing but cover songs, fine. At least choose songs that haven't been beaten to death already.

2). LeAnn Rimes does NOT sound ANYTHING like Patsy Cline. Any music critic, disk jockey, producer, or executive who ever so much as implied, upon hearing the song "Blue" for the first time, that LeAnn Rimes sounds even remotely like Patsy Cline, should be force sterilized. People THAT profoundly stupid should not be allowed to procreate.

Unfortunately, LeAnn has been told since the age of 13 that she DOES sound like Patsy Cline, and now she quite clearly believes that she does, proving how little she actually knows about music.

Does LeAnn Rimes have a good voice? Maybe. IMHO, I think she has an Alanis Morrissette voice-- one that polarizes audiences: you either really dig her voice or just something about the pitch of her voice makes you want to rip your ears off.

Even though I fall into the latter category, I'm willing to concede that she definitely has potential. She's like Christina Aguilera in the sense that she has a professionally trained voice that she has absolutely no clue how to use effectively. I'm sure LeAnn can hit high notes Trisha Yearwood could never hope to hit, but she's not even 1/4 as effective a vocalist as someone like Yearwood, who clearly understands the nuances of singing-- things like phrasing and tone.

3). LeAnn Rimes is stupid enough to think that covering Janis Joplin songs is acceptable.

Simply, NO.

Her "perky" cover of "Piece of my Heart" is one of the primary reasons Faith Hill should never again be allowed near a recording studio. Similarly, LeAnn Rimes' painful cover of "Me and Bobby McGee" should be sufficient evidence that she should not be allowed to pass herself off as a recording artist. Honestly, what new INSIGHTS is a delusional 18-year-old going to bring to a song like "Me and Bobby McGee"?

I'm fully expecting LeAnn's next album to contain a cover of Aretha Franklin's "Chain of Fools."

4). LeAnn Rimes is clearly desperate for Shania Twain's level of pop crossover success. "Blue," her debut single, was given a very traditional country production. The rest of her debut album, though incorporating contemporary country gimmicks, was still on the "traditional" side of mainstream country sound.

Subsequent recordings-- everything post-"How Do I Live"-- has had an overt adult contemporary, Celine-Dion-esque production. The God-awful song from the Coyote Ugly soundtrack, "Can't Fight the Moonlight," sounds like it could have been lifted from Pink's debut album.

What's genuinely SAD about this situation is that LeAnn Rimes and her management fail to realize that she's completely without a functional demographic-- the country-pop crossover "divas" are all middle-aged women who, if nothing else, have the "maturity" to pull off an overblown power ballad. Also, the market for female teen-pop acts is already closing off. At this point, the weaklings (re: Hoku, Mandy Moore) have been cannibalized by Britney, Christina, and, to a lesser extent, Jessica Simpson. As the teen-pop market continues to close off-- and all market indicators show that's what is happening-- there simply won't be ROOM for LeAnn Rimes to crossover.

So, rather than returning to a country audience which, rather inexplicably, shows at least some degree of loyalty to her, LeAnn (and, again, her managers) continue to pursue the pop thing.

STUPID PEOPLE DESERVE TO FAIL.

5). LeAnn Rimes is one of the most vacuous and actively unpleasant celebrities I've ever seen. Granted, she's not vacuous in the same way that Britney or Charlize Theron are, but there really isn't a whole helluva lot going on upstairs with LeAnn. In the televised interviews I've seen, she has trouble stringing together a simple declarative sentence. And she's always comparing herself to vastly more talented vocalists or whining about something like shoes that don't match her outfit.

Ugh. Yes, I suppose it's terrible that LeAnn's father has apparently screwed her out of a considerable amount of the money that his whoring her out on the talent-show circuit and then in Nashville generated. Personally, I can't imagine how a parent could do that to their own child and still manage to look at themselves in the mirror.

If someone like, say, Jessica Andrews-- a much more talented singer and one of the humblest celebrities I've ever seen interviewed-- were in the same situation, I would be so much more sympathetic.

But LeAnn Rimes? NO. You "can't wait to make music" for all of us again, LeAnn? It's not like there's a shortage of would-be divas lining up to record the latest Dianne Warren - penned travesty of a pop song.

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