My cousin e-mailed me to say she and her daughter would be in the audience again this week for Nashville Star, to which I wanted to reply:

I'm so sorry ...

NBC has all but killed the cable hit that was Nashville Star; however, a couple performers continue to show enough mettle and talent to warrant at least a shot on the open market.

But I'll get to Melissa Lawson and Gabe Garcia in a sec.

The Nashville Star dream ended for Alyson Gilbert, leaving eight performers vying for one spot. And, make no mistake: To the losers of this show will almost certainly come lifetime anonymity.

Most of them deserve to be plucked off the show right now. Heck, I thought John Rich was going to oust Coffey and Tommy Stanley on the spot, something Donald Trump would have done on The Apprentice.

Trump never cared though. It was his way or the highway. Could you imagine producers coming up to the Donald saying, "Uh, Mr. Trump, we still have six weeks left. You just eliminated everybody but Trace and Piers."

Nashville Star, though, needs as much time as possible to mold into something bearable. Heck, it was slightly entertaining to see Coffey talk back to the judges with some rarely seen bits of anger. I thought he was ready to buck up to one of 'em.

Fact is though that the judges were right: Coffey is not a country singer. Really, he's not even a good singer -- of pop, R&B, polka, chants, anything.

On the other hand, he IS country. Coming from Bangs, Texas, you are by definition country. A town of 1,100 people, as Coffey put it, not counting the sheep. But he's not a country singer.

The dilemma here is that while neither Coffey nor Tommy Stanley is a country singer and while neither is particularly good, some burden has to be placed on the show's producers for putting them there in the first place. It's almost as if NBC owes these kids now.

Truth be told, what's needed for Coffey and Tommy Stanley is what's needed for everybody on this God-forsaken show: They need to be workin' in bars and clubs and county fairs. They need to experience life, experience hurt, suffer, develop their craft, learn to write, etc. etc. etc.

They are not nearly ready for anything beyond that.

They need to devote their nights, their weekends, their holidays to the pursuit of becoming a better artist -- and part of that effort requires listening. The trio called Pearl Heart survived this week and admitted on national television that they had never even heard of Restless Heart's No. 1 hit from the late 1980s, "I'll Still Be Lovin' You."

And therein lies the big problem. No excuse.

If you want to pursue music seriously, you have to listen to everything. You have to know these songs. You have to immerse yourself deep into your genre, and I'd recommend studying other styles of music, too.

I will and do listen to anything and everything, listening to artists and songs I've never heard before and that I might just hate with the purpose of developing my ear. You cannot be a serious musician and not know the standards of your genre.

It's not just a problem on Nashville Star, it's a problem on Idol and any other music-oriented show. By nature, people listen to what they like, and they find other artists like those artists, and they don't stray. What they become, as musicians, are impersonators of that thing they listen to.

Listening habits must change, youngins.

For example, did Melissa Lawson actually know "Landslide" before the Dixie Chicks remade it a few years back? Lawson was really solid vocally, reminding me a dab of Trisha Yearwood, but she still doesn't strike me as a student of country music.

Where's the Dolly Parton, Crystal Gayle, Tammy Wynette, Lynn Anderson, etc. etc. etc. For the guys, where is the old George Strait? Are you kidding me that we haven't heard one Strait classic yet on this show?

Gabe Garcia will get my undying support if he will sing these words:

In a bar in Acuna called Ma Crosby's

I found myself not feeling any pain

Of course, that's the greatness of "Blame It On Mexico," and I'm rambling a bit here, but you get the point. As decent as Garcia was tonight on "Wanted Dead or Alive," anything by BonJovi doesn't qualify as the type of country that will endear him to the country masses.

For goodness' sake, Laura and Sophie sang "Walkin' On Sunshine," made popular in 1985 by Katrina & The Waves. Great song. Not a damned thing country about it, period.

Ashlee Hewitt is cute and bubbly, but she's just young and extremely inexperienced.

I have to admit that it bugged me a ton that Hewitt attempted to play Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" on the piano. She completely butchered the piano part. John Rich and the band, or whoever helped her this week, dumbed down that piano part so that she could handle it, and it absolutely showed.

My question is: Had she even heard of that song before this week?

On a positive note, I still think the kid from Minnesota could be a force in the industry, eventually. However, that caveat, that addendum is always there: Eventually.

All of these singers and performers need more experience, both on stage and in life, I'm afraid. While I can't advise them on the life side of things, I can advise them on the music part of it.

You have to listen to everything.

Journey. Faith Hill. Bob Marley. Donna Fargo. Metallica and Judas Priest. George Strait and George Michael. The Spice Girls and Hank III. The Beatles and The Buggles, Rascal Flatts and CCR.

And you have to listen with discipline.

When I listen, I take mental notes. I don't physically write them down as I am not insane. However, I keep mental notes, acknowledging what I like, what I don't like, what the artist does well and how I can use that to better myself. I listen to the musicians, how they play certain riffs and how they voice chords. Whether they sing with big vibrato or keep it staccato.

What are the words like: deep or frivolous? Does the artist even write his/her own stuff? Heck, read some wikipedia while you listen to these artists to get a sense for what it took to make it big, from their perspective.

And then practice and play as if your spot in eternity depended on it.

When I see a guy like Coffey with his kid or Gilbert with her housewife country-music dream, I see folks who have already made their life choice. Lawson is doing pretty well, but given that she has five kids, does she really have the bandwidth to do this long-term?

Hard to say. I'm not one to deny anybody anything for any reason as it pertains to a dream. However, I'm just not sensing that any of these contestants has really put their heart and soul into the pursuit of a music career just yet. Likewise, I get more and more of a sense that most of these contestants don't have the proper foundation in country music.

Sure, I periodically hear a little twang, and every once in a while, one of these singers stays on key. However, I assure you that country music is much, much more than that, and most of that type of life experience these folks either don't have yet or never, ever in a million years will have.

In all honesty, the producers would do well to eliminate everybody right now but Ashlee Hewitt, Gabe Garcia and Melissa Lawson.

Then again, if I were Garcia or Lawson, in particular, I might just drop out right now to acknowledge how much of a turd this show has been. It would be ballsy, and it would show they would "get" just how much of a disconnect there is between real country music and this show.