French soulstress, Miss Dominique, is back

France might well have a new star in the making after Soan Faya walked away with this country's Nouvelle Star (Pop Idol) earlier this week, but another former contestant from a previous edition of the show has recently been making the music headlines.

This week saw the release of the album "Si je n'étais pas moi" from Miss Dominique or Dominique Michalon to give her her real name, the runner-up in season four of the talent show.

But it's not just her voice and music that have been creating a buzz. It's also her new look.

Physically speaking, Michalon is quite literally a shadow of her former self, having lost around 50kgs (or 110 lbs) since starting a strict diet and exercise regime.

Michalon is a singer with a huge voice able to tackle pop, soul and gospel classics.

When she appeared on la Nouvelle Star she blew away both the show's jury and viewers week after week with powerful and rousing renditions of songs such as "I'm every woman," "I feel good" or "I will survive".

But in the tradition of all great singers, Michalon was also able to do more than justice to ballads including "Calling you" or Edith Piaf's "L'Hymne de l'amour".

It was the sort of voice that probably hadn't been heard on the small screen regularly in France since the days of the late (US) singer Carole Fredericks.

Her appearance in the final couldn't have come as a surprise to anyone watching, and she would more than likely have won had she been up against anyone else other than Christophe Willem, a contestant whose voice and look was equally quite unlike anything the French had seen and heard for quite a while.

Ah the good old days when la Nouvelle Star actually lived up to its name!

Michalon might not have won, but she certainly wasn't forgotten. A record deal saw the release of her first (solo) album, "Une femme battante", which went double gold, several singles and a series of concerts and television appearances.

Then, as often appears to be the case, she seemed to disappear from the spotlight.

Until, that is, a couple of months ago when she first revealed what has been described by many in the media as her "physical metamorphosis".

"I always accepted my size," she said in an interview in April.

"I had 'zero complexes' about it and in fact in a way I was actually proud (of my size). But then my doctor sounded the alarm and said my weight was a health risk and I had to do something about it."

And so she began to diet and exercise; always under careful medical supervision dropping from a size 58 to 32.

While health reasons were undoubtedly in her words at the root of the decision, it probably won't have done her musical career any harm either, as the weekly French tabloid Gala points out.

"The record company must be rubbing its hands," says the magazine.

"Miss Dominique now fits into the mould of (looking like) a much more commercial product."



Whatever the case, Michalon might have lost the weight but she hasn't lost the voice, and this new album, for which she penned most of the tracks herself, is a humdinger.

Soul and groove à la française, if you will.

And she's not afraid to offer up explanations in some of the lyrics as to how she feels about the new look especially in the track "Le poids de ma différence".

"What's difficult to take is not the (physical) weight per se, but the burden of how others look at you," she says.

"When I say that 'I weigh the weight of all my differences', it's a way of saying that I'm aware of the way others might have seen me.

"I don't realise I've lost weight, rather that I was once 'rounder'".