\o7I\f7F "American Idol" were really first and foremost a singing competition, as Simon Cowell keeps grousing it is, we'd all be talking about Melinda Doolittle's near-flawless, jazz-inflected performances, for music lovers the true highlight of the No. 1-rated show's sixth season.
Instead, America is engaged in a national debate about Sanjaya Malakar's hair.
Last week the teenager with the big smile, thin voice and ever-changing coif waltzed into "Idol's" Top 8, the latest evidence that the singing competition is becoming less about, um, singing and more about seemingly tangential distractions, such as personal charm and spectacular ponyhawks.
But let's not single out Sanjaya for diminishing "Idol's" musical cred. It's worth asking whether the show, for all the prime-time entertainment it provides, might be crimping the sort of musical innovation that could revive pop as a whole.
As every viewer knows, the trivial and the distracting are always close at hand on "Idol." Earlier this season, Cowell and host Ryan Seacrest raised eyebrows by escalating their perennial gay-baiting insults. Last year, topic A was whether judge Paula Abdul was having some sort of substance-induced meltdown.
All this drama is undoubtedly making Fox's show more popular; after all, it's hitting record ratings at a time when most hit scripted shows are limping out to the pastureland of syndication.
But is it just coincidence that "Idol's" Nielsen conquest is reaching a crescendo while the music industry it purports to showcase is hitting the skids? Few people argue that the show isn't good, even great, television. But could it be that as good as "Idol" is for network TV -- or at least for the Fox network -- it's bad for music?
Nic Harcourt, host of KCRW's influential music program "Morning Becomes Eclectic," ignored "Idol" for years but finally started to watch this season, partly because his girlfriend is a fan. "I don't think it has anything to do with music," Harcourt said of "Idol." "It's not about selling records or even creating stars. It's about creating a successful TV program." (Still, Harcourt, like every other viewer, has his own opinions of the finalists: "Right now, two of the guys need to go," he declared, naming Sanjaya and "the bald guy" -- i.e., Phil Stacey).
