Commentary: Why not Ellen? She loves music and she’s sane

Photo by Matt Sayles/Associated Press

Ellen DeGeneres arrives at the Daytime Emmy Awards on in Los Angeles on Aug. 30, 2009.

Photo by Matt Sayles/Associated Press

Ellen DeGeneres arrives at the Daytime Emmy Awards on in Los Angeles on Aug. 30, 2009.

Paula Abdul was a dancer. Ellen DeGeneres dances every day on her talk show. So when Abdul announced last fall that she was leaving the “American Idol” judging panel, DeGeneres was a natural choice to replace her.

Or maybe not. Chat boards immediately went wild with complaints. What does DeGeneres know about music, naysayers fumed, except that she enjoys it?

I say, why does that really matter? It’s not as if Abdul, who ought to have a lot of technical knowledge about music, ever managed to convey that knowledge coherently. Come to think of it, Randy Jackson, who has major music-industry credentials, rarely spits out a comment more insightful than “No, dawg,” or “100 million billion times yes.”

Without Abdul’s wackiness, the “American Idol” judging panel has been a dreary thing this season, enlivened only occasionally by such guest judges as Neil Patrick Harris. DeGeneres will change that.

Yes, I know about concerns that during a guest-judging stint on “So You Think You Can Dance,” she was silly and quippy, but I have a feeling she’s heard that criticism and taken it to heart.

And even if she did ask a performer (as she did on “Dance” ) whether he was a carpenter, “because you nailed it,” would that really be a lot less appropriate than Simon Cowell telling a young man he looked like “a bush baby” ?

Fears that DeGeneres will somehow taint the credibility of the “American Idol” process are ridiculous. It’s incredible already.

Anyway, on “American Idol,” the fans hold the power. Beyond the audition phase, the judges don’t get a vote; their role is presumably to guide viewers who can’t tell sharp from flat. But aren’t they actually there to entertain the audience?

No doubt, DeGeneres will be entertaining, but she’ll also bring heart back to the panel. She can shed a tear as well as Abdul, and she’ll never forget that the contestants are young people with hopes and dreams.

Maybe she doesn’t know the recording industry from the inside, but as anybody who watches her daytime show knows, she’s passionate about music, and she loves to turn the spotlight on new and undiscovered talent.

DeGeneres is warm, cheerful, funny, sane and refreshingly articulate. If she provides, as she promised, “the people’s point of view,” what’s the matter with that? “American Idol” is the people’s show.

With ratings sliding, bringing viewers back was probably on Fox’s mind when the network chose DeGeneres, and the tactic just might work. Give her a chance. I will, and I haven’t watched “Idol” religiously for years.

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