Idol Chatter & Voice Views

So, is anyone besides me getting tired of Idol trying to fabricate rumors of romance between Colton Dixon and Skylar Laine?

Ryan Seacrest brought up the “rumors” last week after the two sang “Islands in the Stream.”

Colton and Skylar said they are friends and emphatically denied they’re anything more.

Ryan brought up the dating question again last night before they sang “Don’t You Want to Stay.”

Again they denied it. One reason they aren’t dating: “She owns a gun,” Colton said later. Jokingly, of course.

But Steven Tyler was having none of it after they sang: “You just made love singing to each other, so it don’t much matter now anymore anyway.”

Gee, thanks for the input, Steven.

But on to a bigger question: What is Idol doing to Colton Dixon?

Anyone who’s checked out the Facebook and Twitter numbers … indeed, anyone who knows how voting trends go on Idol … knows he’s one of the frontrunners in Season 11.

He’s a guy who would love to record a Christian rock album post-Idol.

Hear that, Jimmy? Hear that, Nigel? Christian rock.

So what is he doing singing country duets with Skylar Laine for two straight weeks? Can anyone out there see Colton Dixon as a country artist?

It would be one thing if these were throwaway duets performed on a results show. That’s where most of last year’s duets were performed.

But, thanks to Idol’s decision to have a bloated two-hour performance show each and every week, these are voting-night performances. Worse yet, performances after which Ryan has started asking the judges which singer sounded best.

Now how is Colton, the Christian rocker, supposed to come off well singing a country song with twangy Skylar Laine? Especially when the arrangement hands her all the glory notes like it did this week?

If I was a Colton Dixon fan, I’d be hopping mad over the show’s decision to make him sing country music with Skylar Laine on two consecutive weeks.

For his part, Colton doesn’t seem thrilled either. At least not according to a report from the Hollywood Reporter.

“Honestly, when they said I was doing another country song this week, I was discouraged. I was,” he said. “I will not do another country song while I’m on the show. I’m putting my foot down.”