Pop quiz: Who was the big winner on Canadian Idol?

If you said Ryan Malcolm, well, you're technically correct. But in reality, singer and Idol judge Sass Jordan should be considered a winner too.

The veteran rock vocalist's stint as a judge on the popular TV talent show raised her profile in the Canada even higher than when she was a regular on the charts in the late 1980s and early '90s.

But there are some drawbacks, she admits.

"I've completely ruined my image, I hope you know. (Critics) are like, 'Oh yeah, I'm going to take that seriously.'" she says. "But it made a huge difference in my public profile -- there's nothing bad about it in that way. All of a sudden my face is on national TV twice a week on the most talked-about television show.

"It's about freakin' time because it went crappy for years, then great, then crappy, then great. But you've got to take chances and you've got to fall on your ass, but it's so worth it because sometimes you end up on top."

Jordan has been slugging it out in the music business since she was a 16-year-old bass player in Montreal. She released her debut solo album, Tell Somebody, in 1988, won the most promising female vocalist Juno in 1989 and was a regular on the Canadian charts in the early '90s with singles such as Make You a Believer and High Road Easy.

Thanks to declining radio play near the end of the decade, she seemed to disappear from the music scene, even though she kept releasing albums. She also dabbled in acting with roles in The Vagina Monologues and as Janis Joplin in the off-Broadway play Love Janis.

She was thrust back into the spotlight this year after receiving a call from the producers of Canadian Idol, a spinoff of the American talent show which set out to find the best unknown vocal talent in the country via open auditions. The summer series went on to become one of the highest-rated shows in Canadian television history, with more than two million viewers per week.

"They called up and needed a judge and wanted me to audition and I asked how much it paid. I would have never have done it if they weren't paying good," she jokes.

Jordan got the job and became known as the "nice" judge who rarely had a bad word to say about contestants, although she was seen cringing a lot when the singers were particularly bad. Her easygoing manner made fans out of both contestants and viewers.

"I was never a hard-rock chick, that was what I was portrayed as being, but I've never been anything than what you saw on Canadian Idol, except I swear a lot. To me a hard-rock chick is someone like Courtney Love, who's an obscene person," she says.

Many musicians feel the show was detrimental to artists who have been struggling for years to land a recording contract, but Jordan believes it's just a different way of marketing the product.

"I have nothing against it at all; it makes no difference to me. I think it's a phenomenon. It's fascinating to watch in that it's so unbelievably bizarre. It was a lot of fun for me because I was working with a team of people and we had a blast, so I have nothing but good things to say about it in that way," she says.

"To me a real artist is someone who writes their own music or is a part of it, but the Idol singers are karaoke singers and don't have a chance to be a part of it. Maybe when they get to write their own material, then I'll judge it."

With her newly elevated profile, Jordan decided it was the perfect time to release Sass: The Best of Sass Jordan, a greatest-hits collection of music from her five studio albums, augmented by two new songs.

But even with two television appearances a week and a slot at last sumer's SARS benefit concert in Toronto, radio wouldn't play her new single Brand New Day, because she's not on a major label, she says.

"I definitely sold more records than I've sold in awhile, but it isn't 50,000 CDs or something like that. What helps you sell records is having a song that a lot of people like -- and an outlet to get played on."

Jordan is playing a series of one-off shows to promote the album and will wait to conduct a full cross-country tour after releasing a new CD next year. She appears at the Pyramid Cabaret tomorrow night. Admission is $20.