Too much of a good thing?

You had to feel for Brian Wilson when the MTV cameras abruptly switched from him Saturday as he was asking if it would be all right to do a second number for one of the weekend’s hurricane relief telethons.

Still, someone at MTV had to say “no” at some point.

No offense to Wilson, but the telethon had already stretched from three hours to just over four to accommodate all the artists who wanted to participate -- and that made the show feel bloated. Especially on the heels of 4 1/2 hours from two telethons Friday and a one-hour NBC fundraiser the weekend before.

If the nearly 50 artists on the MTV event alone hadn’t been limited to one song each, the show might have been on longer than the Jerry Lewis telethon.

And we’re not done yet.

PBS checks in with its own fundraiser Saturday --19 days after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. And we thought FEMA was slow to respond.

One thing is clear from the two weekends of programming: We’re a divided nation when it comes to telethons too -- at least from the broadcasters’ point of view.

BET positioned itself over the weekend as the voice of African American compassion. “There’s been a lot of telethons,” rap mogul Diddy said during the 3 1/2 - hour broadcast Friday, “but this is our telethon. These are our people.”

In a bid to speak for country and rock fans, MTV, VH1 and CMT joined for the four-hour program Saturday. The target audience for the weekend’s other telethon, the multi-network “Shelter From the Storm ...” was apparently mainstream America.

It was a case of more not being better.

By squeezing the best of the weekend’s music into a single, two-hour program, we would have had a far better chance to come together as a nation in the spirit of the chilling Sept. 11 telethon. That 2001 program was one of the most memorable pop moments ever on national television.

The divided energy of these Katrina telethons felt all the more misguided when we kept seeing many of the same faces popping up.

Still, several artists made especially moving contributions over the weekend.

Among those that come first to mind from the MTV-VH1-CMT telethon: Trent Reznor’s caressing version of “Hurt” (the Reznor song of disillusionment that Johnny Cash sang in that unforgettable video) and Melissa Etheridge’s “Four Days” (a song about the flood victims that she wrote for the program). From Friday’s “Shelter”: Paul Simon’s exquisite rendition of “Take Me to the Mardi Gras” and the inspired U2/Mary J. Blige teaming on the Irish band’s comforting “One.”

But three artists defined the weekend:

Kanye West. Sorry if his criticism of President Bush on the NBC telethon Sept. 2 offended you, but West, who appeared on all three fundraisers, showed why the 28-year-old rapper-producer is at the creative center of popular music at the moment. His “Touch the Sky” on the MTV program was wonderfully uplifting, and, during “Shelter,” he customized his 2004 hit, “Jesus Walks,” to express his heartache over the struggle of flood victims.

Alicia Keys. Here’s a young singer-songwriter who is so respected she didn’t just appear on three of the telethons, but she was given the honor of opening two (MTV and BET), and she was spectacular in every case. Rather than stick to a single song or even genre, Keys gave us an R&B-tinged; tune on one telethon, a gospel number on another and, finally, a pop standard (“You’ll Never Walk Alone”) Saturday.

Neil Young. This rock ‘n’ roll treasure’s heartfelt rendition of John Lennon’s “Imagine” was, for many, the highlight of the Sept. 11 telethon, and he was just as moving this time around -- first by singing his new, spiritually tinged “When God Made Me” on “Shelter,” then the wistful “This Old Guitar” on MTV.

“When God Made Me” felt especially timely. It’s a rich, philosophical song about humility; Young’s own “Imagine” if you will, in that the song rejects the notion that God plays favorites or that dissent is unpatriotic.

In the closing verse, Young sang:

Did he give me the gift of voice

So some could silence me?

Did he give me the gift of vision

Not knowin’ what I might see?

Looking like Cash as he stood at the microphone dressed all in black, Young came across as a symbol of all that is good and true in American music. It made sense for MTV to ask him to close the telethon.

His song was another showstopper: one of Fats Domino’s biggest hits, “Walking to New Orleans.”

Too bad only one of the telethon audiences got to see it.

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Hilburn, pop music critic at The Times, can be reached at Robert.hilburn@latimes.com