‘American Idol XIII’ video: Austin Percario, others prepare for their shot

Tonight, the one-time popular singing competition of America is back. “American Idol XIII” puts the focus once again on the singing rather than the judges, and it only seems appropriate that on the day of the premiere, we are spending more of our time actually discussing the contestants who we are going to be seeing and hearing from in the weeks to come.

First, we have Austin Percario, who for whatever reason seemed to need his mother in the room with him while he sang the tired-and-true reality TV audition song “Titanium.” It’s a very good performance, but we admit that it’s hard to take what he is singing about lyrically when HIS MOM IS RIGHT THERE. (Sorry, the all-caps tends to happen at times when talking about this show.)

The only other drawback to Austin is that for all of the show’s praises about discovering new people, he is actually a member of “inTENsity,” that group on “The X Factor” that seems to live on in zombie form and haunt all of America. In season 2 of Simon Cowell’s show, Arin Ray returned; then, Ellona Santiago did this past year. Austin is the first one that we know of to try out “American Idol” instead. There is nothing wrong with reusing contestants, but we do wish that someone would actually address it since we do think it’s a part of the narrative.

Also, we have a contestants in Paisley who is coming on the show after struggling with drinking. She’s worked hard to get sober, and that is something that Keith Urban tells her prior to her (seemingly) great audition that he also struggled with and needed to get outside help to curb. Given the way that some celebrities pretend that their rehab visits never happened, it’s nice to actually see someone like Keith speak so candidly.