‘American Idol XIII’: See the new logo; plus, vote on the new slogan

We knew that “American Idol” is wanting to rebrand itself somewhat in an effort to try and make people forget that season 12 ever happened in the first place, but what the show is looking to do right now has to teeter on ridiculous at best.

First of all, we have the logo and the change of the name to “American Idol XIII” … because a singing competition is apparently the same thing as the Super Bowl. Even the logo feels a little bit more like a football thanks to the way that it is angled. The earlier versions of the logo were not at such an angle, and were tilted in a way that was far more symmetrical. We don’t exactly love or loathe the idea of the show trying to differentiate itself every year from here on out, but what it feels like is basically them raising their hand and being like “hey, we were here first.”

In addition to debuting this new logo for the show, Fox is trying to go a step above and beyond this in getting people to vote on some sort of “slogan” from the following list on their official site:

1. “Listen to their dreams come true.”

2. “Every story is different. The dream is the same.”

3. “A million different stories. One powerful dream.”

4. “The search for a superstar.”

To us, the choice is a no-brainer: Go with #4, which is nostalgic to the show and seems to be the most realistic. It’s not necessarily advertising that the show is going to find a superstar; they’re just searching for them. Over-emphasizing “dream” can be pompous and annoying, especially when it suggests that dreams are automatically going to come true just because of this opportunity. It also takes plenty of hard work, drive, and charisma to be a success these days. The “overnight superstar” label doesn’t really work quite like that anymore.

“American Idol” is already talking up a big game about the new season, so we’ll just have to wait and see if the talk is merited come January when the show returns.

Photo: Fox