‘American Idol XIII’ video: New promo highlights Carrie Underwood, Phillip Phillips, other stars

While “American Idol” may not have the promise of big ratings or finding the next big superstar in 2013, it can at least do one thing as it promotes the start of its 13th season come January: Remind you that they have more famous artists from their show than both “The X Factor” and “The Voice” do combined and then multiplied. You have two artists at this point in Carrie Underwood and Kelly Clarkson with tens of millions of albums sold and dozens of #1 singles, and then you have other artists with millions of copies sold like Clay Aiken, Adam Lambert, Scotty McCreery, an Oscar-winner in Jennifer Hudson and a guy on the rise in Phillip Phillips. “American Idol” is stacked.

With this new promo, it’s basically a reminder of the talent that they have produced, and it is handled pretty well. Rather than emphasize just the winners, it instead focuses on people like Adam, Jennifer, Carrie, and others who have gone on to be huge successes stories thanks to the show.

While every winner is featured, there are a few in here (including the reigning champion in Candice Glover) who if you blink for even just a split second, you are probably not going to catch that they are even there. This was of course to focus on the other contestants who have performed even better on the world stage, but at least this is a promo where it feels like the show is focusing on almost all of the right people, and we cannot complain too much about the people who are a not a part of this. The only person who we could say may have a beef not being here would be David Archuleta, who has had a couple of very successful albums. Then again, he’s been on a mission for some time and is not currently in the spotlight at all.

“American Idol” returns in just over two months, and we’re more excited than we were at this time last year. Want to know why? Then just take a look at the link here, where you can see an extended promo that actually puts the focus first and foremost on the contestants, and then lets the judges be fun and entertaining around that.

Photo: Fox