‘American Idol’ Oscars Promo Features Contestants Covering Queen

American Idol made a Queen-inspired promo to go with the Oscars on Sunday night, introducing this year’s top talent.

ABC showed its American Idol contestants havin’ a good time on Sunday night. The promo followed the hopeful singers through a winding one-shot video, where they traded lines singing Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now.” The ad introduced all of their different styles and voices in a context appropriate to Oscars Sunday.

“This is the incredible talent you’ll see on American Idol next Sunday on ABC,” host Ryan Seacrest promised as the video came to an end.

American Idol has good reason to capitalize on its association with Queen. The show’s Season 8 winner, Adam Lambert, performed with Queen on the show, and has gone on to tour with the band for many years. Together, they opened the Oscars 2019 ceremony on Sunday.

Of course, Queen featured heavily in Oscar season as a whole this year, since Bohemian Rhapsody was one of the night’s big winners. The band’s biopic earned Rami Malek an Academy Award for Best Actor. It was also awarded Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing and Best Film Editing.

It makes sense that ABC would want to carry that momentum forward as far as possible, especially given the natural connection to American Idol. The revived singing competition begins Season 17 — its second season on ABC — next Sunday on March 3. Along with Seacrest, Katy Perry, Luke Bryan and Lionel Richie are all returning as judges, while Bobby Bones will join the show as the in-house mentor.

ABC has re-formatted the show to cut down on the early drama this time around. As the promo shows, fans already know who this year’s finalists are. They actually began auditioning back in August. The judges visited 20 cities in the U.S. and filmed the whole thing, but they are not keeping the results a secret as in previous years.

This has allowed the show to start promoting its stars early in the season, and it is working well so far. The singers have had time to establish themselves on social media, bot through American Idol‘s official account and their personal platforms. Short clips and bios for each of the contestants have already gone viral, promising a big year for the original singing competition.

American Idol Season 17 premieres on Sunday, March 3 at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.