Matheus Fernandes, Curtis Finch and Lazaros Arbos move on, Frankie Ford melts down on 'American Idol'
"American Idol" Hollywood Week: Drama and desperation escalate behind the scenes as the pressure mounts during the intense “Hollywood Rounds,” which kick off with the guys who must sing for their survival. (Feb. 6, 2013) Credit: Fox
Matheus Fernandes, Curtis Finch and Lazaros Arbos starred as "American Idol" changed the rules for Hollywood round this year -- segregating the guys and women -- but gave us the usual mix of inspired group songs, meltdowns and surprise cuts that make this round so compelling to watch.
Below's how I ranked the groups; put in your own thoughts in the comments, below.
1) Matheus Fernandes and Gabe Brown's group were in perfect, church-like harmony on "Somebody To Love." It was, no joke, one of the best group round perfromances ever -- creative, fun to listen to, totally on pitch.
2) Strong-voiced Curtis Finch and socially awkward Charlie Askew's group nailed "The Lazy Song," with a fantastic Finch getting all four judges up on their feet.
3) Micah Johnson's group's "Hold On I'm Comin'" only got a few seconds of air time, as did Nate Tao and Elijah Liu's group (who all wore leather jackets) with "Some Kind of Wonderful" -- but they sounded good and all made it through.
4) The babyface group that was David Leathers, Kevin Quinn, Sanni M'Mairura and angelic-voiced Kayden Stephenson did a nice version of "For The Longest Time" -- some memory issues mean only M'Mairura and Leathers moved on.
5) Burnell Taylor and Tony Foster's group did well on "Some Kind of Wonderful" but not sure how memorable any of them will be.
6) Lazaro Arbos, who stutters, and his group showed off their smooth voices on "Wouldn't It Be Nice" with Arbos easily moving on due to his potential and great back story.
7) Gurpreet Singh Sarin's group failed on "Payphone," forgetting the lyrics, showing no ability to sing together and prompting the deliberating judges to throw out words like, "brutal" and "terrible." Oddly they all make it through -- based on their potential.
8) Trevor Blakney and Joshua 'Jada' Davila 's mismatched "Country Queens" group did a painful version of "More Than Words" -- no unity, forgotten words, no choreography.
9) Brooklyn's Frankie Ford and Papa Peachez had a lot of drama in their group. Ultimately we'll remember Ford -- who sobbed before the song and after when he was cut -- as someone with a ton of potential who just had an emotional meltdown under the pressure of Hollywood.
