The 16-year old Filipina-Mexican Jessica Sanchez moves on to the American Idol Season 11: FINAL ROUND. So far, she is the first ever Filipina to have made it to this level in the prestigious singing competition.
Ryan Seacrest, the show’s host, first announced Jessica Sanchez as one of the Top 2 finalists. He then declared Phillip Phillips to be the other contestant who made it to Top 2, leaving Joshua Ledet as the eliminated one. Ledet, therefore, got the lowest number of votes from America.
The announcement of the result was made Thursday night (Friday morning, Manila time). Sanchez and Phillips supporters cheered for their idols, then celebrated when their idol’s name was announced.
Jessica Sanchez is the 1st ever contestant with a Filipino heritage to have made it to this point. The farthest that a Filipino has ever reached in this competition before was Top 3, and it was Jasmine Trias of Season 3. Another Fil-AM, Ramiele Malubay, made it Top 9 during the 7th season. Thia Megia, on the other hand, only made it to Top 11 last year on Season 10.
This episode was composed of 3 rounds. First round was the judges’ choice, the second was the idol’s choice, and the third round was the mentor, Jimmy Lovine’s, choice. Here is the list of song that the 3 idols performed:
- Jessica Sanchez
- My All by Mariah Carey
- I Don’t Wanna Miss A Thing by Aerosmith
- I’ll Be There by Jackson 5
- Beggin by The Four Seasons
- Disease by Matchbox ’20
- We’ve Got Tonight by Bob Seger
- I’d Rather Be Blind by Etta James
- Imagine by John Lennon
- No More Drama by Mary J. Blige
The final round, which will be between the 21-year old Phillip Phillips and the 16-year old Jessica Sanchez, will be on May 23. Phillips won the ceremonial coin toss, and he chose to perform second next week.
Sanchez’ Performance
This episode has 3 rounds. The 1st round was the judges’ — Steven Tyler, Jennifer Lopez, and Randy Jackson — choice. For Sanchez’ song, it was Lopez who chose the song.
Lopez picked a hard song, My All by Mariah Carey. But Sanchez managed to pull it off greatly, even with a sore throat. Yes, Sanchez did that amazing performance with a sore throat. She admitted on Twitter the day before the competition that she was having a throat problem. Nonetheless, she did an amazing performance for My All.
For the 2nd round, it was the idol’s choice of song. Sanchez made the bold choice of singing Aerosmith’s legendary song I Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing. It was a very critical pick since one of the Aerosmith’s members happened to be one of the judges, Steven Tyler.
Fortunately, Tyler liked Sanchez rendition of his song. He even gave Sanchez a standing ovation and complemented that she “just took a great song and made it greater”, which according to Lopez was a big deal because Tyler doesn’t usually like covers of his own songs.
Jimmy Lovine, one of this season’s mentors, made the pick for the 3rd round. He chose I’ll Be There by Jackson 5 for Sanchez.
Lopez and Tyler loved her performance; Lopez even said that she really sounded like the king of pop Michael Jackson. Randy Jackson, however, did not totally loved her rendition. He said he liked it okay, but did not love it. He remarked that Sanchez performance lacked “moment-moment”.
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