Idol Chatter & Voice Views

She came within a whisker of being the first female winner of American Idol in five seasons.

She came within a whisker of being the first contestant to go on to win the competition after being saved by the judges.

And she came within a whisker of being the youngest winner ever on Idol.

In the end, 16-year-old Jessica Sanchez finished second to Phillip Phillips.  On Thursday afternoon, she talked to the media about Idol and her plans for the future.

*  She’d like her future music to be urban/R&B, ” with a little bit of pop, but not much.”  She wants the “gritty side” of her sound to come out.  Definitely “not bubble gum” pop.

* She says she really wanted to sing a Prince song on the show, but couldn’t get the clearance.

* She says she wasn’t surprised at all by the results. She knows Phillip has a strong song base and that he’s “an artist.”  She says she’s “proud” of Phillip and “happy” for him. “He deserved it 100 percent.”

* For the single, she says,  “I really had a day to pick, and they didn’t give us many choices.” Now that she has time, she wants to make sure she picks a first single that’s “100 percent me.”

* She says she didn’t lose confidence after the judges’ save. It made her want to work harder.  But she thinks it backfired a little bit because she concentrated so much on singing the songs as well as possible, she sometimes didn’t feel them as deeply as she should have.

* She says she would have liked to have won to break the guy’s reign.  She dodged the question of whether she really thinks a girl can win the show at this point.

* She says one of the big challenges moving forward is shedding the “American Idol contestant” label and establishing themselves as true artists.

* When she tried out, she hoped to get “two minutes on TV.”  She had no idea she’d advance as far as she did.

* She hopes other teens learn from her experience, that if they want something bad enough, they just need to put their mind to it.