Neither of the two finalist were anything exceptional, though Phillips might have a future due to his unique voice in the vein of Joe Cocker or Rod Steward and others with slightly off tones in their voice.
There have been many like Sanchez on AI before, singing Whitney Houston and not all that well.
There have been two female singers on AI that compare favorably with Sanchez: Underwood and McPhee.
Sanchez is astonishing and it takes a fairly refined ear to tell the difference between her gift and the talents of the female also-rans from the preceding years
On top of that, she's only 16 years old. Whitney Houston was nowhere near Jessica's level at 16.
The Idol competition has become a joke. The cutest white guy strumming an acoustic guitar has won for the past five years. They were all marginally talented and won on the basis of tween girls and their mothers voting 50- 500 times each.