hands down the best whitney houston cover

16 year old jessica sanchez steals the show again with a cover of whitney houston's i will always love you. when she announced she would be singing the iconic ballad, america nodded along and spoke the words, "of course she is" to their tv sets.

with her big voice and even bigger stage presence, it just makes sense. my parents and i held our breaths while she sang for fear of disturbing the gorgeous melody with our jagged breathing. perhaps this only comes from the fat-cheeked little girl inside me, but when jessica was on stage, i felt like every little girl wanted to be her, in that blue dress, singing that song.

how exciting that we can add one more name to the list of asian americans that has america buzzing.

and fear not, i did not forget about heejun han. my boy was lookin' dapper tonight in his tux and french-cuffs, wasn't he?

his performance wasn't bad, but was no where near his best either. it was a little dull and flat with a few brief pitchy parts. the kid has mad swagger though and no doubt won a few extra votes when he presented jimmy iovine, who last week said he wasn't a fan of heejun, with an autographed picture of himself.

mary j. blige was the mentor tonight and upon hearing heejun sing for the first time mentioned, "he does not sound like i thought he would".  jlo said the same thing when he auditioned back in philly. there's the whole low expectations thing again.

listen, america, it has been 8 long years since william hung sang that horrendous cover of she bangs, and that shit still hangs over us and apparently weighs heavily on the judges' minds. we are not all william hungs. give us a fucking chance.

i think jessica sanchez will have america reevaluating their expectations of asian american artists.