The journey is officially over for the contestants who auditioned in hopes of pursuing their dreams and singing to win a 5 million dollar contract on Fox’s The X Factor. The four judges, Demi Lovato, L.A. Reed, Brittany Spears, and Simon Cowell, put in their two cents on all of the final performers; however, the winner was ultimately decided by votes cast by the American public.

And the winner is: Tate Stevens.

What a shocker; another country artist makes his way to the top of a vocal competition.  Sound familiar to Scotty McCreery on American Idol last year

Country singers have been taking the nation by storm lately, but frankly, Tate didn’t deserve to win any more than third place winners Fifth Harmony—who somehow managed to beat out the incredibly talented band, Emblem 3, and make it to the finals.

Carly Rose Sonenclar, a 13 year old “alien,” according to Judge Simon Cowell, has by far more talent in her pinkie than all of the other finalists combined, yet country lovers prevailed and came through with the votes needed to have Tate Stevens beat this young superstar.

While the results were disappointing, Stevens is a respectfully good singer and seemingly a respectfully good person.  He accepted his win with incredible taste and got choked up as he saw all the support he had from family and people back in his hometown.  He is a likeable winner, but maybe not the most talented one.

Young Carly Rose was surprisingly calm after the news was announced, putting on a drastically more appropriate loss performance than Beatrice Miller, another young female contestant who was eliminated early in the competition.  Beatrice left absolutely sobbing, making things uncomfortable for just about everyone watching, in comparison making Carly Rose seem incredibly mature for her age.

All I can say is at least Fifth Harmony didn’t win.  These girls, who present quite a few sob stories every time there is a background video about their life, shouldn’t have made it to the finals, as Emblem 3, a band of three incredibly entertaining and energetic boys who not only can sing but can write their own music, deserved it much more.

But in the end, winning isn’t everything.  The boy band phenomenon that is sweeping the world is over pop group “One Direction,” who came in third place during last year’s X-Factor.  These third placers are currently more famous then the second or first place winners.  So don’t dismiss Carly Rose or groups such as Fifth Harmony or Emblem 3 just yet, they may be the people taking over the top record boards in a few months.