Why do they vote out the good acts?

So tonight was the first of the X-Factor live shows for 2006. You may remember last year I confessed a guilty love for the X-Factor, and expressed my outrage at Brenda – my favorite contestant – being voted out. Well now, it’s happened again. The act that I’d had my eye on since the very first audition is out. The Unconventionals gave the unequivocal best performance of the show – they’re this wonderfully unpretentious 6 piece group, all with voices which blow the rest of the singers out of the competition. You should hear them acapella – just amazing, and fantastic, interesting vocal arrangements which they do themselves.

But according to the phone voting polls, they were one of the two lowest scoring acts. Dionne, being just another boring girlie singer, was chosen by Simon-No-Taste-Cowell to stay in the competition. Simon Cowell – I don’t have a secret crush on him anymore, I think his comments to The Unconventionals was WAY out of line – he said they were messy, and that 2/3rds of them were singing out of tune. Simon Cowell, who probably wouldn’t be able to recognise, let alone sing a concert A if his life depended on it. The Unconventionals tuning was SPOT on. I say this without bragging, but I have perfect pitch. They were PERFECT. Simon was wrong, smug, and utterly obnoxious, and I hereby renounce him as my secret crush.

What gets me is that even the British Gaming Industry was giving pretty good odds to The Unconventionals. So why were they in the Bottom Two, when they were the Golden Children of the show?

Here’s my theory – most people text in their votes on their mobile phones, and the count is done automatically. Has anyone ever tried to SPELL “unconventionals” on their mobile phone? I had to erase it and start again several times (yes, I voted for them – it’s called putting your money where your mouth is!!) and TRAIN my phone how to spell it (didn’t like the s on the end). Even then, I realised that I’d voted wrong, and had to re-vote. I think when they look at all the phone votes they had over the next week, they’ll find ten thousand or so MIS-SPELLED votes for these guys.

I truly hope they release an album, I’ll be looking out for it!