MALTA

The Maltese final was held on February 12th at the Mediterranean Conference Centre in Valletta. The semi-final was held the day before when 24 songs had been reduced to 16. The Maltese entry this year is “One Life” sung by Glen Vella who has three female backing singers and two male dancers. The visuals of this song are trying to be a bit Lady Gaga/Kylie/Pet Shop Boys with the backing singers in black coats and red glasses and the dancers with stage triangular kneed trousers and red full face visors.

The song is more or less a late ‘80s early 90’s Hi-NRG record. The intro to the song is very retro. I get the feeling it is trying to be modern but to me it feels very dated and old. The song contains a lot of stereotypical lyrics and doesn’t really go anywhere new. The chorus itself is actually very long and have lots of separate tunes and parts, and attention is lost quite quickly. In fact the whole song feels very short even though it lasts the whole 3 minutes. Will be interesting to know if the song undergoes any remixing or tweaking before it enters the semi final.

Glen is an OK singer. His voice is a little shrill at times and his diction is not always perfect, especially during the lower toned verses. In fact during the choruses, the quality of the backing singers just shows you where his flaws are. He is very enthusiastic and gets a lot of audience participation during his performance. It is definitely the type of song that will get the Eurovision crowd up on their feet. The song could have been done so much more justice by someone with a much rounder voice with a bit more soul.

A poor effort from Malta this year, do you agree?


SINGER – Glen Vella
SONG – One Life
MUSIC – Fleur Balzan
WORDS - Paul Giordimaina