MALTA 2021

The Maltese song was revealed on March 15th, with the video being uploaded to the Eurovision youtube account. Destiny, who was due to be their entrant in 2020 after winning X Factor Malta, was internally reselected to appear in 2021.Her song is titled "Je me casse" (I break)

The video is a mish mash of various scenes and situations with Destiny in a number of different outfits and hairstyles - all of which look fabulous! At some points she is singing to a topless man (as you do) as well as having a number of different backing dancers around her, also in different states of costuming. There doesn't seem to be a specific storyline to the video apart from near the end when Destiny is looking rather presidential and shouting  through a loudhailer.

The song starts with a very catchy, repetitive and funky bassline. Destiny's vocal style really suits this  style of song as her voice contains so much character you don't need many instruments. The parts of this song thought are short and sharp and soon enough we are in the pre-chorus which is more chanted/spoken before getting into the chorus proper which is rather plain compared to everything before it. The outro of chorus has a terrible brass earworm running through it which makes it sounds a bit silly. We then return tot the start of the cycle after just over a minute. After the second rendition of teh chorus we have a rather long bridge - I say long in comparison to all the other bits in the song - and then a final chorus which ends a little too abruptly.

As a child, Destiny participated in various singing competitions in Malta and the Mediterranean region including SanRemo Junior in Italy. In 2015 she came to worldwide prominence by winning Junior Eurovision with "Not My Soul" In 2017 she entered Britain's Got Talent, qualifying to the live shows but not reaching the final. In 2019, Destiny came to Eurovision as a backing singer for Michela Pace who won the chance to represent Malta by winning X Factor Malta. The next year Destiny took part on the competition herself winning the competition and was therefore was supposed to represent Malta in 2020.

This song has so much promise and potential but a couple of production decisions have killed this song for me. I love the start and the verses, but from there things start to unfurl. The chanting parts before the chorus are totally unnecessary, as well as including some super basic rhyming which makes it sound a little tacky. As for the chorus, it's not bad; I almost wish that the verses were actually the chorus and vice versa (I don't know if that is actually possible) Also, I don't actually understand why the words "Je me casse" are in the song at all. The meaning of the phrase doesn't seem to fit with the rest of the song plus - unless it's just to make the 'excuse my French' gag or curry favour with Francophiles - I don't get why it's in French at all. I end up listening to this song feeling a little crestfallen. Destiny is Premiership standard but this song is barely in the Vanarama National League. That all said and done, she will perform the hell out of this and the those who have been with her throughout her jESC/ESC journey will support her to the end.

ARTIST - Destiny
SONG - Je me casse (I break)
WRITING CREDITS - Pete Barringer, Malin Christin, Amanuel Dermont, Nicklas Eklund