Malta Song for Europe 2006

It's that time of year again, the Malta Song for Europe is tonight, after which Malta's representative for the 2006 Eurovision will be chosen.

Toni's post reminded me about it this morning, actually. I don't have time to sit down and go through all the entries like I did last year, because I am off to have lunch with friends, but I did have time to download all the samples, bung them on my mp3 player, and listen while doing my ironing and general dashing-around-getting-ready (a reminder that hairbrushes and clip-on earphones are a bad combination).

This year the sound quailty of the samples was great, unlike last year, but this time we only got 40 seconds (one fifth) of each song instead of the whole thing. Not bad, but in a couple of songs this meant we missed the choruses.

Anyway, here's my impression:

As usual we have quite a few europop songs, with synthesized, uninspiring backing tracks and insipid lyrics that are either about peace and love in all of Europe, or a whiny tirade against an ex-girl/boyfriend.

Then there are some ballads, and unfortunately in most of them the singers are not able to do the song justice. In a ballad the focus is more on the voice, and without power behind that voice, the song flops. Meh.

Also, (warning, pet peeve coming up) I can live with Maltese singers who are incapable of pronouncing "th" as "th", and instead say "t" or "d", because hey, that's a Maltese accent and here we are, Maltese people living in Malta. But I cannot STAND people who instead replace almost every "t" with a "th", as if to show that they can make the sound. It's "truly", not "thruly", ok?

And ANOTHER thing, why the American accents? Eh?

Here's some musical bits I like: the cello at the beginning of 'Echoes of Gaia', the drums in 'I promise you', the music in J. Anvil's 'You Too', the African-style chorus of singers and the hand drums in 'Reachin' Out'.

As regards songs as a whole (i.e. including the voice), Trilogy in "This Heart of Mine" had good music, what sounds like a real piano, rich voices, nice. Not my preferred style, but I will say that it is well-performed, prosit. Likewise for Kevin Borg in 'You're My Dream', both the music and the voice were nice, again prosit.

And the one song that I am raving about, I love it, it's now set to "repeat" on my mp3 player: Nadine Axisa in 'Waves'.

It's got LOVELY music, and that voice is perfect for that song. I have lately been listening to Norah Jones and Katie Melua, and she puts me in mind of them.

Prosit :-)

P.S. I wrote the above without knowing which singer or song any of it was, my notes were based on the numbers showing on my mp3 player, e.g. "7 - poppy". I filled in the names after writing the post, and I was surprised to find that it was Nadine Axisa that I liked, because I'd heard her name earlier in the week but never heard her sing before. Cool.

Comments

[Toni Sant]

Good to see I'm not a lone nut. ;-)

A little comment about the fact that we only have clips this year: the Maltasong Board requested (quite politely I should say) that the full song MP3s are not place on EurovisionMalta.com because they would like to sell the CDs they've produced. Fair enough...even though it would have been much better if they made the CD available for sale or the songs for sale as a download through the same site. They'll get it right in a few years time. As for the better sound quality on the clips, this is simply a matter of bandwidth usage/availability. Shorter clips means less bandwidth usage, therefore better compression rates, etc.

Question for MaltaGirl, and anyone else who care to answer: Keeping in mind that the Maltasong people are not willing to give the songs away for free as good quality MP3s, do you prefer good quality short clips or poor quality full songs?

[MaltaGirl]

I would prefer poor quality full songs, because it bugs me to hear a piece of music that finishes before it should. J. Anvil's song from last year is STILL on my mp3 player a year later, poor quality that it is. Besides that I like listening to it, it's only half a megabyte so when I'm making space for new songs, I generally leave it on there.

If MaltaSong want to make revenue from their CD, they should pester the police to shut down once and for all the Monti stalls that sell pirated CDs. And while they're at it, ditto for the DVDs and Playstation games. For shame.

And while we're on the subject, yes I would gladly pay to download the Waves mp3.

[salvu bugeja]

as I love this festival this year I found something missing in music,dont tell me what it is.as Toni Sant said Olivia and eleonor songs are very far from last year songs.Yesterday I watched XARABANK and as usual we are going to see lots of old fashion dresses,when we are going to learn to wear more new fashion ?

salvu
music lover

[Coemgen]

I think that pre-festival, I would go for poor quality full songs.
I would buy the CD if it were to be put on sale rather than pay to d/load it.
Having said this and not having heard any of the songs yet, I might buy the CD or not bother at all, depends. Tonight I'll be in a better position to decide if it is worth investing in or not.

[Athena]

I fail to see why we can't have decent quality mp3s to stream/download. Surely it's in the singers' best interests to have as many people as possible listen to their music? As for pirate cds, simple, shut down the monti stalls. Everybody and his dog knows they sell pirated stuff so honestly why the heck are they still trading?! I really wish record companies would do a massive swoop on Malta and sue the heck out of stall owners for breach of copyright. I'm actually surprised it hasn't happened yet, considering the number of people who have been sued for downloading illegal films and music from kazaa etc. And no, I never have and never will buy pirated stuff from the monti. Call me silly, but I take copyright issues very seriously.

[Athena]

PS Forgot to add, I'm happy to pay to download the songs I like. I think it would've been good to stream the songs for free and then charge to download. Speaking of which, has iTunes reached the Maltese Isles yet?

[Kenneth]

Speaking of which, has iTunes reached the Maltese Isles yet?

Nope

[Andre]

If only I could find the Mp3 of "Waves". It's was my favourite song and it was by far the best song.

[Athena]

I'd feel lost without iTunes. Could you buy from the UK shop anyway? Maaa, not that I want to get on my usual technology rant, but the prices of computers in Malta make my eyes hurt and my brain fizz. I just saw the price in LM for MacBook Pro and I feel sick. I s'pose I shouldn't ask if they give a student discount, like they do everywhere else.

[Coemgen]

Better not ask Athena! You'll be only poking your finger in our wounded pockets:)

[Zemploid]

*ouch*
Athena ... you've really touched a sore point.
No - we still can't purchase downloads from iTunes from The Rock. To download songs your credit card address must be registered in, broadly speaking, any of the old 15 EU member states.

Which leaves me with no choice.
I'm not prepared to pay the ridiculous prices that we pay for CD's over here (and in case, I'm only interested in single tracks, never entire albums), and I have no means of downloading legally.

Having said that, I'm pleased to hear that most people here loved Nadine Axisa's song too.
It was, in my very humble opinion, by far the best song of the evening but, alas, I must bow my head to the 8000 voters who could look and listen to Fabrizio Faniente without cringing, and remark that democracy is not always a good thing in matters involving good taste.

[Kenneth]

Athena, it's a known fact that any Apple product in Malta is insanely expensive.

[Coemgen]

Lately even Kiwi and Oranges are expensive Ken!
hehehe

[Daft Lad]

I watched the Malta Song for Europe show on Saturday and congratulations to the organisers for managing to make me laugh non-stop from beginning to end. The sound issue (or lack of), the costumes (did a parrot fly into that awful woman presenter?), the dancing (men in black strappy dresses pretending that their hands are birds), the bored crowd that paid Lm 17 to watch (you can see Phantom in London for that price)and not to forget some of the music, which in true Eurovision style was at best, terrible.....wonderful, wonderful nonesense. Can't wait for next year.

[Charmaine Borg]

well..i think it was a great night...apart from the sounds there were good songs..good talent we have

[coemgen]

Daft Lad: Really I felt like crying rather than lough out loud non stop!

Charmaine: No comment! I think I did comment more than enough:)

can u do lyrics?????????

[ff]

fab is exy and cool good luck mwaaaaaaaaa

[ff]

fab is exy and cool good luck mwaaaaaaaaa