Since Malta doesn’t actually have a specific name for its national selection this year, going by the rather generic “Malta Eurovision Song Contest”, I’m just going to go with Malta ESC and hope that they think up a better name next time.

Denise — “Boy”
Straight out of the blocks, we have a pop song about desire. What disappoints me about this is that it builds but never really goes anywhere. Denise’s vocals are underutilised as demonstrated by her ability to gently hit some high notes at start of the final minute — so while it’s a Eurovision cliche, a big note would have made this more memorable, or at least some louder instruments. But then it’s hard to get too emotional about wanting to know someone’s name as per the lyrics, so it sticks to the theme of the singer playing it cool. I’ll give it credit for that.

Richard Edwards — “Hey Little”
Did someone forget to write the chorus to this song? It has a collection of lyrics with the goal of providing encouragement to the listener, a bridge that works quite well, and then the chorus … some vocalising? This track is too mawkish for my liking, but with such a strong focus on its lyrics, I think you’d be forgiven for expecting a bit more from the chorus than some ‘oooooh’s. Perhaps it’s me and what I think is the bridge is the chorus and the oooh-woahs are there to transition from chorus to verse. There’s a modern folk overtone to the song in terms of the music (think Mumford & Sons) which puts the theme of the lyrics into some context, but once again, this would have been a much stronger track without the vocalising — perhaps in modern folk style Edwards could have put a banjo solo in there?