Moving on to the first two chicks in the line-up! Two happy go lucky girlie entries about brand new days, a whole lotta freakin sunshine, rainbows, unicorns and whatnot. Cute, but maybe a tiny tad too cute?
Cute from Davinia
Davinia has made quite a name for herself on the Maltese music scene at the tender age of 21, and last year she was second runner up in MESC. As an artist she clearly means serious business. She seems to know that to get ahead of the race you not only need talent, a lot of hard work and practice have to be invested as well. Her vocal technique is skilled, she knows how to work the camera, and she has some very Eurovisonesque strutting about going on. Nothing wrong with her ambitions in other words and we’ll always support hardworking women! But do we like the song? Nah, not really. Halfway through the song we kinda overdose on mannerism. Tone it down, girl! It’s absolutely fine to show off a characteristic voice, but overplaying it just puts us off.
The 60s retro sound is represented by quite a few major stars nowadays with the likes of Adele, Duffy, Janelle Monáe and the late Amy Winehouse in the forefront. Big shoes to fill for Davinia from Malta. She’s not quite there yet. Besides, the genre tend to not do well in ESC either. Next please!
Extra cute from Sophie
Sofie DeBattista is cute as a button with her pink hair and radiant smiling face. You have to have a heart made of stone not to be charmed by her summery little ditty. When we close our eyes we picture us selves driving down the coast on a warm and breezy afternoon in our summer vacation. Let the sunshine in is a perfect summer hit and we bet it will get quite a lot of radio airplay regardless of how it will place in MESC.
It’s rather similar to last Tomorrow, isn’t it? But even though Malta had great success last year, we’re not quite sure it’s a smart move to send the same kinda song again. And where the sweet doctor Gianluca managed to tell a story and keep us interested all through his designated three minutes, Sophie starts running on empty fairly quickly with too many oh-oh-oh’s. Singalong friendly and easy to get hooked on, yes. Groundbreaking and durable, no.
And what to make of Sophie’s dominatrix look? A cotton dress with floral prints would have been very predicable and boring on her, but making her look like a member of the Addams Family to contrast the sweetness of the song is perhaps taking it a bit too far.