AMAZING!! So modern, so catchy! Builds amazingly, and you can hear the Molly PH touch which is a massive plus for me. Certain top 10 surely?

This has me FAR more excited than Chameleon. I feel like this will be my favourite female-led entry of the year.

Love it! Dear god semi one is going to be an absolute bloodbath.

Those verses...that production...the gospel touches towards the end.

 

That's a fantastic entry, Ira <33333

I am dragged. This is SO good!

Good god. I think this will pip Russia to the runners up slot.

This is exactly what this year needs :wub:

Very good. A lot better than Chameleon and while I'm not TOO sure on its chances in a live format, it sounds pretty great in studio version. Especially those little background vocal touches throughout it.

A poster on ESC United is saying that Ira's backing singers will be Pamela and Anna Azzopardi (two of Malta's best gospel singers) and... Molly Pettersson Hammar! :cheer: Hope it's true :wub:

Molly PH is in Malta now rehearsing with Ira so it's true!

Malta is one of my favourites, but I think Ira Losco isn´t very nice. There is an interview to Ira in esctrevistas.blogspot.com.es

Malta's never-ending budget continues to surprise us with its never-endingness, they have now paid for sponsored posts on Facebook feeds of several Eurovision countries with special pictures to go along with them - as well as the chance to win a holiday to Malta!

 

Here's what you will see on Facebook if you are Slovene:

 

http://www4.slikomat.com/13/0514/xbk-132459.png

 

...or if you are Lithuanian:

 

http://i.cubeupload.com/VwcHR2.png

 

Bulgaria and Estonia are among many others who also have been given this treatment. I can't work out if it is genius promotion or just a bit cheeky but nevertheless it's funny! :kink:

And the running joke of Malta's never-ending budget for Ira has now substantial evidence to prove it was seemingly the case! There is a mini uproar in Malta by some journalists and even the Archbishop of Malta over the "unprecedented" spending by broadcaster PBS for their Eurovision 2016 project. Just the delegation's flights and hotel to and in Stockholm reportedly cost over €100,000 - a cost that would normally be what Malta spends in a whole year on Eurovision.

 

On top of this were the ditched "hologram coat" which cost €80,000 alone, the ditched technology that went with it, promotional visits to 4 pre-parties as well as Armenia, the Balkans and more and finally the Maltese Eurovision Preview Party which PBS paid for and also paid for all of the acts that came to it. PBS reportedly did give Ira a 'limitless budget' to do everything they can to win.

 

One source has estimated Malta spent over €1 million on their Eurovision 2016 campaign!

 

Wiwibloggs

I guess the spending makes sense, as a Eurovision win would be a huge tourism boost in Malta and pay for itself quickly, and Ira's their biggest star so they probably figured that this was their best shot in a long time. I wonder how much of the budget was spent persuading SVT to give Destiny a spot to promote the JESC? :lol:

 

Pretty embarrassing then that Ira only got televoting points from three countries but - and I say this as a huge fan of hers for 14 years - everything about the performance and campaign felt a little cold and clinical, the complete opposite to the charm and warmth she bought to Tallinn in 2002 with 7th Wonder. And sadly this time around there were other singers doing the same thing she was doing better, and no amount of money spent can change that.

Edited June 29, 20169 yr by gooddelta

I agree, it is still easily in my top 10 of 2016 studio-wise but live it did fall flat. Ira was fighting for the same female pop uptempo votes as the likes of Poli, Laura and Zoe (although the latter was more of a niche anyway) and unfortunately this time round Ira had none of the charm or staging those three had. You could sort of say Zoe this year was what Ira was in 2002 with the youthful charm and slightly childish (that's not a criticism as I love 7th Wonder and Loin d'ici) but fun song (more so staging-wise for the childishness of Loin d'ici). I'm assuming she also suffered from coming after Jamala.

 

Ira was probably in my bottom 5 on the night of the final based on the live performance which was fine but just a bit nothingy after the spectacular first few seconds with Ira's face on the LED floor. Luckily the jury votes (even though I'm sure there was some dealings going on there) dragged her up and gave her about the right result as the live performance didn't do the song justice for me.

 

I really wish the hologram thing had worked as I wonder what it was supposed to look like. I know we were all fed up of hi-tech stage shows but the staging we ended up with did feel empty and you could tell something was missing.

I agree, it is still easily in my top 10 of 2016 studio-wise but live it did fall flat. Ira was fighting for the same female pop uptempo votes as the likes of Poli, Laura and Zoe (although the latter was more of a niche anyway) and unfortunately this time round Ira had none of the charm or staging those three had. You could sort of say Zoe this year was what Ira was in 2002 with the youthful charm and slightly childish (that's not a criticism as I love 7th Wonder and Loin d'ici) but fun song (more so staging-wise for the childishness of Loin d'ici). I'm assuming she also suffered from coming after Jamala.

 

Ira was probably in my bottom 5 on the night of the final based on the live performance which was fine but just a bit nothingy after the spectacular first few seconds with Ira's face on the LED floor. Luckily the jury votes (even though I'm sure there was some dealings going on there) dragged her up and gave her about the right result as the live performance didn't do the song justice for me.

 

I really wish the hologram thing had worked as I wonder what it was supposed to look like. I know we were all fed up of hi-tech stage shows but the staging we ended up with did feel empty and you could tell something was missing.

 

I'd agree with all of that, it's still in my top 10 studio-wise but the live performance was just 'there' really. It's a shame they didn't have a backup plan to make the staging slightly more interesting than it was, considering the absence of the hologram technology.

Pretty embarrassing then that Ira only got televoting points from three countries but - and I say this as a huge fan of hers for 14 years - everything about the performance and campaign felt a little cold and clinical, the complete opposite to the charm and warmth she bought to Tallinn in 2002 with 7th Wonder.

So true. The bump rubbing at the end of the performance was so off-putting after everything I'd seen from her in the weeks leading up to the final. When she met Amir she seemed quite warm to me but that was the only time it seemed like she was at all friendly or looked like she was having any fun.

 

I wanted Ira to do better than she did but you can point out so many reasons for her doing badly. I was most disappointed by the sense of complacency the performance had - they really should not have thought that they could just remove what was apparently the main draw of the performance and not change anything in compensation.

The first sign I felt something was off personally was the London Preview Party, I was so excited to see her live and she underwhelmed me a bit. I mean she was vocally competent but it was all a bit phoned in, and she was fulfilling a duty rather than wanting to be there, whereas all the others genuinely loved the buzz and warmth of the crowd.

 

And then when she refused to perform 7th Wonder in its original guise because it was 'too cheesy' and just performed an acoustic chorus, the writing was on the wall for me. Don't bite the hand that feeds you. Eurovision made her what she is now, yet she treated it as a business transaction, and it showed.

Ira repeatedly mentioned in her interviews about Malta being a small country that struggles to get votes for that reason and it did confuse/annoy me that she bought into that UK-esque reasoning considering televotes alone (well in most cases) put her 2nd place in 2002 - maybe Lithuania effectively handing Latvia the win at the end left a sour taste in her mouth. That said, she did counter act that argument with the fact she believes a good song will still do well so there's that at least.

 

But overall, Ira was still one of my favourite contestants this year despite a few of these points. I loved watching all of her random Maltese food tasting (country advertising again!) sessions with different Eurovision acts on Facebook and she was always happy to be interviewed by every fansite at every single pre-party. It's just a shame that in the end I think the utter desperation to win by the Maltese broadcaster just ruined things a little bit.

 

Maybe if Ira hadn't been shipped off for endless promo appearances she wouldn't have been so tired/bored/under pressure by halfway through April. But there was the feeling that maybe her heart wasn't completely in it from the beginning as you say, maybe entering 2 songs into the national selection and immediately hinting she wanted yet another song once she won was a sign of things to come. But she and Walk On Water are probably my favourite Maltese Eurovision package (Firelight run her close) since I really really got into Eurovision in the late 2000s so I'm glad everything happened as it did!