Malta 2024: Sarah Bonnici with ‘Loop’

With a heavy jury weighting, MESC was comfortably won in the end by Sarah Bonucci, squishing Matt Blxkx’s ‘Banana’ under her heels:

Hmm, I wonder where this could have drawn inspiration from, it’s a real puzzler. 90% of the comments under that video seem to believe there’s similarities to ‘Slo Mo’ but I just don’t see that. In all seriousness, Malta, PBS, Sarah - mix this up a bit - at least go for a different outfit or something. There are some nice ideas in here with the flip quite well executed and the blindfold gimmick has potential in taking things to the next level which is necessary to escape the comparisons. ‘Slo Mo’ of course started it’s journey in the fandom being a ‘Fuego’ copy until they were able to raise the game beyond that.

I’m not for a second suggesting that will happen here but give it a go, one of the worse things you can be in the contest is compared unfavourably to others and right now this is the status of ‘Loop’. Rather than a decent pop performance this is unavoidably “Chanel from Wish”. The Tldr: go bigger and better or go different to that. Sarah does an OK job with the vocals here even if the tone is off in places but with months to work on this it could end up a slick enough performance.

The removal of the juries from the semi finals was always expected to hit Malta the hardest of any and they don’t have an ideal draw being in the first half of semi 2. I can see why their own juries would have this as a comprehensive winner, but I’m not sure they’ve thought this through all the way. You don’t necessarily need to engage in a race to the bottom with the Netherlands in here desperately chasing any easy televote points but I guess we’ll see who’s approach pays off more. Spain France and Italy are possibly the best combination of big 5/hosts to get for this summer bop style which is a plus. Czechia also look out of the qualification race and there’s a few typically weaker countries in here which offers a bit of hope. Overall, I have 9 countries looking stronger/expected stronger, 1 weaker and a few unknowns so this is more out than in. If it does get to the final escaping the 20s would be an acheivement.

Personal Rating : 6/10

Competitive Rating: 4/10

Early Prediction: Semi 2 10th-14th, 19th-23rd if in the final.