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CHUCKY’S SHADE: Malta Should Only Enter The Eurovision Once Every Two Years

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Grand ideas are usually born of small triggers. When it comes to bettering Malta’s chance of success at the Eurovision, a potentially game-changing solution came from a bassa… literally.

Netta, Israel’s beat boxing, Eurovision champ dropped her new single earlier this week and the internet lost their collective mind. If your finger-counting-while-mouthing-months is as good as mine you’ll notice this single comes almost eight months after her big win.

Unlikely to be played on the local airwaves without the DJs having a good giggle, Bassa Sababa is the perfect example of good things coming to those who wait.

Post-win, Netta could have capitalised on her sudden fame, dropped a half-baked album and laughed all the way to the bank. As a TV singing competition winner she could even have called it something passive, like Moments.

But there’s no Fake Bitches here, and Netta stepped up from a chicken and went straight into rhino.

“Unlikely to be played without a giggle, Bassa Sababa is the perfect example of good things coming to those who wait”

To say time management isn’t Malta’s forté would be like saying the British “don’t mind” an occasional cup of tea. If the Maltese wrote the Mayan calendar we could expect the apocalypse some time around 2025.

Knowing we’re more delayed than a Russian TV stream of the Eurovision in the hopes they can censor anything that feels too gay, why aren’t we cutting our losses and taking the time to ensure we have a solid package to represent us?

All we need to do is stick the finger to tradition and take a year off between each contestant we send up.

I know, the thought of having a year without Eurovision hurts me too, but if teams with €250,000 video budgets and massive, international studio backing require eight months to churn out a banger – how do we expect to do it in one?

“Right now, in a room under the stairs of TVM, a team is power-writing all the words that rhyme with love – but doesn’t Michela deserve better than that?”

Right now a team is huddled in a room under the stairs at TVM, power-writing all the words they can think of that rhyme with “love” to give Michela, our island’s new sweetheart and a stunning vocalist, a fighting chance at the Eurovision.

But after battling it out for 16 weeks on the X Factor Malta stage, doesn’t she deserve better than that?

If we’re going to keep up this X-Factor-directly-tied-to-Eurovision farce, we need to take the extra time to craft the perfect song. The extra year means we get also get double our budget on music video creation, international promotion, costuming and so on. In doing so we’ll also buy some extra time to counteract the major downside (which is also the upside) of X Factor – most singers who audition there have never stepped on stage before.

Finally, once we have a winner, the nation should send them on tour across the continent, bring in some star producers to work in Malta and make a package worth screaming MALTE, DOUZE POINTE about.

As someone who can write perfectly well on a moving vehicle because I spent all my childhood doing my homework on the bus, I seriously understand there’s a risk we’ll leave it all till the last month anyway. But call me an optimist, I have high hopes that our Eurovision team has a bit more foresight than an acne-prone chubby kid with a consistent layer of Doritos crumbs on his jumper.

And if anecdotal evidence is more your thing, let’s take a look at our history and learn from it.

Chiara, The One That I Love (1998) – a banger.

Times Three, Believe ‘n Peace (1999) – cult classic, but skippable.

Claudette Pace, Desire (2000) – a banger.

Fabrizio Faniello, Another Summer Night (2001) – skippable.

Ira Losco, Seveth Wonder (2002) – a banger.

Lynn Chircop, To Dream Again (2003) – let’s not talk about it.

READ NEXT: CHUCKY’S SHADE: This Was Fun, But Let’s Bring The Malta Eurovision Song Contest Back

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