Grab your pastizzi, darlings! Malta Eurovision Song Contest 2017, the national selection for Malta, will take place on 18 February. But before then, the Wiwi Jury — our in-house panel of music unprofessionals — will be reviewing and rating all 16 competing entries. We are kicking things off with Deborah C & Josef Tabone with their song “Tonight”. Does their duet do it for us? Read on to find out…
Deborah C & Josef Tabone – “Tonight”
“Tonight” reviews
Chris: Oh look, someone wrote lyrics to the backing track of 99% of vlogs. Or Viagra commercials. This isn’t getting me up, though. Deborah and Josef sound great together and I’m sure it’ll be great live. But we’ve seen this done so much better before. Give me Monika and Vaidas, give me Tone and Erik. Malta shouldn’t settle for a third-rate version of them.
Score: 5/10
Deban: “Tonight” doesn’t get my rocks off. Instead, it’s blowing me kisses from afar when I’m craving deeper intimacy. This song is sweet to be point of being sugary. I like the airy mood this duo create — one of light, breezy retro-folklore. It reminds me of Latvia’s “Cake To Bake”. Many listeners will love it, but probably won’t cast their votes for it.
Score: 6/10
Robyn: It’s hard to listen to “Tonight” and not be reminded of the dozens of television commercials and promotional videos that have used similar songs as their soundtrack. Which is a pity, because “Tonight” is a really sweet song. Deborah and Josef’s voices sound lovely together, and the song has a really enjoyable structure and melody. It’s a shame that it sounds like they’re advertising life insurance.
Score: 6.5/10
William: Put away the Prozac and tell the therapist you’ll call her in a few months — “Tonight” banishes any and all bad feelings instantly! Unlike the competition — which includes plenty of divas riding the EDM wave — Deborah C & Josef give a finger to trends, instead going for something deliberately hokey, throwback and cheesy. Normally that would turn me off. But they complement each other so well and add just the right amount of longing to elevate this beyond cliché. Hawaiian luau, British BBQ, Maltese wedding — this song cuts across borders and makes me want to celebrate. It’s love.
Score: 8/10
Josh: This song is bloody adorable, and wiwibloggs loves some Deborah C. But all I’m hearing in the instrumental is a royalty-free background song for a Tyler Oakley vlog. Or perhaps a song used in the background of a TV advert for toilet paper. It sounds incredibly cheesy and quite cheap. It’s cute, and it’s fine. A middle of the pack entry for me.
Score: 5/10
Bernardo: Deborah C’s hit “All Around the World” was my jam while we were in Malta for Junior Eurovision 2016. But “Tonight” takes me back to the Disney movie Brother Bear. It’s giving me all the feels. The melody is so compelling and sweet, leaving you craving for more at the end. But it misses the wow factor to thrive and succeed. Nonetheless, I’m happy to see Deborah C back in MESC.
Score: 6/10
George: When the song began I was literally like, “What’s that, a TV commercial?”. Almost three minutes into the song and my initial feelings didn’t change that much. And then a completely misplaced and unnecessary key change came to finish it off. Then on second listen I was like “OK, the song is pretty catchy, has positive vibes, is well enough produced and the artists’ voices are fairly good.” And in fact, I do like the overall effect it has on the listener. Nevertheless, I feel it is just not suitable for Eurovision, or even MESC.
Score: 7/10
Our jury for the 2017 Malta Eurovision Song Contest contains 14 jurors, but we only have room for seven reviews. The remaining seven scores are listed below.
Antranig: 4.5/10
Dayana: 8/10
Forrest: 2/10
Jordi: 6/10
Luis: 3/10
Ramadan: 5.5/10
Zakaria: 3/10
Before calculating the average score, the highest and lowest scores are dropped. This is to remove outliers and reduce potential bias. We have removed a low of 2 and a high of 8.
This is far too sickly sweet for me. Like something you would hear at a Mormon picnic…
It sounds like a commercial background indeed. Besides, judging by Deborah C’s last year performance, what are the chances of her actually delivering this live?
Yes, especially at the beginning, I imagine myself ready to watch a commercial on TV. However, I like this song, I also find it enjoyable. It reminds me of “Tomorrow” in 2013. I loved that song and it did really well. This doesn’t mean that if sent “Tonight” can do the same, but I can see it qualify. Like it.
As someone who actually used to do corporate videos for a living, I can confirm what other folks are commenting: The backing track sounds **exactly** like royalty-free production library music – from three years ago. There was a big craze with happy ukuleles and glockenspiels and whistling, and I can’t believe someone has … well, actually I can if it’s Malta. Anyway, if this song gets anywhere, there will be terrible bloody restitution. The video editors of the world have been struggling for three years to rid humanity of this scourge, and there’s NO WAY we’re going to let the… Read more »
THe song sounds like someone who hates music and the people who listen to it rewrote Gianluca’s song.
Hate it. 2/10
This song is BS. People overrate Deborah C. and she’s a big mess live. This is my least favorite song out of the 16.
Considering it’s not the best it still is not that bad. I find it quite enjoyable 🙂
It sounds something someone would improvise at the church club. The amount of tonight/right/light/bright rhymes makes this already cheesy enough song so cheap and painful to listen to.