The Wiwi Jury — our in-house team of music unprofessionals — is reviewing and rating the 40 competing songs in Eurovision 2022. Next we review Malta, who have chosen Emma Muscat with “I Am What I Am”.
We are what we are, and we have our own opinions on the song. Read on to see!
Emma Muscat – “I Am What I Am” (Malta Eurovision 2022)
Review: Emma Muscat – “I Am What I Am”
Robyn: “I Am What I Am” is high camp. There’s the too simple lyrics of self-determination, the invisible gospel choir with Dotter’s voice standing out, and the perfectly groomed Emma being a serious artiste in her serious white suit and playing her serious piano. So the performance will work if it is allowed to take itself far too seriously and therefore go to lofty heights with its campness. Just please don’t let the Maltese delegation realise this and try to camp it up!
Score: 5.5
Pablo: Sadly, if there’s a package that displays the most wasted potential this year, it’s Malta. Sending Emma Muscat, a remarkable singer in Italy’s music industry, to an Italian-hosted Eurovision should be a recipe for extreme success. Instead, we have buried all that promise with the most by-numbers song we’ve heard in a while. “I Am What I Am” does not properly portray Emma’s talents. The uplifting message feels pandering and fake and, despite events around us, it’s completely disposable. All in all, a massive step back from Malta and a terrible misuse of someone with great star quality.
Score: 2
Antranig: Let’s be honest, Malta is a stock standard uplifting song in every way. There are so many clichés here that the song lacks a bit of personality. However, it has a catchy hook, which will always help in a recap, and I think that’s something Emma’s original song lacked. But I don’t know if it’s a significant enough improvement to stand out. Admittedly, it is a guilty pleasure of mine and I hope she can put together a performance to sell this.
Score: 7
William: Emma Muscat is a beautiful woman with a beautiful voice and, most importantly, a heart of gold. When you meet her in person, her sincerity and warmth shine through. But in reviewing the song I have to put those virtues to the side and judge the song on its own merits. Unfortunately “I Am What I Am” is bland, generic, predictable and appears to have been written by an Artificial Intelligence machine devoted to songs of empowerment and self-belief. On first listen you can literally predict what’s coming next. The saving grace comes in the final minute, where Emma does have the chance to show off her powerful vocals.
Score: 3.5
Luis: The problem here is that we’ve heard “I Am What I Am” a thousand times before. There’s nothing new nor exciting about Malta’s entry and it’s a shame, because Emma can perform and deliver this easily. Perhaps too easily. Sadly, Malta’s entry is far from a stand out this year: there’s little that remains in your head after it’s over.
Score: 5
Malta Eurovision 2022 ranking
In the Eurovision 2022 Wiwi Jury, we have 18 jurors but only have room for five reviews. The remaining scores are below:
Angus: 4 Cinan: 4.5 Deban: 5.5 Jonathan: 5.5 Josh: 5 Lucy: 5 Natalie: 6 |
Oliver: 2 Renske: 4.5 Ron: 6 Sebastian: 2 Suzanne: 7.5 Tom: 7 |
We have removed the highest and lowest scores prior to calculating the average. This is to remove outliers and potential bias. We have removed a low of 2 and a high of 7.5.
Wiwi Jury verdict: 4.88/10
What do you think of Malta’s Eurovision 2022 entry? Share your own score and review for Emma Muscat’s “I Am What I Am” below!
2.5 out of 10 for me. Her original song was a big scoop of vanilla, and I gave it a 3. How can a song-change be worse than the original selection, but this is what’s happened. Emma is a beautiful soul, her voice is amazing, but this song is a nothing song. It goes nowhere and does nothing.. it will be my coffee break song sad to say.
38.Malta – Firstly a piano ballad that turns into pop. The vocals are a bit shaky. I’m not sure if it’s memorable. It’s pointless to compare now, but the other guy had Maltese. Then they changed the song. And it became entirely scandi-pop. The whole concept is a bit shady. And it’s so, so generically basic.
6.5/10 (This score looks a little high, but I usually score higher.) I’m so happy we are seeing Emma at Eurovision, but like most other people i’m also disappointed that THIS is the song she is performing… I’m happy that she likes it, but for me it’s too generic and I don’t think it’ll stand out enough.
Personally, I like the song and I’m a sucker for a choir in a song. But I can see that the song is also as generic as they come. I would say this is a borderline qualifier, but with Australia performing two places later with a song with similar themes and a better performer, they may just cancel Malta out entirely. 6.5/10
Malta will never win with the approach they have taken in recent years of sending safe, good-but-not-great usually Swedish-penned entries. It will get them good results, but it will not get them the win.
I have to be honest and to say that “Out of sight” was way better that “I am what i am”. I really dont know what they were trying to achieve here but i dont think they did it properly. It’s a song so generic that you forget it after your first listen… However, i do think that it is ranked rather low, 4.88 is a low score for this song and for Emmas efforts…
I just can’t with Suzanne’s score. Lmao
I need somebody to compile her top 40 this year. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to see anything more.
I am on it. I am doing all thier top 40s… I do love Suzanne, but her music tatse is very unique
They should have worked to improve “Out of Sight.” That had some potential (we’ll never know how much), and it was a better song than whatever Malta’s sending this year.
The very definition of irrelevant. I’m sorry for Emma, but we’ll be fine if this song wasn’t in the contest. It’s boring and generic, nothing interesting to offer, nothing original, nothing that grabs you, nothing that bothers either. It feels very artificial and I fee it has no purpose at all. They needed a new song and “I Am What I Am” happened to be there. Don’t tell she is talking about inclusion and blah blah blah… because it is clear they are taking advantage of a topic that is trending nowadays. What’s worse, they are doing it in the… Read more »
Well here’s another one for My bottom 5!
The first sentence of Robyn’s review is about the Jerry Herman song, right? It can’t be about this one.
No go here. Lyrics audibly redundant, too cliché and overused. Big miscalculation here, because “Out of Sight” would have, at least, gotten her to the razor’s edge of qualifying. I can picture a decent stage setup with “Out Of Sight”, but not with “I Am What I Am”. In the battle of “I Am’s”, Israel takes it by a mile.
Completely off topic, but for some reason wiwibloggs never write any coverage about the ticket sale. Has anyone have any idea what the seating plan is, little reluctant to buy tickets (which I will anyway if I’m lucky enough to get on in time) when it’s so unclear what the different rings and categories are. Preferably I want standing tickets, would people assume this is the ring 1 category 1? Or maybe if you don’t mind standing at the back (which I prefer, not as cramped) is this ring 1 category 2. Or maybe there is no standing tickets at… Read more »
Hey, I thought I saw yesterday that everything is already sold out or do you mean something else?
Hey, no there are more tickets on sale tomorrow morning! I think that’s it then.
Stop trying to make Suzanne happen. At this point it’s embarrassing. She clearly doesn’t care about Eurovision.
5 out of those 7.5 points probably came from her thinking emma is pretty
I think people is jarred bc of the unusually low scores she usually gives go most songs, but I agree that it’s not worse than others overrating terrible entries
How about let a person be who she is?
She has her own taste of music, which yes is very different from what majority has in europe, but guess what, it’s ok to like different things!
Watching her videos, it’s pretty clear she likes songs with a message, women empowerment, believing in yourself, etc.
So for me, her score on this song is not surprising at all.
So yeah, leave Suzanne alone….
I think this is a very respectable attempt to bring some quality from Malta, instead of running after what Malta thinks will have more points. The message is indeed bland and seen, but I didn’t see anyone complaining about that for Destiny last year or for Netta… It has creative input form Emma and you can feel it in the song. Let’s face the fact that countries and artists are allowed not to bring a bop… Vocals are on point and classy ending. 6,5/10
i feel the exact opposite. this feels exactly like malta pandering for points, especially after out of sight was so badly received by fans. sorry, but i don’t want to listen to a pretty rich girl singing about how she is proud to be herself, like good for her but this isn’t a miss congeniality contest nor is it junior eurovision. there is no sense whatsoever that this entry comes from malta, but i suppose that’s to be expected given previous maltese entries. emma has loads of potential, but it was completely wasted on one of the worst song packages… Read more »
I actually kind of liked “Out of sight”. Wasn’t my favourite by any means, but I thought it was pretty good, personal to her and that she might elevate it live, perhaps even qualify.
To then replace it with a similar song that has had all the personality sucked out of it… it’s is just baffling. She deserved better.
Guys! I think I never was so much downvoted for saying a positive thing… Kinda sad…
Maltas song are so mutch better than Serbia Italy and Ukrain
She said she fell in love with the song when she heard it but she is referenced as a co-writer. She probably added one note. Or a comma.
Moral of the story: When you buy songs from Sweden that have a message, make it look natural.
It’s not that I like the song very much, but the writer said Emma reworked the lyrics and change the melody to piano driven one and not electronic.
Groundbreaking. I have chills.
Denmark, from what I’ve read.
Emma Muscat, a solo version of OG3NE…
“Stream Sangria by Emma Muscat and try not to mourn what could have been” challenge.
I listened to several of Emma’s songs recently, and with each new song, my disappointment over her ESC entry grew more and more. She’s made some cool bops. With the right product, Emma could have delivered as much as Chanel, for instance.
Listen to Teleromeo by K3 after streaming “Sangria”. You’re in for a surprise.
Nice. The Rasmus have a similar challenge!
Why didn’t she just buy a song from some writers she normally does her music with, this seems such a low effort? I have my doubts about this having a chance to qualify.
Juries will put her on 3-4th place because the song is jury-friendly and Malta is a juries-pet.
Let’s hope for a big televoting flopping so we don’t have to listen to this song twice. I feel sorry for Emma, but she could definitely insist on performing something of hers rather a Melodifestivalen reject.
There can be more than one juries-pet. Yes, Sweden is the biggest one, but Malta, Czechia and Azerbuyjan are classified as juries-pets, too.
Dear Emma… your success is based on latin/bachata styled hit songs in Italian. You could’ve gone for what you do best.
She could have. The Maltese broadcaster, however…
The Maltese broadcaster is the main and only problem
The Maltese broadcaster unfortunately has no say this year. Emma’s label has taken over the entire project. It’s all Warner Italia with hardly any input from the PBS.
It doesn’t look like the case, her label would’ve rather sent something more related to her repertoire and given her a better package, unless they’re sabotaging her
That is what we initially thought here. The label has taken complete ownership of the project. The music video wasn’t even filmed here… everyone involved is Italian (bar Emma).
While watching MESC, I was impressed by Emma’s crystal clear tone and how she can command a stage. So it’s deeply disappointing to notice that Malta had a 2nd chance to find a good song for a good performer and failed the task. In a sense “I Am What I Am” is the kind of entry that a while ago used to give Eurovision a bad name, that bland pop song with an empty uplifting message. To make things worse, without specifying the struggle she’s singing about, all I can see is a beautiful privileged woman having a pity party.… Read more »
2 out of 2 today, thus far. To a point. 🙂
Yeah, we were completely in sinc on those reviews. There are 2 more I can see we giving the same score. One bad review and one good review. And there’s a couple I guess we will stay 0.5 apart.
I mean, even being a beautiful woman from a wealthy family, she may had suffered through life, not even privileged people are imune to problems. But the song doesn’t tackle her reasons and in the music video she’s surrounded by minorities like she was facing the same struggle. It’s a very weird entry. It unsettles me much more than Amanda suggesting a Romeo & Juliet approach to her lover or Ochman daydreaming about being taken by a river. 😀
I definitely agree with you about the song’s bland empty message. Her unexplained ‘master plan’ must also be a secret plan. I think the video is an attempt to add some depth to the song, where the message and meaning is vapid and lacking. The assemble of extras does feel slightly tokenistic but that’s somewhat of a Catch 22 in these things – if it was a less representative cast, Emma would be receiving scorn for not having been more inclusive. If it was cynically tokenistic, the video may have just add a cast of racially different people in the… Read more »
The video used people as props like bad advertising. And the whole aesthetics feel like a parody. I know they rushed to come up with it, but the result is terrible.
Yeah, I don’t disagree with your take on it – I think they meant produced it earnestly, but it does feel like a parody.
Malta doesn’t understand what Eurovision is about these days. It’s about authenticity, honest songs by real artists. Not ‘wait, our song isn’t polling great. We’ll just ditch it and purchase another one’. They might fool the juries, but the televoter isn’t buying it.
It’s not “bad”, just mediocre…and we know what that means in terms of results… I think the juries will save this from coming last in the semifinal.
You could just watch and enjoy the whole show?
I actually have found myself on multiple years enjoying an entry during the live shows that I had never liked before them. Don’t think that will ever be the case with the Maltese song but just saying xD.
Fully understandable
This song is so forgettable.
That’s its saving grace.
As others said, the song itself is fine but it doesn’t match the performer’s image so it comes across as insincere.
It actually reminds me of “That’s The Way It Is” by Celine Dion, which she released in 1999 at age 31.
What’s the historically lowest score of wiwijury? I think Bulgaria is going to break the record. Usually I can say a song just isn’t my type but I don’t think I ever hate an Eurovision song
Georgia 2012 with I’m A Joker got a whopping 1.75 from the Wiwijury. With a 2.13, Aina Mun Pitaa is second. Some other interesting ratings throughout history are: Loreen has an unbeateable 9.5 rating. Duncan is closest with a 9.15. The comments claimed ‘overrated’ Valentina’s social network song finished EIGHTH in her year (just in case you thought Ochman had a bad jury performance) Anouk was the Wiwi Jury winner once Can Linn came 3rd for Ireland in 2014 (Conchita was below Twin Twin’s Moustache) Midnight Gold has a phenomenally low 3.33. SEVEN jurors gave it a 0.5. Salvador Sobral… Read more »
Wow where did you get all these stats? Do you part of wiwi team? I bet neither William nor Robyn have that kind of insight.
Back to my original post , maybe Bulgaria this year won’t break the record.
I have no affiliation to WWB, I just found the archives for all the juries since they started 10 years ago ^^
Great job, thanks for that!
MALTA – If we programmed an AI to compose the most predictable pop song, this just might be it. It’s so by-the-numbers that it makes the whole Melfest line-up of 2022 feel like The Residents’ album. Aside from the solid production, its only true asset is the beautiful and charismatic Emma Muscat, whose sensational vocals will certainly be recognized by the jury. Yet, this feels like such a waste of her talents. I am sorry that she felt the need to replace the song that means something to her with a calculated product which feels like it could have been… Read more »
This is the nicely-worded Colin equivalent of a hard kick to a song’s backside.XD
Yep, pretty much. Thanks for a compliment, Briekimchi. You are very nice. 🙂
This is probably as low as I can go with a product that’s been professionally polished by a group of people who know how to competently put together a song. Aside that, this is probably a mid-tempo equivalent of France 2020.
A distinctly Colin review. I appreciated it too 🙂
Very “I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed”.
Thanks, Jimmy. 🙂
The topic of “when will an AI write a Eurovision entry” is a very interesting topic that should perhaps be explored in a specialist article for Wiwi. 🙂
Great review, by the way. Also, it’s somewhat amusing to have put some effort into my own review this time, only for it to get a measly five likes so far. Haha. 😀
One of them is mine. I really enjoyed reading your review. 🙂 You depicted well how the song has its pleasant moments, even if it doesn’t stand out from the crowd. And if someone was genuinely happier after hearing it, I am glad it’s here. For me, it hits the artificial note of derivative, sadly. Emma, as a performer, can do much better.
She definitely can. It really does feel like a wasted opportunity. It’s a shame when it happens like this, because it’s rare to get a second shot at Eurovision.
I really enjoyed reading your review too, and certainly liked it 🙂
“The song repats the same material over and over again, establishing the meaning of the lyrics.” Indeed – establishing and echoing!
Unless she can really captivate the live audience, like Switzerland, this is going get lost in the pack- it’s very generic.
Out of sight 8/10
I am what I am 3/10
Sorry Malta, but what have you done…
I’m sure someone mentioned it in the comments somewhere but why did they change song? “Out of Sight” wasn’t going to win but it would at least get out of the Semi-Final. This song is up there with Germany and Switzerland for worst song in the whole contest.
At least it’s ranked higher than Azerbaijan, which was SEVERELY underrated… people say Azerbaijan’s song was boring and bland, I get. But Malta? The song is great and has inspirational lyrics. Forget about “another song written by Swedes”, Malta gets my vote this year and will go to the final if the staging is good, I promise.
Malta and Azerbaijan both have the same problem – they rely on songwriters from other countries too much and it gets boring.
37.Malta – Emma Muscat – I Am What I Am – 3.5/10 – I am not sure how this entry could have been more predictable or derivative. Emma has a nice voice and the song is not directly offensive, but if I think about all the songs and artists which have not made the contest, the fact that this song exists in the final 40 is actually very disappointing. This song has been sung about 3 million times already by about 3 million similar singers and I feel that it offers nothing new to the conversation, as it veers very often… Read more »
She seems like one of those girls who drinks Starbucks milkshakes all the time and uploads stories with duckface. I think she must mature internally and externally before trying to sing a song about “accepting yourself”.
she can always try to be successful through her modelling career maybe
and at modelling it truly helps when your born rich, look at Gigi and Bella Hadid example
Literally one of the most bland songs to ever be performed in the Eurovision stage. The type of song I hate the most. Sweden might give this 24 points in the semi as it’s a mello reject and I can’t describe how angry this scenario makes me. Emma deserved so much better than this. If this qualifies, I’s out. Simple.
Rating: 0.5/10 (40th)
I know this song isn’t amazing, and Emma Muscat tend to sing summer, dance songs, this song is still positive. I think the message is more clear here that anyone, even if your are wealthy and have everyTHING, you still might struggle in life. Sometimes the wealthiest are also the most lonely, so I understand how this is personal to her. Also, this is less in your face than Michael – Israel, I.M has a positive message, but it also is quite pushy about it. I like it, but I.M is very polarising, while I think everyone can at least… Read more »
A quick, friendly reminder that Suzanne gave this generic piece of entry a higer score than UK… :))
Such a huge dissapointment that the song was changed since Out Of Sight ACTUALLY sounded like it had a soul! This feels cheap, generic and utteroy soulless, there’s zero emotion and honesty surounding this entry. The message is also hypocritical and the lyrics feel rushed. Decent music but that’s it.
Oh well, at least Dotter fulfilled her dream of participating in Eurovision by yet another desperate attempt… as a songwritter to this thing, hahahaha.
My 34th place, with a 5/10 rating. Dissapointing.
I surely can’t be the only wondering if Suzanne gave her scores in reverse order this year?
Suzanne looks at things much more lyrically, and this song has inspirational lyrics, so that’s probably why.
Somebody needs to tell her this is a song competition not Oprah’s book club
i really like the song, but it’s not the right song for her. her entire singles discography is summer bops. emma can sing anything, but this doesn’t suit her image. having said that, i find it interesting how it sounds exactly like a dotter song which eurofans were stanning until recently, yet it gets so much hate.
Exactly, the song doesn’t match her. It reminds me of “That’s The Way It Is” by Celine Dion, which she released in 1999 at age 31.
I love that song.
36. Malta: I will be quick as I don’t think there’s much to say here. Malta is once again entering the contest with a Melfest reject kind of entry (I see they haven’t yet learned). Soulless, generic and basic. I preferred ‘Out of sight’ although I didn’t like that entry either that much. The juries will elevate Malta once again (enough so that it can qualify perhaps) but I don’t think that it will do good in the televoting and thus will ultimately finish low (deservedly) .
Their last three entries (2019, 2020, 2021) all feel a bit “designed to win”, to a degree. However, all of them are easily much more creative than this. What’s even more important, they feel like a natural fit to their singer. Chameleon feels like it’s made for Michaela, while Je me casse feels tailored to highlight Destiny. IAWIA feels like it’s been passed on from hand to hand, and probably wouldn’t feel any less of a fit if Jessika, Miriana Conte, or Aidan were singing this. And I know that good songs can fit different singers, but this just feels… Read more »
I am not a fan of any of these three songs you mentioned and I consider them to belong in the same category of IAWIA. However yes I have to agree that this year’s Maltese entry is more uninspired than all of them and the less authentic to its singer. Not that the others did their singers favours imo xd but yeah I’ll agree that this one is the most soulless of all of them while the others at least were based on the style of their eventual singer.
I swear this song has a very strong church quality to it. Every time I hear the melody I can almost hear the lyrics “God is almighty, Jesus is Lord” coming from it.
I wonder if this song was used for some charity before it got repurposed for Eurovision.
OMG. Suzanne actually gave this a 7.5. No, just no.
Oh bless her..
Suzanne works in mysterious ways
She’s the wave, she turns the tide
This song makes me so angry. I thought after last year and the absolute disaster of an entry that Poland ended up giving us, that the days of desperate countries buying up literally anything with a Swedish songwriting credit, irrespective of any sort of appropriateness for a musical competition were over. Yet, here we are with “I Am What I Am”. Completely overreacting to online criticism by a small section of fans who were salty about their favourites not winning in the national final, Malta changed their song when they didn’t have to. We went from something that could believably… Read more »
Rating: 3.5/10.0 (For Emma mostly)
Okay, because I know in advance that this song is going to be harshly critiqued, I have challenged myself to prepare a review that highlights the positive aspects of this song. Here goes… – This song is a simple piano-based gospel-inspired song. Harmonically, there is a sequence of eight chords (with some variants) that drives the entire song. – Verse 1 starts with a nice couple of refrains where the melody goes down on “fall down” and “hit the ground,” and then does a nice rising syncopated motif on “gettin’ up, getting’ up.” So far so good. – The Chorus… Read more »
Such songs are the reason why Eurovision often stays stuck in one place and that place is not the year 2022. It’s time to move forwad and Malta’s contribution to Eurovision this year is almost non-existent.
Malta: Yeah… no. At least Out of Sight actually had some personality! There’s always a song like this in the running and it’s really the most bare-bones song imaginable. I know Dotter’s partner was behind this one, because I can easily sing “You don’t, you don’t, you don’t you don’t wanna be like us” from Little Tot over it (just a bit slower)! A really squandered opportunity here. 3.5/10
I wish she hadn’t changed the song. I liked the previous one much more.
This entry just feels so wrong to me. A beautiful woman singing a song about being herself and using blatant stereotypical examples in the music video of people being themselves. This absolutely doesn’t make the context believable, let alone the fact the song sounds worse than Bigger Than Us and we know where that ended up. This entry to me just manages to ooze uncreativity to a point one might even wonder if it could be another Melfest reject. On all fronts this is just unimpressive, and no matter how well Emma can sing this, there’s no salvation. Out Of… Read more »
I would not be surprised if this song stays in the semis. I did not like the previous song either, but at least it was chosen by the public and by the jury. Still think Aidan was the right choice (I know it’s been more than 2 months since the national final, sorry). I have no connection with Emma’s song as it feels plastic. Malta wants to win so badly that they are trying everything except being themselves. They will never win with songs like this one. They can at least try next year with a song in their native… Read more »
Vapidity bordering on insult.
Bulgaria being left at the very end might be an indication of an all time low score.
I think the lowest Wiwi jury score ever was for Georgia 2012. Am average of 1.75
Imo it will be unfair if Bulgaria got lower than that.
honestly nothing deserves to be lower than Georgia 2012 ever
Agree xD. That song was terrible.