Malta MALTA 2021 - Destiny - Je Me Casse

[escYOUnited]

Babe, are you hiding? Are you alright?
You look like an angel, that fell from the sky
And boy you keep talkin', massaging my ego
With your unoriginal pickup line

Hell no, I'm not your honey
Hell no, I don't want your money
Got it wrong, I ain't into dummies
No-o-o-o

So baby, it's not a maybe
Yeah, I'm too good to be true, but there's nothing in it for you
So if I show some skin, it doesn't mean I'm giving in
Not your baby

Je me casse, je me casse
If you don't get it (Je me casse)
Je me casse, je me casse
I'm not your baby

Boy, are you pouring that drink in my hand?
Thinking if I'm drunk then, I'll give you a chance
Boy, you keep buying and complaining so stop trying
Not gonna give it up and change my plans

Hell no, I'm not your honey
Hell no, I don't want your money
Got it wrong, I ain't into dummies
No-o-o-o

So baby, it's not a maybe
Yeah, I'm too good to be true, but there's nothing in it for you
So if I show some skin, it doesn't mean I'm giving in
Not your baby

Je me casse, je me casse
If you don't get it (Je me casse)
Je me casse (Je-je-je me casse)
If you don't...

Ladies, if you feel like flaunting tonight, it’s alright, it's alright
Ladies (Ladies), listen to me!
Listen and go right ahead, show you're shining

If you don't get it, if you, if you dont' get it (Je me casse)
If you don't get it, if you, if you don't get it
Excuse my French

Baby, it's not a maybe
Yeah, I'm too good to be true, but there's nothing in it for you
So if I show some skin, it doesn't mean I'm giving in
Not your baby

Je me casse
Je-je-je me casse
I'm not your baby​

 

[aef]

All in all Destiny made to most stressed, almost bitter appearance in the green room yesterday. I feel almost sorry for her that she couldn't enjoy it more. Did she believe that much in a safe victory? Someone should have told her that she wasn't that much of a clear leading favourite....

 

[Etanna]

Well, a seventh place in itself isn't a result, and if the Maltese delegation didn't do all the promo and whatever they've done all this season long, then maybe Destiny wouldn't feel too disappointed as this was never the favorite of the year, though the odds made them out to be. Could they've won? Yeah, maybe, top 3 could've been possible, but the staging didn't do it any favors -- good and competent, but it didn't elevate the song as much as they'd like.

And hot take and tea of the day - Destiny was not at her best and we've yet to see the best of Destiny in Eurovision. Her strength is supposed to be her vocals, but she was not at her vocally best -- neither in the semi nor in the final, and yesterday, she tried way too hard and it really showed -- just as I feared would happen.

Then there were a lot of uptempo female bops this year, and everyone wore the silver outfit lol

I agree about the vocals. Also - is it just me or does singing with a face microphone look really weird (especially during the big notes)? Hand mic is so much better.

As I've said before, the staging really hurt this song a lot. The colours in particular were awful. SJB loves these bright colours (red/pink) but they don't usually work I'm afraid. And due to the incomprehensible outfit choice we could barely see the dancers. Thank god Destiny changed her outfit or we wouldn't see her either. As to Destiny, she is a very charismatic performer but instead of capitalizing on that, they tried to make her look like a dancer without giving her much choreography so she was just kind of shuffling around for the most part...

I'm sorry that I'm so critical of it, I'm just disappointed because the song is really fun and Destiny has so much personality but they completely buried all this potential with the staging concept.

 

[Iker]

You have to take into consideration that they did well with televoters in the semi final though! It wasn't a flop in both semi final and final like with Ira Losco in 2017. But I agree that it was easy to predict that there would be some gap between jury and telvoting result. It was quite a surprise to me that juries ranked it that high in the end though. To me the electroswing vibe didn't to any favor for Destiny tbh. I hate that style, maybe she can come back with a modern modern and interesting song in the future.

Ira Losco was in 2016 - in 2017 was represented by Claudia Faniello (with the most boring coma inducing ESC entry of recent times. I was legitimately impressed that it is humanly possible to write a song that is soooo boring. ).

 

[Ianp16]

I'm still a bit puzzled about why it was placed so early in the running order when it won the first semi-final. Had this been Sweden's entry it would definitely got a 10-13 place in the first half. I hate to bring the running order into this but it clearly plays some part and is definitely manipulated by the producers. Ugh. Never thought I would be convinced by this conspiracy but I'm now a believer

 

[I bims]

I'm still a bit puzzled about why it was placed so early in the running order when it won the first semi-final. Had this been Sweden's entry it would definitely got a 10-13 place in the first half. I hate to bring the running order into this but it clearly plays some part and is definitely manipulated by the producers. Ugh. Never thought I would be convinced by this conspiracy but I'm now a believer

Alexander Rybak also won his semi-final 2018 but started from place 7. If they do this to a previous winner, why not Malta? I don't think starting at 13th place would've helped her. This was not the year for english inauthentic pop.

 

[Chorizo]

I'm the last one who puts the racism card on the table but in fact all Malta, San Marino, Netherlands and Israel bombed in the televote this year. Now take also the jury winners/runners up of 2018 and 2019 in consideration and you have a pattern.

It seems a little too easy to blame racism for black artists getting bad results. This year, nobody you mentioned had a strong enough entry to be a serious contender to win and that's also true for Malta, despite of the odds and the semi-final results, and for Sweden, which you didn't mention. San Marino was just hyped among the fans. Having Flo Rida on the Eurovision stage is not as exciting for most people as some fans thought. Malta was never going to do well in the televote and was just a bad copy of Netta (who was already bad enough, if you ask me). The juries voted for Malta because of her vocals and the political message, that's it.

Sweden was in my top 10 in 2019 but I can see that the song had some lengths and the gospel sound isn't for everyone. Austria was my favorite in 2018 and I got excited about it before the contest because I liked the studio version but again, the gospel sound is not for everyone and Cesár just didn't connect that well with the audience, when he was on stage. Yesterday I rewatched my personal winners from the last years to see what I think of them now. I could remember that people back then said that it looked cold and I thought the same.

 

[Quent91]

so happy this was ultimately a flop.

 

[innou]

Malta was realistically never a contender, and I have no idea why fan clubs kept backing it like crazy when all of the signs of its imminent flopage were there. Inflated odds, views on Youtube etc.

The song is nice and listenable, but that's where it ends, because it's also generic and, most importantly, NOT TAILORED FOR DESTINY. I think that something the top 3 had in common was that their song was literally penned BY them, FOR them. ''Je me casse'' was literally a MF reject, given to a 18 year old girl, having her talk about a dude putting a drink in her hand. How?! She turned 18 during a pandemic! She was absolutely not feeling the song and it was very obvious during the live shows that she was disconnected. And quite visibly stressed.

The Maltese team shouldn't have done her so dirty, cause it's their fault for picking the song, their fault for picking that stage director, and their fault for inflating everything, giving this girl false hopes. I really hope she's back when she's ready, and perhaps with a better team around her.

Also, that tactic with the ads needs to go. It's enough for someone NOT to vote.

 

[Carian]

I copy-paste my post from the general thread also here, as I think it fits this thread to.

Oh, we have another scandal coming. RTV SLO is reporting that Maltese public is fuming. Ex-representative Ludwing Galea (2004) accused the Maltese delegation in an open letter of inflating the actual chances of the Maltese win by paying for bets as well as called out the whole delegation to reveal how much money has been spent for bets, ads and generating clics/trends on YT, which gave false hopes to Maltese people of winning the ESC. Basically, the problem, as noted by Galea, is that this happened already with Ira Losco in 2017.
RTV SLO's reporter and ESC connoiseur Klavdija Kopina also takes up the question of likes and dislikes in YT clips. Clearly, the most desperate countries to win invest a lot of money to overhype a song by paying people in foreign countries to click the song, which leads to the trending effect. Analysts are said to have discovered that the biggest discrepancies between likes/dislikes have been detected for Malta, Georgia, North Macedonia, Germany, Denmark, Poland, Sweden and Switzerland (please, note that there is no Moldova on this list, as some people have been very vocal these days that Kirkorov bought votes for Natalia), while on the other hand there are no discrepancies for Ukraine, Russia, Italy, Cyprus and Latvia. Basically, we are talking about paid views which generates hype, high spot in betting odds, but eventually leads to flops and huge disappointment.
Yes, one more interesting thing: the article raises also the question/problem of "blogs" (Wiwibloggs is named by name) that are also paid to generate hype, turn our attention to certain songs, so that these appear "fan favorite" and "hot to win". These "fan blogs and sites" (ESC United is not problematized nor mentioned, thank god) are thus problem in itself and their practices are not properly represented to the audiences.
Now, what I would like to add to all this is that I do not find a problem with generating views, paying Wiwibloggs to hype a song etc. My problem is that betting odds and different statistics can and surely do influence the jury votes. I know that the common viewers who tune in on Saturday's final usually do not care or watch what is going on before the ESC, but juries surely are paying attention. You know, like political polls can create opinions and influence how people vote, I am sure that YT views, hype, and betting odds also influence the juries' votes. I am sure that many members of juries do want to please "people", but as this article on RTV SLO now analyses the whole matter, the question is: is it really people behind these odds, YT views and independent fan-websites?
So, to sum it up, I was right this whole time. Would Albina qualify if she was as much hyped as Malta? Since Albina suffered in jury voting most, I'd say yes. Finally, this also explains why Romania (which was way more hyped before the show than Slovenia and Macedonia) finished in jury votes before Slovenia, although EVERYONE agreed that Ana's vocals are from outer space. So... I think we have a true scandal here and some unpleasant questions need to be asked as well as answered... Good day folks.

PS: Why have I mentioned Albina first? Cuz she missed out finals for 5 points against Norway, the clics of which do not add up. That is why Albina and Croatia missed the finals.

 

[ag89]

True or not, but Wiwi was too loud about Maltese song in 2016... But Wiwi is often hyped about many entries without any objective reason so who knows if this is true or not.

 

[toinou03]

What I read higher is true. Je me casse is nice but not really taylored for Destiny, not that incredibly good. And the staging was aweful. Everything looked cheap. Destiny was placed as a dancer while she can't move. Thé hands shake looked cheap. Everything was disappoiting, but Destiny's vocals still amazing.

 

[midnightsun]

By accident I clicked on Netta‘s Toy on YT (thought it was about another topic) and while I wasn’t a big fan of it in 2018 I kept watching and boy - this girl has so much more power and charisma on stage than Destiny! Not to shade Destiny, she‘s lovely, but maybe she WAS too young and by the pressure these cruel Maltese people of the delegation put on her she was destined to lose! They probably whispered in her ear she will win this the whole time.

And Destiny just stood still on one position almost the whole time in the performance. She only did some handwork while Netta was jumping around, bubbly and cheeky and her voice was more impactful even though Destiny also has a great voice but she was just loud while Netta added some charisma to her voice by adding little roughs here and squeakies there. Destiny seems like a bad copy of her now in retrospective.

 

[Iker]

All in all Destiny made to most stressed, almost bitter appearance in the green room yesterday. I feel almost sorry for her that she couldn't enjoy it more. Did she believe that much in a safe victory? Someone should have told her that she wasn't that much of a clear leading favourite....

She was already sour after the juries voting despite being like 3rd at that point. SMH. I guess people around her made her overly confident.

 

[harey]

From everything surrounding the Maltese delegation it seems to me that they are quite toxic and no wonder if they made her believe that she was the best, adding a lot of pressure to her and making her believe that criticism was haters thing. (There were haters, but I mean it "she wasn't able to take constructive critics"). I'm pretty sure that All of my love would have shown better her singing quality and they could have avoided this uninspired staging. It's a pity that she couldn't enjoy her top 10.

 

[Ezio]

Malta accused of hyping their odds by former contestant

Malta’s Eurovision 'Hijackers' Must Come Clean On Spending As Major Concerns Raised Over Betting Odds

A former Maltese Eurovision contestant has shared the “social media formula” behind creating major hype around singers and raising their betting odds ahead of their performance… only for them to then not receive the points expected of them. His breakdown comes just one day after Malta’s very own...

lovinmalta.com

 

[Ianp16]

Shock.

 

[ag89]

Something is off when you are 18 years old and sing a song about female empowerement. Maybe this is only in my head, but I don't see any logic to come with such a message when you are so young. Also, there were so many female empowerement songs this year and Malta had to fight not only against that, but also against other glittery + 4 dancers + bop songs we had. Also, Maltese tactics with promotion hurt them at the end: nobody likes aggresive people and aggresive PR. It's off putting.

Running order, who knows, maybe she would have received 60-70 instead of 47 points. But she would not have been even close to hurt any song at the top. Still, 7th place is an excellent result. I accept Malta has a slight disadventage because it has no traditional bloc of voting, but this is such a minor thing: Israel won with similar circumstances, if not even worse. It's always easy to blame everyone and everything, but Malta had a singer for the win, but it did not have a song and a peformance. It was totally, totally average, particularly this year. It was a rough competition!

 

[empo21]

Malta didn't just die because of the early draw.

Following Russia's much better/relevant female empowerment song, Je Me Casse felt cold, soulless and shallow.

 

[Lance Esgard]

Something is off when you are 18 years old and sing a song about female empowerement. Maybe this is only in my head, but I don't see any logic to come with such a message when you are so young.

Given that numerous teenage boys explore their sexuality and interact with teenage females in various ways, including ways that can be experienced as assuming stereotypes, or as otherwise intrusive and/or uncomfortable, I personally see where the logic exists for such a message coming at that age.

I personally see it as something that could resonate with teenagers when it comes to issues regarding consent and where flirting crosses the line which I know has been discussed a lot by teenagers at least in Australia and is also embedded into the curriculum at least for older secondary school students.

I have no personal idea to what degree Destiny has or has not experienced such things, or to what degree it is just a song others have written for her, but I personally can see how such a message can be relevant for young people.

 

[tkris]

Malta had been buying views which I had shown statistically one month before the contest . They had been using bots to vote on sites and channels . Even bets were tampered with. They probably paid YouTube channel and Esc Sites to hype up their entry.

And ultimately the result showed. If that many real people put money on bets they would also put some money in actually voting. Hopefully , they focus on finding a fitting song to the performer rather than these tactics in the future.