NF Throwback: Christabelle – Rush

Anita: This week, Seth and I didn’t have to look too far into the history books for our national final throwback. We’ve chosen to have a deeper look at Christabelle’s song from the 2015 Malta Eurovision Song Contest. The song ‘Rush’ was composed by Elton Zarb and Muxu, who are not new to the Eurovision scene – in fact, these composers also submitted the song for Amber, who actually won the 2015 National Final for Malta.

So let’s start off by looking at the song itself. ‘Rush’ is textbook pop music. The chorus is ridiculously catchy, and easy to follow along with. As for the music, it’s definitely not innovative, but nevertheless, it’s easy to enjoy. As for the lyrics, again, typical pop love song – but some of those rhymes seem so cheesy and forced. The irony of this is that I personally think the song is…. Wait for it…. Rushed! I think maybe they could have slowed it down a touch, just to give Christabelle the chance to breathe!

What do you think Seth?

Seth: It’s definitely the typical pop song. No surprising things happen in the song, but damn, it’s catchy as heck! I really love this dance song, it has a lot of energy. I have a little con though, and that is the speed of the lyrics ‘Rushing’ by. I already knew from the start that would be a huge problem live, but well, I forgave her for that, because the song itself was one of the better entries in the Maltese national selection.

Anita: Now let’s look at the performance from the national final (which will be linked below). The comment I made before about being rushed really becomes apparent here – I think she has moments throughout the performance where she struggles with the vocals, and I’m putting it down to the speed of the song. The pitch is off in certain points, but with a bit of fine tuning, it would have been resolved by Eurovision if she had won. I have nothing against the staging in terms of the backing dancers, that format for a pop song like that is pretty standard. I’m glad Christabelle only had small movements to make, otherwise I think her vocals would have suffered significantly.

Seth?

Seth: I think there was a huge difference between her semi final performance and final performance. In the semi final, she made much bigger movements, which eventually toned down her vocal performance. She was out of breath a few times and quite a few times off key. In the final she did great, I think. It was even one of my favorites to win the selection, placing higher than Amber personally.

Anita: Well overall I think it’s a good pop song. I’ve heard better, and I’ve heard worse. Do I like it more than the actual winner of Malta’s national contest? Well, I’d have to say that it’s taking me a while to warm up to Amber’s performance of Warrior, so that’s a challenging question. In terms of Eurovision, I actually think Amber’s song is where Eurovision is heading, the one performer, and one huge song formula, whereas Christabelle’s song might have achieved better results a couple of years ago when textbook pop ruled Eurovision. This is all my perception though, and it’s hard to compare to Amber when we don’t know how Amber will place at Eurovision yet.

Any last thoughts? What do you rate this song?

Seth: For me this was definitely one of the better NF songs. Dance is one of my favorite genres, and I really miss these songs after Loreen’s win. Secretly, I hoped this would win the Maltese NF, instead of placing second. It’s sometimes cliche and tedious, but that’s sometimes a big draw for me in these songs. Live was definitely better in the final, and I loved almost every aspect of the song. I’ll give this one a solid 9/10. And you, Anita?

Anita: I’m going to give this song a 6.5/10

Total Score out of 20: 15,5/20