Money alone is unlikely to get an artist into UK, Italian or any other international charts. To start off with you need potentially chart-busting material.

A sum of €46,588 is pretty small in the music business and, while obviously being better than nothing, would do little to promote a new artist outside Malta. You wouldn't go far beyond obtaining some radio play for one song, maybe a TV performance on some minor programme. Launching a Maltese artist overseas means moving the artist overseas and having a supporting team of experienced collaborators. They all have to be paid and need a considerable budget to get things done. And it's still a bet, with no guarantees. Record companies sometimes spend millions on projects and still are unable to get the songs into the charts. More often than not, when they do it still does not mean that the artist is breaking even with expenses.

It usually takes years to build an artist and actually start making a profit. Although I am not a Eurovision Song Contest fan, I would say that it actually makes sense to buy that €46,588 lottery ticket by participating. But for now all that Malta is getting is some cheap advertising - that's already fine but why not try to do better? The real problem is that judging standards in Malta need to be changed.

There might have been better songs than Vodka that didn't even make it through the initial selection process. Any attempt to choose songs that are "typically Eurovision" is doomed to fail and likely to be ridiculed.

An original song with decent lyrics and a touch of musical sophistication would do more good to the artist and to the country. I would go as far as to say that high musical standards could be the key to making a Maltese song stand out at the ESC, considering that the general quality of the event leaves much to be desired.