Wiwi Jury: Latvia’s Ivo Grisninš Grislis, Sabine Berezina and Edvards Grieze

Earlier today, the Wiwi Jury — our in-house panel of music unprofessionals — gathered in Riga to discuss the contestants participating in Supernova 2016, Latvia’s National Final for Eurovision 2016 . Today we look at Ivo Grisninš Grislis, Sabine Berezina and Edvards Grieze. Want to see the jury’s verdict? Read on!

Ivo Grisninš Grislis – “We Are The Light”

“We Are The Light” Reviews:

Zakaria: Despite the cheesy lyrics the song is pretty decent, especially coming from the country that gave us “Pirates of the Sea”. “We are the light” has a solid hook but I feel the electro sound is a bit overused and I’m wondering how this will translate on the Supernova stage. Morever, I fear that Ivo’s voice, adding to his enunciation problems, might get drowned by the strong beat during the live performance.

Score: 4/10

William: “This world is full of porno views“? That may be true but Ivo needs to work on his enunciation to get his actual message across. That message — one of peace and do-gooding — is sickeningly sweet. I could get over that, but there are too many lyrical gaps (0:46 – 0:52 and 1:01 – 1:22, for instance) which he just stuffs with electro beats and sounds. This has lots of production value and an easy-to-remember chorus, but it lacks one key ingredient: a melody.

 Score: 1.5/10

Josh: Another fairly generic electro-ballad from Ivo. It’s inoffensive and rather easy to listen to, but “We are the Light” sounds so similar to the other similar songs in Supernova 2016, that I fear they’ll all get cancelled out. But this is still so good by Latvia’s standards. This could potentially contest for the victory.

Score: 7/10

Anthony: Two years after Samanta Tina’s Dziesma 2014 entry “Stay” — and hoping to fare better than last year — Ingars Vilums seemed to have developed a speciality for composing EDM-based entries lately. Unfortunately, “We are the Light” turns out to be one of Ingars’ weaker attempts but Ivo’s vocals adds depth to his entry, making this fairly decent song into a mesmerising experience.

Score: 6/10

Robyn: Here’s another peace song, no doubt inspired by the success of “A Million Voices”. But unlike the Polina-inspired song from other countries (*cough* Lithuania *cough*), “We are the Light” is at least doing something original. It’s a liked a chopped-up, mashed-up “Million Voices”. While this adds an interesting edge, it also means it has lost the potential for the heartwarming appeal that made Russia’s song such a success last year.

Score: 6/10

Edd: Normally lyrics about world peace would make me want to throw up, although this song is refreshingly pessimistic. The gentle verses make the booming chorus smack you even harder in the face – and with a powerful backdrop and some jets of fire this could be really moving.

Score: 7/10

In the Latvian Wiwi Jury we have 17 jurors but only have room for six reviews. The remaining 11 scores are below.

Sinan: 6.5/10

Bogdan: 9/10

Sami: 7/10

Luis: 6/10

Patrick: 5.5/10

Renske: 5.5/10

Bernardo: 6/10

George: 5.5/10

Sam: 3.5/10

Dayana: 5.5/10

Antranig: 6.5/10

The highest and lowest scores are dropped prior to calculating the average score. This is to remove outliers and reduce potential bias. We have removed a low of 1.5 and a high of 9.

Wiwi Jury Score: 5.83/10

Sabine Berezina – “My Inspiration”

“My Inspiration” Reviews:

Sami: There’s nothing really wrong with this, but it comes out a bit bland. Sabine has a nice voice, but she could use it on much better songs than this. I don’t mind listening to “My Inspiration” once, but it would be impossible to even hum this after the first listen.

Score: 4/10

William: Her voice is gritty and textured with major shades of Agnes, and the syncopation leading up to the chorus is fab. But the melody just doesn’t appeal to me. It gets really annoying really quickly and by the time she’s going yea-ah, yea-ah, yea-ah I’m convinced one of us has indigestion. Not a fan.

Score: 3.5/10

Josh: “My Inspiration” has so much potential to be awesome, but I feel like it lacks some inspiration. Sabine has a great voice and it blends with the instrumental beautifully – but after the first chorus is just flatlines a little bit and becomes a tad too repetitive. With some finessing, this could be amazing. Right now, it’s just ok.

Score: 5.5/10

Luis: Sabine’s voice is probably the best of this song. While “My Inspiration” is not bad at all, it’s not memorable enough. It passes as a middle-of-the-road track with that “and you, and you, and you” hook which gets annoying in the end. As a whole package, it’s  pleasant song, but it fits better in a radio program rather than at Eurovision.

Score: 5.5/10

Robyn: There are so many good individual moments in this song, but the whole thing put together just doesn’t work. Maybe that’s the problem – the good bits make the dull bits seem even worse. Sabine has a fabulous soul diva voice and she handles the song well, but ultimately she’s let down by a song that just doesn’t work hard enough for her.

Score: 6/10

George: I have to say this is not one of my favourites from Supernova. The parts of the song just don’t fit together and this repeating thing in the chorus sounds really annoying. At some moments, I get a feeling that three entirely different songs were combined and the result was “My Inspiration”. But seriously, I can see no inspiration at all.

Score: 5/10

In the Latvian Wiwi Jury we have 17 jurors but only have room for six reviews. The remaining 11 scores are below.

Sinan: 7.5/10

Bogdan: 6.5/10

Zakaria: 5/10

Anthony: 7/10

Patrick: 6/10

Renske: 7/10

Bernardo: 7/10

Edd: 7/10

Sam: 8/10

Dayana: 7/10

Antranig: 5/10

The highest and lowest scores are dropped prior to calculating the average score. This is to remove outliers and reduce potential bias. We have removed a low of 3.5 and a high of 8.

Wiwi Jury Score: 6.07/10

Edvards Grieze – “New Day”

“New Day” Reviews:

Sinan: The beginning was just perfect with that saxophone! I don’t think it’s a song for the Eurovision stage, but instead non-competitive clubs and parties.

Score: 5.5/10

William: Edvard Grieze is not a poet, but he does shoot straight from the hip: “…where you sleep, I forgot, I don’t give a sh*t.” There’s a similarly direct and forthright quality to this song, which puts itself right in your face from the very first note. It’s forceful and has drive, and at times his voice has a very sultry, gigolo quality. That said, I just can’t get into this. Telling a story through the lyrics could have given this shape — but as it stands now, it just sounds like the same verse on loop.

Score: 4/10

Josh: “New Day” is that jazzy-chillstep track that is so popular on the radio here in Australia right now. I just find this a tad boring. It’s repetitive. I’m not a fan of Edvards’ voice. There’s just too many cons for me about this song, so I really struggle to enjoy it.

Score: 4/10

Patrick: This is a joke – its not a new day, it’s a dark dark time. No words for this “song”. He doesn’t really sing he just speaks. Never mind, Latvia.

Score: 0/10

Robyn: Edvards doesn’t feel like the star of this song. It’s like he is serving the song, not the other way around. He’s a talented singer, though, and will probably be enjoyable to watch at Supernova. Also: Edvards may wish to have a chat with Kaceo from Switzerland about the EBU’s rules against using swearing in song lyrics.

Score: 5/10

Antranig: The first few seconds of “New Day” are very promising but this gradually morphs into one of the worst songs in Supernova 2016. The lyrics say very little and the song is very one-dimensional. It does not stand out and after listening to all 20 songs, I struggle to remember anything about this one. It’s a no from me.

Score: 3.5/10

In the Latvian Wiwi Jury we have 17 jurors but only have room for six reviews. The remaining 11 scores are below.

Sami: 4.5/10

Bogdan: 3/10

Zakaria: 2/10

Anthony: 5/10

Luis: 3.5/10

Renske: 5/10

Bernardo: 5/10

George: 6/10

Edd: 6/10

Sam: 1.5/10

Dayana: 6.5/10

The highest and lowest scores are dropped prior to calculating the average score. This is to remove outliers and reduce potential bias. We have removed a low of 0 and a high of 6.5.

Wiwi Jury Score: 4.23/10

For the all the Supernova reviews and rankings, click here

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