ed rallidae supernova 2018 1

Supernova 2018 is nearly upon us, as Latvia’s search for its next Eurovision act starts on Saturday, February 3. Our Wiwi Jury is reviewing all 21 songs, as our team of music un-professionals gives you an idea of what to expect.

With just five songs left to go, today the Jury reviews Ed Rallidae with his entry, “What I Had With You”. The song’s writers include none other than Aminata Savadogo. Can Ed help her win Supernova for the third time, after entering in 2015 and writing “Heartbeat” in 2016?

Ed Rallidae — “What I Had With You”

“What I Had With You” Reviews

Edgars: Starts as a generic song, but it gets better at the end. Ed has a powerful voice and this is the place to prove it. Especially with the composition of backing vocals and his voice in the last minute. It’s a bit catchy, but still — it could be a struggle for this song to reach the final of Supernova.

Score: 6/10

Jonathan: This is one of those rare instances where a song’s verses are better than its chorus. The verses have drive and purpose, but that’s all lost in the chorus, which drags and is rather repetitive. The result is an odd mix of tempos that make the song slightly forgettable. The listener can’t lock on to one solid, discernible hook that’s consistent throughout the song.

Score: 6.5/10

Robyn: “What I Had With You” started with such a great vocal hook, it seems destined to be amazing. But it doesn’t quite do enough. The Aminata songwriting magic is there, but halfway through the song, it seems to have run out of ideas. But because there are so many good ideas in there, it could be saved with a revamp. Let’s see.

Score: 6.5/10

ed rallidae supernova 2018 2Chris: What’s strange about “What I Had With You” is just how overproduced it is – almost a complete opposite to “Love Injected”, if we’re looking at it from an Aminata perspective. The beat’s there but hidden under about two other layers. It means Ed is having to fight his own track, effectively, and you lose focus on him as a singer.

Score: 5.5/10

Kristin: Apparently he´s barely breathing…hun, you okay over there? This song is actually pretty good though, despite the clumsy lyrics at times. But the absolute best part is Ed´s voice, which hopefully sounds just as good live as it does in this video. If he slays the live performance, there is no knowing of what this song can actually do. It’s not the best of the bunch, but it’s definitely in the better half.

Score: 7/10

Antranig: There are a lot of problems with the lyrics here. The lyrics are at times messy and at times predictable, which takes a lot away from the song. The vocals are really captivating and the musical composition is mostly well executed. But ultimately this song needs a complete lyrical overhaul to stand any chance. Latvia have many better options.

Score: 5/10

William: Pass the man a ventilator — all this lack of breath is killing me! This song starts mysteriously and strongly, building continuously within its genre of jazzy-soul with a lounge beat. The production is smooth, he’s giving a strong sense of perspective and the song manages to provides several variations on a theme. And while it’s very interesting on first listen, I feel no need to play it again.

Score: 6/10

In our Latvia Wiwi Jury, we have 14 jurors but only room for 7 reviews. The rest of our scores can be found below:

Luis: 6.5/10

Jordi: 6.5/10

Bernardo: 6/10

Lukas: 7/10

Natalie: 6/10

Jovana: 7/10

Steinunn: 7.5/10

 

 

 

 

Before calculating the average score, the highest and lowest scores are dropped. This is to remove outliers and reduce potential bias. We have removed a low of 5 and a high of 7.5.

WIWI JURY VERDICT: 6.38/10

Read all our Supernova 2018 Wiwi Jury rankings here

Check out more Latvia Eurovision news here

7 Comments
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AngieP
AngieP
6 years ago

Nice intro. Beautiful voice. It gets repetitive though. Hope for a good live performance.
6/10

James
James
6 years ago

I think this needs a major revamp if it were to win Supernova to work out the kinks. One significant issue I have here is when the song hits the chorus. It’s not more so because of the lyrics but it’s the arrangement of the music that I have a problem with. It sounded random and slower than the build-up of momentum set by the stanzas as I was expecting the song to go full uptempo with faster beats for that chill electric dance vibe once it hits that vital portion of the track, similar to how Heartbeat was in… Read more »

Purple Mask
Purple Mask
6 years ago

A song that is very rich in actual music stripped to its bare bones by a minimalist arrangement. The artist looks and sounds good; he actually reminds me of someone I used to know. Again I agree with Robyn’s review – this song can be saved with a re-vamp. But at the moment, the rich harmonies are stripped away, so the “feeling” of the song isn’t there. 6.5/10

Poet
Poet
6 years ago

A good song at the end of the day. Not the winner though.

Kris
Kris
6 years ago

Not a fan of this song at all!! Didn’t really like Aminata’s other songs too so not a huge shocker for me!! It has a few good seconds but not enough to make me want to go through this song.
A 5/10

Colin
Colin
6 years ago

This is so repetitive! The chorus is totally on autopilot. There isn’t much here to find interesting. 4/10

Briekimchi
Briekimchi
6 years ago

Definitely the laziest Aminata-song that I can remember. Ed does not possess the vocal power that Aiste Pilvelyte, Justs or Aminata herself have at their disposal and that leaves this minimalist track….struggling.