Lithuania: Wiwi Jury reviews Vidas Bareikis and Zivile Gedvilaite

The Wiwi Jury — our in-house panel of music unprofessionals — continues to review the qualifying acts from Lithuania’s Eurovizijos Atranka 2018. Next we listen to Vidas Bareikis with “Pusvalanduko” and Zivile Gedvilaite with “Melody”. Did these songs have us singing along? Read on to find out!

Vidas Bareikis – “Pusvalanduko”

“Pusvalanduko” reviews

Antranig: Vidas is bringing the outrageous to Lithuania. On one hand this is incredibly annoying but at the same time I almost love it. With a lot of Lithuanian songs being an attempt at crafting a perfect Eurovision song, this plays by its own rules and you have to appreciate its individual identity. I don’t expect it to win the national final but for the sake of variety and personality, I hope it goes far.

Score: 7/10

Robyn: This is the sort of song that shouldn’t work, but yet it does. Vidas brings loads of energy to his performance and effortlessly entertains. The song itself is a well-written dance tune which can withstand all the weird stylings. Even the mini epic sax guy doesn’t feel all that derivative. There’s a place for everything in this crazy universe.

Score: 7/10

William: I appreciate the comedic aspect of this, the space-trip/acid-trip graphics and the attempt at a modern retro sound. But I can’t vote on colour alone. The melody is underwhelming and monotonous. His entreaty for “everybody to come and dance” makes me want to hit stop. And I do.

Score: 3.5/10

Lukas: Last year Vidas had a much better gimmicky song than his efforts this year. The chorus of “Pusvalanduko” is catchy but that’s about it. The staging was a big mess and live vocals too. The backing singers were quite out of tune and brought this even more down. It does stand out in the preselection but for all the wrong reasons.

Score: 3/10

Raphael: Vidas is the best entertainer to hit the Atranka stage so far, but “Pusvalanduko” is just too chaotic for even the man in the cloud suit to handle. From start to finish, the staging moves from dizzying LED choreography to a dejected drummer, to a somersault over a small epic sax guy with bedazzled glasses, and those are only the main events. Smiling and dancing along is easy at first, but this has too many gimmicks to make a serious lasting impression in the preselection.

Score: 4/10

In the Lithuanian Wiwi Jury, we have 13 jurors but only room for 5 reviews. The rest of our scores can be found below:

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 3 and a high of 7.

WIWI JURY VERDICT: 4.14/10

Zivile Gedvilaite – “Melody”

“Melody” reviews

Robyn: “Melody” starts off with really promising verses, creating an enchanting world. But when the chorus comes, it’s like a 1990s Disney ballad has clumsily been grafted into the middle of the song. The difference between the verses and chorus becomes jarring and the song never feels like a cohesive whole.

Score: 4/10

William: As with Vidas, I’d happily throw points at the LED. But ultimately this is a song contest, and a song called “Melody” deserves a better one. The lyrics, clearly written with Google Translate, are best avoided. “A melody is my sacred witness of life, I’ve traveled from hate to forgiveness” — what is she talking about?!

Score: 2.5/10

Antranig: The verses build nicely to what should be a dramatic chorus. Instead the song loses its identity in the chorus and becomes an overly positive mid-2000s Eurovision ballad. Zivile’s vocals can’t be flawed but she deserves a better song than this. This may have succeeded at Eurovision a decade ago but it won’t be able to do so in 2018. Zivile has won me over though — I think she would be a fantastic choice for Lithuania but not with “Melody”.

Score: 6/10

Lukas: This song is so dated and boring. Zivile has a nice voice and she does her best but with a song like this, you can‘t do much. In a musical, this might work but it would still just be lost and forgotten. In the next round, this will definitely be one of the weaker songs.

Score: 4.5/10

Raphael: “Melody”‘s waltz tempo and layers of smooth and staccato strings that build in each verse have a music box quality to them that is both subtle and mesmerizing. When the chorus hits, though, whatever bittersweet mood Zivile has built up gets thrown out for Disney sappiness. It’s the chorus that audiences tend to remember so this may not fare very well in the preselection.

Score: 6.5/10

In the Lithuanian Wiwi Jury, we have 13 jurors but only room for 5 reviews. The rest of our scores can be found below:

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 2.5 and a high of 7.5.

WIWI JURY VERDICT: 5.05/10

See our list of Eurovizijos Atranka 2018 rankings

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