Last year, Lithuania had a hot mess of a national final. After twelve weeks of voting and people getting bored and anxious, their entry reflected the organization of the selection. But, owing to high domestic ratings, LRT has announced that they will follow the same process for Eurovision 2015. Ratings are great and all, but Lithuania remains the only Baltic state never to place in the top 5, let alone win. Maybe the extended selection is a signal of their increased effort?
So here’s the rundown, y’all! Right after New Year’s Day, on January 3, the first of eleven shows will take place. This show is a presentation show, where artists will present something that shows off their voice. Last year, the artists sang songs from Lithuania’s previous Eurovision attempts. Will they do the same this year, or maybe show off their own work?
The first three semi-finals will all be on the same day, January 10. After a week-long break, the next three weeks will have only one stage each. Then we will see what song is picked on February 14, and the artist on February 21, a grand six weeks after the selection began.
Afterward, there will be two more shows. One will be a TV special showing the best moments (and probably a few train wrecks) from the selection. Then there will be a show featuring the winner.
International composers are allowed to send in their entries, but the singer or group must all be Lithuanian citizens.
Last year’s representative, real-estate agent/spacegirl Vilija, missed out on the final. She placed eleventh in her semi-final. However, as a consolation prize, she won the Barbara Dex Award.
Lili, Lena won ESC in 2010 without ever having met the two people who wrote “Satellite”, so it CAN work … but I get your point!
For me Lithuania’s format just doesn’t work. It can end up matching the “best” artist with the “best” song, that being a dreadful combination because of the two not blending well together. In my opinion, Lithuania’s song this year was really bad. It was annoying and I couldn’t find something to like on it. Dreadful. I was actually surprised it finished 11th in the semi. I hope their format works better this year, even though it is somewhat pre-defined to end to an awkward combination. P.S Vilija’s version of “Attention” was the worst for me. That Vaidas guy was the… Read more »
Quack…quack…quack…
Lithuania might as well withdraw from Eurovision if they keep up with this format. No big stars in Lithuania will even touch the contest. Only has beens, never wheres and ”X Factor rejects” .
I know it sounds like a good goal to match the best singer with the best song, but here’s why separating songs and artists doesn’t work. First, it attracts international composers who write as many songs as possible every year and throw them at anybody in Europe who will take them (there was a brief scandal about the same songs ending up in Lithuania and Moldova’s NFs this year.) If you look at the Wikipedia page for Lithuania 2014, you’ll see that the same group of people wrote half the songs on the show. I wondered why these were the… Read more »
Sigh.
Will Lithuania EVER learn??!!!
Also I like how the artist and song get picked separately which avoids the horror of an amazing song getting sung by a singer with dreadful live vocals or an amazing singer singing a pitifully boring song.
The fact Lithuania puts this much effort into Eurovision shows they’d love to win and are genuinely trying. They’re intentions are good but the result not so much, maybe this year will have better singers and songs as last year’s was pretty horrible despite Mia singing “Take A Look At Me Now” which easily should’ve represented Lithuania. I’ve said this before but if Lithuania wants to do well, I’d love to see a Lithuanian-language ballad similar to what Estonia often sends.