Over the past week the Wiwi Jury — our in-house panel of musical unprofessionals — has been reviewing each of the four national finalists in Latvia. Our 10 jurors hail from Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the UK and the US, so we’re totally international. Below you can see the average score that each act received out of 10. If you click on the artist’s name you can read an interview, if available. If you click on their song you can read our reviews in full. Do you agree with our result?
1. AMINATA SAVADOGO – “LOVE INJECTED” (8.4)
The Positive: By far the strongest contestant in the final, Aminata injects class in her performance.Her voice just blows me away and her perfomance is also amazing. Move over Mariah Carey! Lil’ Aminata brings the voice of Eurovision selection season and it makes me shiver. And she delivers it flawlessly with such confidence those Eurovision juries will be seriously impressed if she goes to Vienna.
The Negative: It maybe sounds cruel, but her voice give me a headache. I’m so sorry, I tried to listen this song more, but everytime I had to turn it off. The song’s biggest weakness is the boring ending – 30 seconds of “oh oh ohhhh” repeated. I can’t see that holding the audience’s attention well.
http://youtu.be/JKMjBIx05R0
2. MARKUS RIVA – “TAKE ME DOWN” (7.5)
The Positive: A very contemporary and deep R&B pop ballad, I can imagine this song getting frequent airplay on radio stations across Europe. “Take Me Down” can help me through my worst moments and it could help Latvia end its bad run in Eurovision as well. He was way better in the semifinal than in the heat – I think he felt more comfy! This is modern, has a great beat and is cool!
The Negative: I feel Markus doesn’t do enough with it and maybe with another singer, I would be inclined to give it the justice it deserves. Mr. “I don’t like to show flesh” tries to get a lot of votes with his sexy body but it is not the best thing to do. It would be much better for him to pay more attention to his vocals and pronunciation.
http://youtu.be/Wk1_KCOd_LY
3. MNTHA – “NEFELIBATA” (4.5)
The Positive: This is unique without being freakish, avant-garde without being outlandish. During the semi-final MNTHA at times looked like an aristocrat going through a divorce. In other moments she looked like a homeless woman stumbling home from a club after too much experimenting. In both cases I adore it. From the sound to the staging to her other-worldliness, this is my winner.
The Negative: If Latvia wanted to add some comedy to the show, they have gone about it in the wrong way. I’m afraid that if selected to represent Latvia in Vienna, the laughs they will get won’t be of the good sort, and nobody wants that.This song shouldn’t be in the final. I know weird looks can work on the ESC stage but she looks like a toy from Toy Story and hopefully Latvia won’t send this cartoon to Austria
4. ELEKTROFOLK – “SUNDANCE” (4.15)
The Positive: So weird yet so good. It has all the makings of a complete and utter flop, but somehow the guitars and drums make it extremely catchy. Perhaps if they had more fun on stage, I wouldn’t mind seeing them in Vienna. It’s catchy yet cheesy at the same time.
The Negative: I want to be nice, but I can’t think of a single nice thing to say about this. Oh wait…. I really liked the song when it ended. The song is all about the musical instruments, but they aren’t even allowed to play them live in Vienna. I’m glad that the viewers weren’t voting for this song last week, so there’s still hope for Latvia.
As long as they don’t choose Electro Folk I’ll be happy, all of the others are good in my opinion
To whoever wrote “The song’s biggest weakness is the boring ending – 30 seconds of “oh oh ohhhh” repeated” about Aminata’ song – well… that’s precisely my favourite part 😛
It really boils down to personal taste, a song can be loved and hated for exactly the same reasons.
Send Aminata or suffer an early exit once again. Your choice, Latvia.
Markus needs to win I’m so nervous because there’s still hope inside me that while promoting his song people could have changed their mind but then he never was televote’s favourite so ughh the pain is real.
I have favourites from countries that haven’t decided yet but I don’t care about any of them as much as I care about Take Me Down. There’s an amazing production behind the song and Markus is such a lovely person and performer,they can’t do wrong by choosing him. If he wins,he’ll go straight on the top of my list followed by Italy.
The top two will be Aminata and MNTHA, and then Aminata will win I believe.
1) Aminata – 10/10
2) MNTHA – 10/10
3) Markus Riva – 7/10
4 Elektrofolk – 7/10
This Markus vs Aminata thing reminds me Amber vs Nina. 😀 Imposible to predict who’s going to win, but obviously i will vote for Aminata! 🙂
For music “unprofessionals” Wiwibloggs reporters are extremely rude. “Well, it’s Latvia, so..”. Get off your high horse, honestly.
Other than that – Aminata ftw!
Please Latvia, do the right choice tonight and choose Aminata. I’m begging you… 😀
Love injected is interesting song itself, but listening to aminata sing it live is really brraking any doubts i had when i listened to it. This little fella makes it work! Marcus riva, on the other hand, has a song for more pop-sy songs, more people would like it. His live perfomancesucks though 🙁 so aminata for win, in my opinion.
For Latvia to advance they need to be mainstream as possible while being sufficiently unique to differentiate themselves. Being unique and different alone won’t do it. There is a reason mainstream songs sell millions of records. Most of the voters will decide within the first 40 seconds whether or not they like the song. The introduction to Love Injected is too distracting and makes one think that this is just going to be a weird song. The chorus redeems itself but may have lost the voter by then. Nefelibata seems to be targeted to alternative music listeners who won’t be… Read more »
Europe wants MNTHA.
Aminata puh-lease!
Aminata must win.
Aminata is amazing, Markus Riva is just overhyped by those who desire his body so much that they don’t care about his crappy song anymore…..
You can vote at this website – http://supernova.lsm.lv/ – logged in facebook or twitter account. Voting starts after the last song! Hope it helped
I would prefer Markus to win, but if Aminata wins, it’s also a good news for Latvia. Just please don’t choose ElektroFolk.
@:) How do you vote excactly? With twitter or?
Aminataaaa!!! My favourite, she’s soo beautiful, such a voicr and harisma, oh hgooooshh!!
No she’s not ! Markus Riva is clearly the winner. Go Markus
please guys, help us tonight with the vote and vote for Aminata at this site http://supernova.lsm.lv/ with your twitter and facebook accounts 🙂 we need your help
Well let’s hope you guys are right and those poll voters(or the ‘sock-pupetters’ if there’s some dubiousness going on) are wrong 🙂
I prefer that folk over MNTHA, the video of hers creeps me out and the song does so too. That folk has a happy vibe to it, so I personally like it better. I still like Aminata better though.
AMINATA O MARKUS ESTARAN GENIALES EN VIENA, PERO ME TEMO QUE LATVIA MANDARA A LA MINTHA RARA ESA, QUE COMO NOVEDAD E INOVACION ESTA BIEN PERO NO ES DE GUSTO INTERNACIONAL