Supernova season is well and truly underway now in Latvia. The selection – back for its fifth year – has withheld down the numbers to just 33 songs. Now, broadcaster LTV has published videos from last week’s private selection session for all to see.
With it, the “people’s jury” has also launched for a second year, allowing everyone to have their say on Latvia’s potential Eurovision entry.
Supernova 2019: Entries
There’s some familiar names – as well as quite a few newcomers – amongst the competing acts.
Two Supernova stalwarts feature amongst the 33 entries. Markus Riva returns for a fifth consecutive attempt, with “You Make Me So Crazy”.
Also back (after a year out) is Samanta Tina. She enters with “Cutting the Wire”. Can she finally make it to Eurovision?
Other returnees from previous years include Kris & Oz, Miks Galvanovskis, Miks Dukurs and Edgars Kreilis. Edgars’ return comes with the news that his entry for 2018 – “Younger Days” – topped the pre-selection voting with both the jury and public last year. In the end, he only could finish 6th overall at Supernova.
Will he be able to top the voting with “Fire” this year?
Other notable names in the list include Double Faced Eels…whose entry is also called “Fire”. Well-known rock band Laime Pilniga make their Supernova debut as well with “Awe”.
You can watch all the Supernova 2019 prospective entries through the playlist below:
Supernova 2019: Playlist
You can have your say on the songs through the People’s Jury. You can vote on each song by signing in with a social media account on the LTV website. The results of this will help LTV inform their decision on which 16 songs will move forward to the Supernova semi-finals.
The semi-finalists will be announced very soon too: December 5. The selected artists will then have time to prepare for the first semi-final in late January.
Which entries do you like the sound of so far? Do you think there’s an early Eurovision winner amongst the entries? Let us know all your thoughts in the comments below!
Semi-finalists: https://supernova.lsm.lv/lv/aktualitate/185/zinami-konkursa-supernova-2019-pusfinalisti/
Wanna hug Edgars! Top song!!! Please win!
honestly, the only good songs are “Fire” by Double Faced Eels and “Scared of Love” by Adriana Miglane
On first listening, I like these songs: Miks Galvanovskis: Fake, Shattered; Double Faced Eels: Fire; Edgars Kreilis: Fire; Liga Ribere: Bušu tepat; MARTA: Grow Down
I don’t want to sound negative, but I feel like most songs are just bland, repetitive, generic or all of the above. Riva is as generic as usual and Samanta Tina’s song is pretty bad. Worst songs are definitely the first two. If you get past that, everything else is at least a small step up.
Anyway, I am very happy as ’19 season has begun! We have heard the first ESC 2019 song!
The first two are particularly brutal. Save the best for last, eh?
Grow is odd and experimental and it barely qualifies as a song. But, even as a narrative piece, I find it badly written and her attitude on stage doesn’t fit the message it’s trying to convey. I Know You Know is just amateurish and weak and his accent is appalling. I don’t think either of the songs could score above 2/10 on a good day.
Come on guys, it is not that bad. We have seen worse. Surely I have, since I am watching since the 80s.
Most songs are not bad. There are only 7 or 8 bad ones. However, most songs are staggeringly mediocre, which comes off as even more disappointing. You can at least have fun with awful entries.
After a quick first listen these are my thoughts: – Miks Dukurs’ “Life” sounds interesting, he has pretty good vocals. Maybe the song isn’t that good. – Adriana Miglane’s “Scared of Love” is the typical piece of pop, but with all the amateur songs arounds it really outstands. Should be a semifinalist. – I don’t really like Markus Riva’s “You make me so crazy. Unlike “Life”, the song is ok, but Markus’ vocals hear are bit weak, specially compared with other “favourites”. – ATOM – “Alligator”… WTF??? Give them a place in the semifinal, at least they are different. –… Read more »
meme big disappointment
meme big greetings, fellow intellectual!
Someone stop markus riva from his euroaddiction. Or send him to malta where half of the acts participate every year
But Malta does X Factor now… Maybe San Marino? XD
This is what happens when you dont select Esmabiba
Juries told that they aren’t in support of pop in Latvian.
You guys seem to completely forget those are vids of auditions . Not a shocker the songs don’t sound complete but more like demos. It looks like these auditions are purely based on vocal abilities and some stage presence. I actually think there are multiple songs that sound quite promising and surely will be great tracks. I applaud the Latvian broadcaster for playing open cards and we should be happy to watch those auditions. Go Latvia! Go supernovaaaa! And those already predicting Latvia failing to qualify for the final after hearing just a few auditions from just one country: shame… Read more »
Welp, I think it’s going to be a showdown between Markus and Edgars.
Nope, Markus won’t represent Latvia. He is basically a meme because of countless attempts at representing Latvia.
Honestly none of these songs are good enough to even pass the semis. There’s maybe 1-2 that may have a chance if revamped and put in a weak semi. Sort of disappointed by these entries.
I’ve watched those 33 on a compilation video on YouTube. My overall impression? A facepalming emoji!!! Minsk 2018 as a children and teenagers’ contest has been waaaaaaaay of more quality. Their entries were so good that I even have second-hand embarrassment. Come on, Latvia …are you serious? Really?
Honestly I think one of the big problems is that none of the singers are that good, and so many of them seem to have a horrible grasp on English. Don’t sing in a language you can’t speak well, that’ll never work in your favour. The few songs I did like a little bit were “Fire” (both Edgars and Double Faced Eels), “B?šu tepat”, “Smaragdi un pelni”, “Fireworks”, “Feel”, and “Scared of Love”. Markus and Samanta were both really disappointing (not surprisingly so though). Samanta couldn’t even properly pronounce her song’s title — maybe that’s a sign you should be… Read more »
I feel bad for Markus Riva. He deserves to finally go one of these years but once again this year I am not so sure this is his year. He is always like my 3-5th favorite. And this year I think his song is possibly his best (aside from the weird beginning that to me sounds off-beat)….. BUT… Again I just like a few others better.
My favs are both of the “Fire” songs: 1) Double Faced Eels and 2) Edgars
i really am not a fan of any of these songs… kind of a bummer to start out national final season with this kind of selection of songs
well, aanother good latvian selection, there are ten songs, that i liked, but aligator from the stars is just holy cowing masterpiece
At least that one is memorable 😀 (I have forgotten about the rest)
It is genius.
Is there a Spotify playlist?
So it begins for another year, a lot of fairly decent but bland songs, I just listened to them all and can’t really remember any off them which ain’t a good sign. All I remember is some hippy with blue hair prancing about her flowerpots. The judges faces are priceless so they know its a weak lineup don’t they.
Incredibly boring selection. Would save “Remedy” (#3), “Scared of Love” (#12), “Fire” (#28) and “Feel” (#32), without even liking one of those. What happened, Latvia?
The beginning of Fire by Double Faced Eels reminds me a bit of BQL’s Heart of Gold from EMA 2017 or some other song I can’t remember.
Laika upe is really nice
I actually liked many songs! Too bad I disliked most of the singers. In the end I ended up giving 15 thumps up (16 really, since I missclicked once). My favourites were:
1. Krist?ne Pastare (Peress)/Smaragdi un pelni
2. Markus Riva/You make me so crazy (didn’t like his song last year – this time he did better 😉
3. Elza Rozentale/You Came On
4. Monta/The eye of the beholder
Um..So Latvia likes staying in the semi finals these days and we can’t judge them for doing what makes them happy.
FOLKS! WIWI!
Breaking news: the Electropop Queen MARGARET BERGER IS NOW MOM.
She has given birth to a boy 2 days ago.
Congratulations, Margaret!
How many Eurovision artists have had a baby in the last year? I lost count… That should be the next slogan- Wanna a baby? Come to Eurovision.
“My heart is shattered and it can’t be fixed by any engineer”
^^
My fave is Carousel’s “That Night”. Not very strong tho. Tragic.
Pick Riva, so at least his agony will finally end. Nothing else to say.
Our ears’ agony won’t end if he gets picked.
No pain no gain. We won’t have to listen to him for a long time after the contest.
Haha…I noticed that one, too.
Some people will never give up.
top 3: 3. Tautasdziesma – only because its the only one that stands out and is weird which is always a better choice than a bland pop song…
2.”Fake” – ok, sounds like Rag n bone man or something like that…he only needs better performance cause he looks too stiff
1.”Fire”(by DFE) – decent song but we had something similar this year – Stones from Switzerland and that song is like 10 times better than this…. even though this is still the best one here tbh
I know I should hate the Markus Riva song – but I just can’t!
Hmm, Roberts Memmens will use party KPV LV to win this contest?
Didn’t work out for xfactor. Hopefully won’t work in supernova…
For anyone that doesn’t understand. KPV LV is a populistic
political party. They think that LGBTQ+ rights should be voted for in a referendum, which will fail due to majority of 40+ being homophobic…
Oh wow, now I know who I WON’T be voting for!
I live for the judges’ reactions
Are you gonna do a reaction video?
I felt that this system gave an edge to bands, because most artists felt less awkward when they had someone to interact with. Anyway, I’m sorry to say that I didn’t greenlight any of the entries. With a revamp, better vocals and/or good staging, Latvia will be able to find something decent to send to Tel Aviv. But it’s hard for me to believe they’ll be in the final, unless other countries also fail to impress.
‘Fire’ by Double-Faced Eels is the winner.
You forgot to mention Aminata wrote one of the entries….also 2 songs called Fire, 1 called She’s on Fire and another Fireworks…talk about diversity
This would be the first year where people don’t try to copy the winner, but the runner up. Yeah! Yeah! Everything’s on fire. 😉
Quite a stretch considering neither entry sounds like “Fuego”.
This is so bad. Latvia is going for a 3rd no qualification.
Although Cutting the Wire by Jessica Lange could be alright if they heavily revamped it.
Samanta Tina and Markus Riva big disappointment. My favorite is Double faced eels and Miks Dukurs.
Lots of tinkering to be done. Side note: didn’t Aminata write one of these? Could’ve sworn I saw “Sevadogo” in one of the songwriting credits.
She wrote “Fireworks” by Alekss Silv?rs.
I kinda dug that one. I can hear the roots of a lot of decent songs here, they just need to do some revamping.
Oh well… Many of these are just a mess. Like ,,grow” I MEAN… What even is this?? I can’t really judge on many of these Songs, cause they don’t really sound like they’re finished yet. All I hear is a bunch of “meh.”. It’s kind of sad since this year’s Supernova was one of the best selections in my opinion. I hope they’re gonna work on these songs and improve them.
(I kinda liked ,,Fire’ by double-faced eels and ,,Feel” by Robert Memmens tho)
“Grow” is weird af, but what can we say about a grown woman singing that she doesn’t want to grow up, so she wants to “grow down”? Growing is not working well on this Supernova.
Markus Riva always had awful entries for Supernova, I presume they’ll finally pick him as their representative, so sick of trying and trying (just like Malta’s Claudia Faniello, who at least sang perfectly and effortlesly although her song was slow and outdated)… Nevertheless, judging by the quality of the songs there are 0 chances for Latvia to qualify, considering the facts…
Is it just me or does samanta tina suddenly look like jessica lange? xD
Afwul, afwul, afwuuuuul national final. These song are terrible. There is not ONE decent song in this line up. NOT one.
Supernova should be canceled this year. While it’s not to late. Choose song/artist internally. That’s what happens when you aim for radio trash pop song. Nobody legit from previous years are competing and i know why.
I like Double Faced Eels but the lead should improve his live vocals. Edgars Kreilis’s song needs a major revamp…the chorus is so plain and boring.
I’m almost sure that this will be the year we’ll see Markus Riva as their representative. The line-up is too weak, so it’s a big opportunity for him and his Russian fans.
Good luck, Latvia! You’ll need it.
Awful. So many songs needs drastic revamps and vocal training. I can only see two songs doing well ‘Feel’ by Roberts and ‘Fire’ by Double-Faced Eels
I only see potential in the double faced eels. That guy also has the best vocals of all of those singers.
Most of these songs need a massive re-vamp if they want any chance of qualifying… yikes
I mean, they are just demos.
There seems to be a general trend of with EDM and electronical effects. I think the legacy of Netta’s “Toy” is big in Supernova this year.
Nah I think Supernova was always like that…
That grow song is definitely.. well.. something