The Wiwi Jury — our in-house panel of music unprofessionals — is in Latvia to review the acts competing in Supernova 2019. We are going to look at two returning artists, in the form of Markus Riva and Samanta Tina. Will either of them finally make it to Eurovision? Read on to find out!
Markus Riva — “You Make Me So Crazy”
“You Make Me So Crazy” reviews
Antranig: “You Make Me So Crazy” has a really catchy chorus which is definitely the highlight of Supernova 2019. Unfortunately, the verses are really weak. The verses need to be torn apart and completely rewritten to do that chorus justice. Latvia have all the ingredients for their best result since Aminata, which is not saying much. However, this needs a major revamp to get there.
Score: 7.5/10
Deban: Sexy, modern and drizzling with club beats, “You Make Me So Crazy” keeps me firmly on the dance floor. Straddling pop sensibilities from the Baltics to the Balearics, the electro-dance quality here is current. Most importantly, Markus Riva is back with a bang!
Score: 8/10
Sebastian: He moves with swagger, he has pants that are part tin-foil and part glitter. Markus Riva is the quintessential total pop-star package. “You Make Me So Crazy” is a little pop-banger which is unsurprisingly generic. But Markus sells ‘generic crazy’ really well. It might just be time for Riva to rise.
Score: 7.5/10
Bernardo: I’ve always felt like Markus Riva’s fate was to be at Eurovision one day but his latest attempts in Latvia make me rethink my opinion. “You Make Me So Crazy” is a recipe that can only work in the club. It doesn’t have a climax, it’s not a composition masterpiece and I dare even say, Markus has questionable vocals. I wouldn’t give him the ticket to Tel Aviv.
Score: 4/10
Edgars: Markus is finally on his way to reach his paradise and one day he will definitely sing on the Eurovision stage. But not this year. The key to winning Supernova is to return with a better song than the year before, yet it seems like Markus hasn’t heard about this trick (and neither has Edgars Kreilis). The song is basic, the lyrics are boring and I can’t imagine Markus coming up with a brilliant show to make it better. See you next year, Markus. Hopefully with a much better song.
Score: 4/10
Robyn: “You Make Me So Crazy” is one of the best Markus Riva entries at Supernova and this might just be his year. Supernova 2019 is a surprisingly weak year so there’s less competition, but the song stands on its own. It perhaps needs to do more than just declare feelings of being crazy in love, but there’s a lot of potential. #markusriva2019
Score: 7/10
In our Supernova 2019 Wiwi Jury, we have 14 jurors but only room for 6 reviews. The rest of our scores can be found below:
Natalie: 7/10
Luis: 4/10
Kristin: 7/10
Lukas: 7/10
Oliver: 5.5/10
Jordi: 5.5/10
Jack: 5.5/10
Florian: 7/10
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 4 and a high of 8.
Wiwi Jury Verdict: 6.21/10
Samanta Tina — “Cutting the Wire”
“Cutting the Wire” reviews
Natalie: She’s really trying to push attitude into this song, isn’t she? It’s a fairly decent synthpop song, but it also lacks a lot of polish. There are precious few layers and a lack of impact, plus it feels very repetitive and ends rather underwhelmingly. That repeated synthy note in the background through the verse really started to jar on me too. Samanta’s strong stage presence and voice carries most of this song but it isn’t enough.
Score: 5/10
Luis: Listen, “I’m cutting the wire, it’s my desire”? Haven’t we had enough of that rhyme with Kasia Mos? This entry is like trying to make at home one of those video-recipes from Buzzfeed with just the video, and without checking the ingredients and the quantities. The result is something similar to what a sultry jazzy tune should be but it’s half baked. Samanta’s voice is phenomenal and she gets to show off those vocal gymnastics. However there’s little merit to that — this track is practically a blank musical base.
Score: 4/10
Kristin: This definitely wasn’t doing it for me. It started out promising, but soon turned into some sort of a mash of random chords and became downright annoying at the end. I’m not quite sure what the original aim was, if there ever was one, for this is just a casserole of confusion. Samanta is so much better than this, and is in fact, the only good asset here. The rest is disappointing to say the least.
Score: 4/10
Lukas: I love Samanta and she has such an amazing voice and can give a great performance. But her song this year is just not that good. It has some potential there but as it is now, it just doesn’t work that well. First her pronunciation needs a lot of work and the song needs a much better chorus with more lyrics, because repeating ‘cutting the wire’ ten times in a row doesn’t impress me. The pre-chorus is quite strong but after it the song doesn’t go anywhere, which is a shame since Samanta can do so much more than this song.
Score: 7/10
Oliver: While the song seems to be channelling a bad James Bond knock-off theme song, that’s pretty much all that it has going for it. The lyrics weren’t great, the melody felt messy, the choreography was a choice and the song doesn’t really build towards anything spectacular. That being said, I am curious to see how this would be staged at the contest.
Score: 4/10
Jordi: Stage presence at its finest. Samanta is all about a-t-t-i-t-u-d-e in “Cutting the Wire”. And it’s also a “bravo!” for both her vocals and the catchy song. On the other hand, I would totally cut some ‘cutting the wires’ in the chorus, as it’s just way too repetitive and kind of destroys the exciting hook she created. But it has potential. She needs glam, lights and a big stage, and the attitude is all hers.
Score: 6.5/10
In our Supernova 2019 Wiwi Jury, we have 14 jurors but only room for 6 reviews. The rest of our scores can be found below:
Jack: 2/10
Florian: 5/10
Antranig: 8/10
Deban: 6/10
Sebastian: 6/10
Bernardo: 4.5/10
Edgars: 3/10
Robyn: 6/10
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 2 and a high of 8.
His fans are the most annoying bunch. If you’re on YouTube, you know what I mean.
His rl fans are mostly teenage Russian girls, who just want to make out with him. Basically Latvians hate him or even don’t know about his existence (he’s basically in Latvia just because there’s bigger chance to get to Eurovision than in Russia)
I think Markus needs to explore more music genres to make him stand out. His music where he sent entries that are ballad and EDM-like in the past are generic and it does not reveal his full potential there. Also, he needs to be more charismatic because every year, I see that he is still in that same level where things are bland (2015 is an exception): feelings, lyrics, choreography. He needs to break away from these in the end.
There’s nothing interesting in Supernova this year, so let the guy win and his agony will finally be over.
I need acts like this at Eurovision 🙂 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcKgR2A2E00
Markus Riva is proof that if you try out for Eurovision enough times that you become an institution, you’ll have fans no matter what dreck you put out there. “You Make Me So Crazy” is, at best, a bland song that Markus ruins with his below-average vocals.
He should stick to modeling, really.
Totally agree with you.
“You Make Me So Crazy” is so unoriginal, uninspired and bland that I can’t get why people thinks he is going to win at last. Don’t get me wrong I liked his 2015 attempt, but his entries have been getting worse every year. Also, they all sound the same. He doesn’t even have the voice to be the pop star he think he is. Should MIHAI & Markus Riva make a duo and try in Moldova or Belarus?? “Cutting the wire” is just average, maybe bad if I’m being totally honest. She’s on point, but her songs are just boring… Read more »
You Make Me So Crazy – If someone asked me what’s my definition of a middle-of-the-road song, I’d point them to this. It’s adequate, reasonably catchy, very derivative and typical. Riva participates every year, mostly with the same type of song, expecting a different result. This year, luckily for him, the competition is very low, so he may finally win. I think they have four better songs, though. – 5/10 Cutting the Wire – Let me cut this “vire” right now. It feels like the bad impersonation of Jessica Lange playing a Russian spy in 50s cabaret. Also, it’s very,… Read more »
I think i’m the only one, who thinks this is Markus’ best attempt since Take me down and i think he would be best choice to Latvia.
i like both, not great but not bad either especially for supernova 2019 standards
If only Marcus’ voice and talent were as good as his looks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fblhH1lM5XM&t=
predictions for Destination eurovision final
If Markus doesn’t win this year, I just don’t see it happening for him. He’ll never get a better chance. His song last year was better but the competition was fierce. This year, relative to other the Supernova entries, he’s got a great shout.
Cutting The Wire, sang by any other singer, wouldn’t have made it to the semi-final. Enough said.
After Kasia Mos, esc needs Samanta Tina with another FIRE-DESIRE rhyme. LOL
Markus just follows the same act like Imri from 17′ : very hot guy with a dull EDM pop song.
verdict: no.
Markus’s live vocals on his song lack power. I wanna hear him say those lyrics with conviction as if he means it, and hopefully not crack along the way.
As for the song itself though, that’s a whole other story.