After Lithuania’s act failed to reach the final Tel Aviv and following public criticism of the selection method Eurovizijos Atranka, the show’s organiser and head of delegation Audrius Giržadas has promised some big changes.
Let’s rewind a few months. Eurovizijos Atranka 2019 included the huge fan favourite Monika Marija, who garnered a lot of public attention at home and abroad. She was expected to win with “Light On” — but in the end she didn’t. Afterwards her producer Gediminas Jaunius had harsh words about the preselection process and her second-place finish.
He questioned whether the preselection jurors were biased and rightly asked why their votes were never published; described the uneven application of rules to various participants; discussed potential manipulation of viewers by unevenly showing the intermediate televote results; and said that the broadcaster doesn’t give enough funds to the act when they hit the Eurovision stage.
Following the uproar, head of delegation Audrius gave an interview to 15min.lt. He stated that the broadcaster will take the critiques into consideration and try to make changes for Eurovizijos Atranka 2020.
Of course, LRT made the same promises last year and nothing changed that drastically.
But it seems that the promise may well attract well-known singers to the competition.
In an interview with LRT.lt, Aistė Pilvelytė and Valerija Iljinaitė said that they both might return — but this time as a duo.
Aistė Pilvelytė is a huge Eurovizijos Atranka veteran: she’s already tried her luck 11 times and and almost won on multiple occasions. In 2010 her song “Melancholia” made it all the way to the final, eventually losinng out to “European Funk” from the group Inculto.
And the same thing happened in 2017 when she once again made all the way to the final with her song “I’m Like a Wolf”, which was written by Aminata Savadogo. She ultimately lost to the group Fusedmarc. Neither of the eventual winners made it out of their semi-final at Eurovision.
Valerija Iljinaitė is not a newcomer either: 2020 would mark her third time trying her luck in the preselection. She said that working with Aistė on the LRT song project “Dvi Kartos” has taught her a lot and that they have become close friends.
Aistė and Valerija both promised that if they reached the final of that show as a duet then they would try their luck in Eurovizijos Atranka. And they did just that. Now we just have to wait to see if these two strong women will appear in the Eurovision pre-selection.
What do you think? Will Eurovizijos Atranka actually change for 2020? Do you think the criticism is fair? Do you want to see Aistė and Valerija back in the selection together? Let us know in the comments below.
i prefer version of Jelena Tomasevic Melancolia
How did the jury in Lithuania give higher points to Run with the lions over Light on and in 2017 to that random ‘yeah yeah ‘ song over I’m like a woolf
We need a ‘I‘m like a wolf’ 2.0, I said it.
Just delete this national selection. It’s a big waste of time (and money I think)…
Internal choice, nothing better than that for me.
We don’t need more Rain of Revolution.
#AISTEPILVELYTETOTHENETHERLANDSFOR2020. The national final has that many heats that the most songs are eliminated before the final anyway. They mostly end up with generic garbage that they just try to polish and don’t bring it to its best form (with the exception of Ieva). As much as I feel sorry for Aiste her quality entries were the only ones who kept me interested in this mess and the result of it.
A better choice is to follow the system of their neighbors (two semis, one final) or go with one final with 10-12 songs, so they could focus on the staging more.
Eurovizijos Atranka makes Melfest look like a short pleasant stroll in the park. The embodiment of quantity over quality. Just have two semis and a grand final, like Eurovision, Eesti Laul….
Omg send this woman already. Her waiting in line might be an all-time record. Long ago, on two occasions she actually had the best song. I hope if they finally send her, it won’t be with the wrong song. It often happens that people win with their worst efforts after trying so long.
For the Lithuanian NF, the right change would be a one-night show with ten songs. Their system is insane.
I really believe we just enjoy trolling her ahahaha. Seriously, we should have sent her in 2008, 2010 and 2017 (2008 the selection was literally set up in order for her to win but she came 2nd again somehow), but with a few exceptions (2009, 2012, 2015, 2016, 2018) we love to make the wrong choice, and then sit here and wonder why we have never won
I am curious: how did she react all the times she lost and we does she keep coming back? Her 2008 song “Emotional Crisis” seems to be the story of her Eurovision life. lol
Justice:
She had Troy on fire in 2008…the song you mentioned was in 2009 or 2011…
1- Aiste Pilvelyte should have 100000000000% won with I’m like a Wolf
2- Lithuania needs to select the right winner for once- I have been ‘following’ their NF for 3 years now and they are yet to select the right winner.
Who should have won in 2018?
Ieva was a great entrant.
You need an internal selection, Lithuania..
and ieva
Ieva Or Monika Marija 🙂
A big, messy national selection with mediocre songs. I empathize with anyone who follows it
Not a big fan of selections that have the singer and song separate as they generally produce more hits than misses, couple this with the fact that the Lithuanian selection is a MARATHON and you have a [possible] recipe for disaster.
Generally speaking, with or without the marathon-long format, Lithuania tends to send songs that range from average or forgettable to downright terrible. I hope that things change soon because apart from 2016, I can’t really think of any Lithuanian songs I actually like (and I can’t even remember half the entries too)
“have the singer and song separate ”
No, look at innocent Michela from Malta singing a song like Chameleon, that should have be sung by Eleni Foureira.
Oops I made a mistake, meant to say ‘more misses than hits’
I agree, Michela lacked the stage presence and charisma the song needed to translate well on stage.
I really want Lithuania to win soon. They’re the only baltic nation that hasn’t won yet.
I feel the same way too. It’s one of my soft spot countries. While I have nothing against Jurijus, I do think Monika would have reached top five, making it Lithuania’s best result ever (6th place is currently Lithuania’s highest position with “we are the winners”). Yeah, this national final really needs to cut it down to just 2 semi finals and a final. I don’t why Lithuania and Hungary have such long national finals. They both should ditch the heats and stick to semi finals and a final.
Ekhm, Poland….
I also want to see Poland win one day too.
Esamiba, Light On…I’m looking at you now, Estonia…
What Estonian national final song did you like that ended up not going to Eurovision?
Umm, honey these are not songs that we would’ve liked to see winning but these were crimes that weren’t sent to Eurovision. Estonia doesn’t really have any because their s**t is put together mostly.