Entries for Latvia‘s national final Supernova 2020 closed yesterday and now broadcaster LTV has revealed that 126 entries were received. That’s the highest number ever of Supernova entries.
The total is a huge increase on 2019, where 83 applications were received. In 2018, the 93 submissions were made.
Broadcaster LTV has shared some information about the songs submitted for the upcoming season, including that more than half of the entries were submitted on the last day.
Supernova producer Ilze Jansone revealed that several artists had submitted two songs. She also noted that they have seen more diversity this year, with a lot of young female performers and more songs in Latvian.
And it’s not just pop songs. LTV has received entries covering a variety of musical genres, including traditional pop, schlager, metal and even joke songs.
Two songs with the same name have even been submitted. Not only that, the name is said to be that same as one of a popular entry from Supernova 2019. More “Cherry Absinthe”, anyone?
Next the broadcaster will check all the applications to ensure entries comply with the Supernova 2020 rules.
After speculation surrounding the future of Supernova, the national final was only confirmed last month when LTV opened entries for 2020.
The 2020 rules allowed for foreign participants to take part as a producer or member of a band. However, the lead singer of the song has to be Latvian.
The grand final of Supernova has been confirmed for 8 February 2020, but the broadcaster has not revealed if Supernova will also involve semi-finals as well.
Last month, Jansone said, “At the moment we still can’t officially reveal how the finalists will be selected, but we know for sure that the final of the competition will be live on February 8.”
Supernova and Latvia at Eurovision
LTV has held Supernova for the previous five years so far, but the show has has brought Latvia mixed fortunes.
The first Supernova winner Aminata broke Latvia’s six-year non-qualifications streak and delivered a sixth-place grand final result with “Love Injected”. She returned the following year as the songwriter behind Justs’ “Heartbeat”, which placed 15th.
Since then, the subsequent Supernova winners haven’t managed to take Latvia to the Eurovision grand final. In 2017, electro-rock band Triana Park placed last in their semi-final with “Line”, while Laura Rizzotto and Carousel delivered pleasant but non-qualifying performances.
What do you think? Who would you like to see in Supernova 2020? What kind of act should Latvia send to Rotterdam? Have your say below!
Please send Lauris Reiniks to eurovision 2020
“and even joke songs”
that’s not a good thing
Give me Madara and Edward Kreiilis and i am ready
Fingers crossed for Madara
I hope Waterflower comes back
Hahahaha
I am readyyyy
But how many are listenable?
0-2?
hopefully the number increase is accompanied by an increase in quality bc i slept thru last year’s selection of songs
I like the sound of that! More options means a wider playing field of songs, and while that definitely means there’s gonna be some grade-A crapola throughout, there’s also more of a chance for good stuff as opposed to last year, where it was less that the selected songs were good as much as they were better than bad. I voted in the preselection, and on one hand it was cool to basically get the perspective of a Eurovision selection committee member even as a humble online voter, but on the other hand sorting through 83 songs one after another… Read more »
On one hand, this sound promising to find more potential entries.
On the other hand, I’m afraid some of them are Nordic leftovers.
Isn’t Latvia’s whole thing that they only take submissions from Latvian songwriters? (Or of Latvian heritage, like Laura Rizzotto?)
“The 2020 rules allowed for foreign participants to take part as a producer or member of a band.”
This line, though. The songwriters can be Latvian but I can imagine finding names like Symphonix or Alex P in the producer tag.
Well, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, is it? Latvian songs with foreign production values. Adding that extra sheen to a product that’s still basically local. I’m sure there are good Latvian producers out there, but a Latvian song getting that Swedish or Greek spit-and-shine sounds like it’d be helpful.
I don’t understand this constant disliking of foreign songwriters. Yes it’s nice to have the authenticity of native songwriters, but as Joe said it’s not a bad thing? All that matters is whether the song is good enough to the taste of a wider audience…
Don’t get me wrong: I don’t bother much with foreign help because they can give great boost to the entries. However, that’s not for ‘big names’ that made song for multiple countries, or producers who hass submission on song camps or bigger NFs, gets rejected, and transfer them to another country. I wish we could have less of those.
That point I do agree with, the whole recycling of songs. I think that ‘Colors’ song is a perfect example by Boris Milanov, hasn’t it been a demo for Poli as a possible Bulgaria 2018 entry and then Michaela for the 2019 Malta entry?
A lot of the songs are written in Riga song writing camps, where songwriters from multiple countries are invited to take part. This is the reason why they allowed foreign song writers and musicians.
And even then, only 40% can be credited to foreign songwriters/producers