Around this time of year, we start to learn the artists who will be competing in the national finals around Europe. But Lithuania is doing things differently. Lithuanian news website 15min checked in with local stars and discovered which ones aren’t planning to do Eurovizijos Atranka 2020.
Jurij Veklenko is Lithuania’s most recent Eurovision representative. When asked if he’d have another go, he joked that he’d enter Rick Astley’s meme-tastic “Never Gonna Give You Up”. Jurijus confirmed that he had no plans to enter the national final this year, but wouldn’t give a hard “no”. He explained, “You can never say no because at the end of the day it all depends on whether the song is good or not.”
Donny Montell has competed in the Lithuanian national final five times previously and won twice. But does the “I’ve Been Waiting for This Night” singer plan on making it three? The singer said no, telling 15min, “I have no plans to participate in Eurovision this year.”
The Irish-born Erica Jennings represented Lithuania at Eurovision 2001, as part of the group SKAMP. She also competed at the national final earlier this year, where she and husband Jurgis Didžiulis placed fourth with “Sing!”. But the couple wasn’t happy with the way things were run and called for more transparency in the national final. The duo’s manager has confirmed there will be no 2020 comeback, but added, “What happens in the future, only time will tell.”
After her outrageous, watermelon-smashing “Get Frighten” act at Eurovizijos Atranka 2017, rumours had begun to circulate that drag queen Lolita Zero would make a return in 2020. However, Ms Zero’s manager/alter ego Gytis Ivanauskas has confirmed that fans shouldn’t expect much this year. After placing fourth in the 2017 grand final, Ivanauskas says “It doesn’t mean that I will take revenge but I don’t yet have such ambitions.”
Rūta Ščiogolevaitė is a national final veteran, having competed six times and reached the top-four five times. She last competed in 2016 with “United”. But it doesn’t look like she’ll be making a comeback. She explained, “I would very much like to go back to the competition if there was no weird Eurovision background.” Rūta also noted that she didn’t have the right song.
Other artists who won’t be making an appearance at Eurovizijos Atranka 2020 include 2009 Eurovision star Sasha Song, 2019 grand finalists Antikvariniai Kašpirovskio Dantys, Jurgis Brūzga, and Justina Budaitė-Junà and 2019 semi-finalist Edgaras Lubys. As well, entertaining duo Džildos & Oresto Vaigauskų have no plans to make their Eurovizijos Atranka debut.
Lithuanian national final changes for 2020
In September, broadcaster LRT confirmed that Lithuania’s national final would have some changes made for the 2020 edition.
The national final will involve only six shows, the same number as Sweden’s Melodifestivalen. As well, artists will only be allowed to compete with one song.
The show structure will also change. The previously in-studio jury panel will instead watch the show on monitors outside the main studio. The jury will also no longer comment on the songs at the end of each performance. As well, audience votes will no longer be shown throughout the show — the overall totals will be revealed at the end of each show. These changes are being done to bring Eurovizijos Atranka closer to the format of Eurovision shows.
What do you think? Who would you like to see competing in Eurovizjos Atranka 2020? What sort of act should Lithuania send to Rotterdam? Sound off below!
Thanks god no one of them are competing this year. I’d be happy if Monique, Vaidas, Monika Marija, GJan and Saules kliosas would compete. Any of them could go to ESC and wouldn’t disappoint.
Monique will take part this year in selection
Good luck to anyone who follows this national final-marathon, it takes courage
Haha it’s mentioned in this article that the changes include less shows and less blabbering of the jury. It should be more entertaining this year.
I heard about aiste and ieva will return but who knows ….
from where?
They said on social media they have plans to go back to national selection, but as i said who knows but i think Monica Marija will be back andmaybe also Vaidas
All I can say is that there is posibility that Monique will participate
Yep, Monique will take part at Eurovizijos Atranka
Thank god Lolita Zero isn’t returning
I have no idea wheter Gytis / Lolita is capable of producing good music, but Get Frighten was atrocious. However, I think that the song might have been deliberately bad. Tailored to “shock” and to be a guilty pleasure of a sort. In any case, it would’ve been by dead list in 2017 if it was picked.
It was more of an advertisement to a satire movie called Zero 3 rather than an actual entry to be honest.
send Monika Marija, it has to be her
I’ve been complaining about how too many national finals got scrapped, but if Lithuania decides to internally send Monika Marija, that would be an exception. I think that might be a smart idea if her new song is as good as Light On or Criminal.
OMG, what happened to Donny Montell’s new haircut? It looks HORRIBLE!!!!!!!!! Also, his eyebrows are….weird!?!?! He’s an artist, he should be more careful about his look…………
Dafuq, let him do what he wants?
have you looked in the mirror lately? We dont like shallow people here.
I’d like to see Aiste Pilvelyte return. She’s participated at their national selection nine times since 1999, and finished 2nd on three occasions. She deserves a chance to finally represent her country at Eurovision, as clearly she wants too. Also, I would love Fusedmarc to return. For me, ‘rain of revolution’ is the best Lithuanian and Baltic Eurovision entry EVER, and Fusedmarc deserves a comeback, and better placing and appreciation at Eurovision. Also, can Jurij Veklenko and Ieva Zasimauskaite do a duet? They are both so bloody sweet and cute, and seem like the nicest people in the World… I… Read more »
funny but Aiste Pilvelyte according to rumors is coming back this year 🙂
I 100% agree with your Fusedmarc point here. Their song was revolutionary and should have won in 2017. I still can’t believe they failed to qualify…. I think the votes were calculated wrong and Lithuania actually came 1st or 2nd in both televote and jury tops… I wish all Lithuanian NF songs were like ‘Rain of Revolution’. It’s my second favourite song of all time after the legendary WHY AY AY AY song.
Oh now ….It was strange
Is it because Rain of revolution was ‘YAY YAY YAY’ innstead of ‘AY AY AY’ ?
Just no. She’s awful.
Lithuania broke my heart this year – Light On or Your Cure would have been fantastic entries and possible top 10 material.
Would love to see Monika Marija or Allen Chicco back next year.
‘Light on’ would have been a nq, but considering Lithuanian huge diaspora, it’s also possible for it to be the 10th qualifier (since in 2019 and 2018 they made it the televote top10 because their diaspora pushed them, otherwise Ieva would have been a nq as well actually).
Ieva received 12 televote points from both the UK and Ireland. Without those 24 points she would have been 15th in the SF televote top. So Azerbaijan who came 11th in the SF can blame Lithuanian diaspora for their non-qualification 🙂
Literally no other country benefits more from diaspora voting than Lithuania, when it comes to making it to the final.
Nonsense! Not going to deny the fact our diaspora helps us out, but it isn’t that large to have an impact on the voting of a country with multiple millions of people.
Our diaspora isn’t big enough to push a “nq” song. Let me remind you Lithuania itself only has 2.8mil people.