As Lithuania’s newly rebranded national final Pabandom iš Naujo! Nacionalinė Eurovizijos Atranka 2020 continues, six more acts have made it to the semi-finals. In the second heat, the next 12 acts performed their songs and in the end, half the acts were sent home. Among the lucky qualifiers were X Factor champion Moniqué and the artistic performer Alen Chicco.
While the performances were pre-recorded earlier in the week, the voting was live. And while in previous years, the jury gave their scores after each performance, this year all scoring was left until the end. Both the jury and televote scores were revealed for the first time tonight.
Among the acts who will be heading to the semi-finals in February is X Factorius 2015 winner Moniqué. Her Billie Eilish-inspired song “Make Me Human” won the jury vote and came second in the televote, making her top the overall leaderboard.
Kristina Jure was the televote favourite with her song “My Sound of Silence”. The classic romantic ballad connected with viewers, while jurors only put it in fifth place. The two scores combined to put Kristina in second place overall.
Also qualifying was the artistic performer Alen Chicco. A fellow alum of X Factorius, Alen performed his entry “Somewhere Out There”, serving space noir staging with his soaring vocals.
Rounding out the qualifiers was Rūta Loop with “We Came from the Sun”, Viktorija Miškūnaitė who had “The Ocean” and Germanas Skoris with “Chemistry”.
But with these six heading to the semi-finals, it sadly meant that six others missed out. Among the non-qualifiers were two of the more memorable acts of the night. Twosome had “Playa”, which featured the very catchy chorus “I am a Lithuanian basketball player!”. Dressed in a QR code, Abrokenleg also entertained with her new-wave tune “Electric Boy”. We also said goodbye to Soliaris with “Breath”, Antturi with “I Gotta Do” Indraya with “You and I” and Voldemars Petersons with “Wings of Freedom.
Eurovizijos Atranka – Heat two results
- Moniqué – “Make Me Human” (12 points)
- Kristina Jure – “My Sound of Silence” (10 points)
- Rūta Loop – “We Came from the Sun” (8 points)
- Viktorija Miškūnaitė – “The Ocean” (7 points)
- Alen Chicco – “Somewhere Out There” (6 points)
- Germanas Skoris – “Chemistry” (5 points)
- Soliaris – “Breath” (4 points)
- Twosome – “Playa” (3 points)
- Antturi – “I Gotta Do” (2 points)
- Abrokenleg – “Electric Boy” (1 point)
- Indraya – “You and I” (0 points)
- Voldemars Petersons – “Wings of Freedom” (0 points)
The six qualifiers will head to the semi-finals in February, where they’ll be joined by the qualifiers from last week’s heat and next week’s final heat. There, the contestants will compete for the eight places in the grand final, due to take place on 15 February.
What do you think of this week’s six qualifiers? Could any of these acts go on to win? Tell us your thoughts below!
BELTING IS LIFE
Plus she (Kristina) has a bf from a famous band 8 KAMBARYS who most probably has lots of people supporting his gf at the same time… General viewer has an assumption that Monique or any other better known artist will get votes in any case… Everybody is concentrating on the final.
Monique is stunning. Song is a grower. Found myself humming the chorus out of nowhere today.
the more I listen to Monique song, the more I like it. It would be a strong entry I believe. At the moment by far the best choice from Lithuania’s selection. Although one last heat still left, so new 12 songs, and who knows maybe Pilvelyte will surprise.
I still think Make me Human is a potential ESC-winner, but the staging didn’t work. I understand what they were going for, but it came across as too cold.
For me it’s nothing special. But on the other hand I really like “Out of air” from Norway, so there is a possibility my perspective is broken. ;D
For me “Out of Air” is nothing special. 🙂 I have him placed 8th out of 10.
Honestly, I think Monique could easily end up in TOP5 in Eurovision with improved performance, who knows maybe even win!
Hope Monique or Monika Marija, will win!!
Moniqué
I loved Monique song, staging,message – everything. It was amazing!
I see my comment got deleted for no reason? I tried to explain but oh well…
Kas skaito iš lietuvi? dabar komentarus, tai nekreipkit d?mesio. Monique atstovaus Lietuv?!???
Atstovaus 🙂
Unrelated question:
Is Monique pronounced Mo-NEEK or Mo-NI-KEEH?
NEEK
Yup, it’s Mo-neek. And I think it’s stupid she uses accented letter because then it should be pronounced Mo-ni-keh
Can we just take a moment to appreciate R?ta Loop and her song „We came from the sun“. It’s just so amazing and I think it should win Pabandom iš Naujo.
The song gets interesting only in the last 30 seconds. Until then it’s very bland. It could be much better with another arrangement.
No surprises here, except for maybe Kristina Jure. I dind’t like the song but the live performance lift it up, so I wasn’t surprise at all she won the televote. On the other hand, Monique’s “Make Me Human” is just average, after 1.30 minutes it gets boring and repetitive. The song itself isn’t bad, her vocals are soft but on point, but the overall performance is… uninteresting. Wouldn’t qualify in May I think. Alen Chicco was ok though I prefer the studio version.
On the second listening, I think that Monique and Alen Chicco have the best songs. Viktorija and Ruta also have good songs, each for a different reason. Kristina has an average song, but an amazing performance. Germanas’ song is still awful.
NQs are mostly average or sub-par, but Playa is such a guilty pleasure!
Germanas over Twosome just doesn’t make sense.
It seems a popular rock band in Lithuania asked its supporters to vote for Kristina. The votes in the heats are usually a low number , so she won based on that. That said Monique also didn’t get enough votes cause the song didn’t live up to the hype .
It’s like Bulgaria 2018 , the song was good , but the hype made it seem to be so much better than it ended up being
Kristina is a X-Factor finalist, so she has some fans. Oh, and she has done some PR this week because several media outlets wrote a heart-warming story about how a blind songwriter wrote this song specifically for her and how she believes in it etc etc
But yeah, in further shows where more people will be voting, there wil be no chance for her to win televoting
Kristina is not super popular, but she is a X-Factor finalist, so she has some fans. Oh, and she has good some good PR this week because several media outlets wrote a heart-warming article about how a blind songwriter wrote this song specifically for her etc etc
But yeah, I’m pretty sure she won’t win televoting in further shows when more people will be voting
Am I the only one who thinks Alen Chicco was the best last night? Staging definitely needs to change, but the vocals were on point and the song is amazing.
What’s with all the hate about Monique? I never liked her or her songs, but this piece was really good! It was the first time i heard it yesterday, and I woke up this morning singing it in my mind!
It’s not hate, it’s disappointment because it was hyped so much.
Nah , the thing is people said it’s a ESC winner and yet it couldn’t garner enough support to win it’s heat’s televotes . Also the song is repetitive.
And I’m still favouring Namu dvasia
I think Monique song needs a bit of revamp, sometimes it feels too repetitive, too much reliance on chorus.
Maybe if some revamp would be possible to make the song be less repetitive – it would be great song.
2 reasons:
1. Heats do not attract voting mentality, many people simply do not bother to vote because they think that favorites(like Monika Marija or Monique) will still receive many votes anyway. It’s a different story in semifinals and finals. Also Heats tend to attract less viewers and usually they are the more conservative ones (people with older age since many younger people probably have other recreational activities on Saturday night).
2. Older people in Lithuania is really conservative and they like boring ballads.
Basically when the younger generation will join voting the results will be different.
Hopefully the third heat has something good, otherwise Lithuania will have another nq. Moniqué and Monika have very flat, uncatchy and dull songs.
Oh ‘Make me Human’ will easily qualify because jury always adores this kind of songs and they can qualify purely because of their huge diaspora, like Ieva did in 2018.
Ieva was worth it you salty poopie
“Huge diaspora” lol
literally one of the smallest countries in Europe
It doesn’t matter , the population living in the country. Lithuania gets 12 points from UK , Ireland , Poland , Latvia and even sometimes Estonia not based on song quality alone. It’s the people who left the country for better opportunities elsewhere
Here’s just a list of ESC countries which have smaller populatsion: San Marino, Malta, Luxembourg, Cyprus, Montenegro, Estonia, Latvia, Slovenia, North Macedonia, Moldova. Plus Albania and Armenia have almost the same population as Lithuania.
We have big number of emigrants in Europe and they are very supportive to Lithuania and in Eurovision it makes huge diaspora
Lithuania does have a big diaspora I mean 12 points from Uk, Norway and Ireland for that horrible Running with the Lions song… Ieva’s result was deserved though diaspora or not.
There’s only 50k Lithuanians in the UK. If that’s enough to get 12 points, the question is – do the Brits not have phones to vote with?
Do the Brits even bother to vote? 😀
The girl who won televote is One of most popular gruops in Lithuania (among youngsters) members girlfriend. I bet he asked his fans to vote for her
She was in the Lithuanian xfactor last year but after that, nobody heard about her. And she came third, I think, so she wasn’t the winner and fan’s favourite. Her boyfriend, although, is a member of a popular among youth hip hop band, so maybe, just maybe, it has something to do with it. But answering your question, it has nothing to do with her popularity, because she’s a nobody.
Her boyfriend is a member of really popular band “8 kambarys” and he promoted a lot. Another possibility – 1000 votes are not a lot, you can vote 5 times from each SIM card, so you only need 200 sim cards to win televote. If you are desperate enough – you can do it and it is a public secret, that some artists and their family members/friends do that. Giržadas, head of delegation for Lithuania, mentioned once, that sales of sim cards sales during Lithuanian pre-selection is raising not by percentages, but by times. So I’m pretty sure this is… Read more »
Moniqué – nothing interesting, everything very mediocre.
Who needs a copy of Billie Eilish.
Solo – never makes any sense, gets the most down votes, still keeps going. Such a motivation for all of us.
Except for the fact that solo here is speaking the truth I could have believed you
After two “Eurovizijos atranka” Kristina is the best.
https://www.lrt.lt/mediateka/irasas/2000090888/eurovizija-2020-kristina-jure-my-sound-of-silence
Said no one ever
Here you have lost judgement and insight solo
Hello Ktk1l! Wasn’t enough to spread the toxicity in Youtube, you’ve taken it upon yourself to come to Wiwi 🙂 Yikes.
As a Lithuanian I can’t help you here unfortunately. I’ve never heard of Kristina Jure before this and I listen to a lot of Lithuanian music. The only answer I can give is that the viewership is very low (nobody I know back home bothered to watch) so it’s quite easy for one to manipulate the televote, especially in the heats. Despite that, I’m baffled how Moniqué didn’t crush the televote, she’s huge in Lithuania, my little sister and my young relatives idolise her like a lot of young people do. Keshas pointed out to the fact that a lot… Read more »
Kristina Jure 1st in the televoting and Alen Chicco only 6 points from the public? Also those Twosome clowns only 5 votes behind Alen?
Every year my country confuses me more and more…
Moniqué disappointed me too so I need Aiste to be brilliant otherwise it’s another year of disappointment for Lithuania
Ooo is that the hashtag: #sadboi ? That’s fab. 🙂
I always feel that the best song should win, somehow. By as much consensus as possible. Fast or slow or mid-tempo… doesn’t matter so much. Except when the audience goes to sleep in the Grand Final and then we really do have a problem, haha. Anyone remember 1997? (Until Katrina and the Waves arrived, I found it difficult to stay awake!)
Nah, 1997 was a great year, it gave us “Dinle”, “Fiumi di parole”, “Mana mou”, “Ale jestem”, “Sentiments songes”, “Primadonna”, “Minn hinsti dans”, “Let Me Fly”, “Stemmen i mit liv”, there’s so many… 1999 was really dreadful though, not to mention 2001 and 2002.
I just watched Annturi and Abrokenleg. They are both cute acts who remind me of theatre rather than television. I felt a bit sorry for them; just not their night in front of the cameras.
Wow, I just heard Viktorija Miškunaite’s “The Ocean” for the first time. What a stunning song. I’m happy that it qualified. 🙂
I like it too. The first time I was so-so with it, but with second listening it really grew on me! It’s quite lovely indeed.
P.S. The embedded YouTube video above does not appear to work here.
I didn’t watch this one, so I was looking for YouTube video clips (that work).
Instead, I found this copy of the live stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQDwCJdKsRk
I just checked the break down of the heat 2 results and it seems Kristina garnered 1051 votes to Monique’s 851. Honestly, I don’t think that’s a very significant difference (atleast compared to Monika’s landslide 500 vote diffrence in heat 1), and I think with the exponential increase in viewership in the semis and final, Monique could very well make up the deficit, especially considering she absolutely dominated the jury votes (edit: she received every juror’s 12pts!)
People understand what is beautiful, which song touches the soul, and that is the result. Monique got too many votes, obviously someone standing behind her, definitely not talent and song.
Clueless Solo
Solo is definitely related to Kristina or she is Kristina herself lol
I think that “Make me human” is very safe for Lithuania and it is a really good song(I got chills actually while listening to it on tv). But with a revamp and good simple staging it could blow Europe away.
Yes! the simple staging is the key – her performance on morning TV was much better. Too many graphics, robot dancing, etc etc on the live stage show, sort of cheapened the song.
We have a lot of old people watching Eurovision in Lithuania. They really like ballads 🙁
I just watched Kristina Jure’s performance and it all reminded me of Chiara from Malta (three times representative at ESC). I really liked it, but I supposed I am getting a bit old. 😀
Monique is really weak. I hope that Gabrielus will win at the end. He can give Lithounania one of their best results. Monika and Monique are very poor unfortunately.
Well said! idk who could dislike a comment like this. Gabrielius song is way more catchy. I forgot what Monique song sounds like. It’s not that musical.
Same here. The downvotes come just from Monique/MOnika Marija hyped fans I guess.
similar questions were raised regarding similar results in the heats in the past few years and the answer we got was always sumthin in the lines of “not many ppl bother to vote in heats… so these initial results are far from what the final ones will eventually be”
the words billie eilish inspired make me stan automatically
But there are still more countries that haven’t even given a single clue about their entrant, also, so far it’s confirmed that we’ll have upbeat songs from Bulgaria, Greece, Austria, and who knows how many more countries.
Unpopular opinion: I actually do like Monika’s song even though it is not better than her last year ballads. I just don’t understand why people think it is overrated just because was the favourite last year. Just like Monique she did well with both juries and public. For me I like the diversity of music that Lithuania has this year and there are quite a lot of songs that I wouldn’t mind winning besides Monique and Monika. I like them both but there is also a lot of other talented artists. It is too early to do predictions but I… Read more »
Monique slays ! She will win this get ready Europe ?
But Monika wasn´t better than Monique….
Truth be told, “Make Me Human” is a really weak entry. It’s bland, repetitive, unoriginal, and frankly it was one of my least favourite performances tonight. It’s trying to be alternative, profound and emotional, but to me it fails in all of these categories. I believe that the hype surrounding it comes from the fact that Monique is famous in Lithuania and not the quality of the song itself. If “Make Me Human” gets picked, it will really struggle to qualify just like “Run With The Lions”, which I think shares a lot of problems with Monique’s song.
Your truth is just your truth, thanks for your subjective opinion!
Every opinion is subjective and so is mine. I may like something that you don’t and you may like something that I don’t. I might be wrong, I might be right, time will tell, cheers 🙂
Walkowski you’re clueless. Why don’t you tell us the reason why you like Monique? There’s nothing special about her entry.
I agree. this will flop dramatically if chosen.
All the comments say Monique was weak but get plenty of dislikes. Apparently people can’t accept the fact that Monique song is REAAAALLY weak, but have no argument to prove otherwise. Ugh
Make Me Human ain’t weak. Here’s my argument: the style of the song is currently incredibly popular, Moniqué’s voice is stunning, there is a clear message throughout the song, the vocal is good enough to potentially reach the older generation that may not necessarily be accustomed to the genre, the staging fits the message well, and, while repetitive, is catchy in a way that doesn’t make you want to bop to it, but to appreciate it. 🙂
Trending in Lithuania, almost 100k views in YT.. how could you explain that? SHE IS A WINNER!
Skiwalko you’re partly right. It’s not that bad as you say but it needs a bit of revamp if it hopes to reach a final and maybe top15. However this song has potential, it really has, with good staging and some revamp it could look decent in Eurovision.
Why isn’t anyone mentioning Ruta? Such an amazing performance, definitely my winner!
Welcome to the fandom of Ruta – I like her very much, too !
You guys can count me in. I had some fear that it maybe wouldn’t translate to a live performance, but it actually worked pretty well.
I really like Make Me Human, but my issue is that it doesn’t feel like it really goes anywhere; once you’ve heard the first 30 seconds, you’ve heard the whole song. I loved Someone Out There, but waiting to see the live performance.
Yup. It’s basically a short melody on a loop that has absolutely no peaking. Sounds cheap
I feel like Make Me Human is far more Lorde than it is Billie Eilish… are we just calling everything Billie Eilish-inspired this year?
If my country had a national final in early March, I would definitely take this under consideration before making a decision. I still think that the best entry should always win. But if two entries share a similar level, why not being strategical?
”But if two entries share a similar level, why not being strategical?” I agree! I feel like this is something later national finals (like Melodifestivalen and Selectia nationala) could consider, especially among the juries. If they have two equally amazing songs, maybe pick the one less reminiscent to the tempo and style which prevails among already chosen songs. If there is a possibility for that, I’d like to see diverse entries.
No available studio version for Moniqué’s song yet, right? It was the first time I was listening to her song and I actually liked it. But I felt the staging made the performance somewhat cold. In any case, she’s definitely a contender. I’m happy that Ruta Loop did well, considering songs and performances, she has probably been my favorite so far (though I trust Gabrielius will fix his staging and get back on the lead). Alen Chicco was interesting as usual, always glad to see him in the mix, even if I think it’s not his time yet.
Looking at various recent years, I am positive that there will be a lot of bangers, as well as a lot of ballads. Also, there will be several songs which won’t necessarily be either (it’s not a strict dichotomy). I feel like a good ballad (or slow song) could win again (I mean, Ukraine 2016 / Portugal 2017), but not if it tries to emulate Arcade in any way (I absolutely love Beautiful Lie, but I feel like it will not win. It might get to top 10, but I don’t think it would win).
Beautiful Lie wouldn’t win Eurovision even if we take Duncan out of the picture…