While this week’s Eurovision news has been dominated by 2020 artists who have decided not to have another attempt at their country’s national final, this won’t be the case in Lithuania. The Roop have confirmed they will compete in Pabandom iš naujo! 2021.
The trio confirmed their intention to participate with a post on Instagram. They wrote: “The question we were hearing since spring will be answered now — we decided to take part in the National Eurovision selection. We have a song and we have a vision. Let’s hope it will become Euro-vision.”
View this post on Instagram
The comment suggests that, like Iceland’s Daði Freyr, The Roop are putting as much effort into the song’s staging as the song itself.
The Roop joins other Eurovision 2020 acts like Estonia’s Uku Suviste and — reportedly — Sweden’s The Mamas in taking another shot at their country’s national final. While other acts, such as Croatia’s Damir Kedžo and Finland’s Aksel Kankaanranta have confirmed they won’t be returning for 2021.
The Roop returns to Lithuania’s national final
Last month, broadcaster LRT revealed details about the format of national final Pabandom iš naujo! 2021. They also confirmed that The Roop would have a guaranteed place in the contest’s grand final, meaning they would not have to qualify through the heats and semi-finals. There’s no sense that The Roop need to be given a shortcut to the grand final — it’s more being done as a courtesy.
The trio will also have the right to perform their entry at all previous stages of the contest prior to the grand final. This ensures that the Lithuanian public will be exposed to The Roop’s new song just as much as the entries from the acts competing in the heats and semi-finals.
Entries for Pabandom iš naujo! 2021 close in mid-December. The competing acts will be selected by a jury of experts from LRT’s entertainment divisions. The full schedule of Pabandom iš naujo! 2021 has not yet been confirmed, but the contest will kick off on Saturday 16 January.
What do you think? Are you glad that The Roop will be back? What sort of song should they take to the national final? Tell us your thoughts below!
With so many “returning” artists, the endless talk will be about if their new songs are an improvement or a letdown after their 2020 entries. It will be a super interesting year. I think the 2020 entrants will have a leg up on the competitions because they have established equity with the fandom. I doubt all these 2020 entrants will have songs in 2021 that top their 2020 songs
Some of the 2020 entrants had weak songs in my opinion, so this is a great opportunity for a second chance. I am more concerned about the returning favorites composing songs that just as good or greater than their 2020 efforts. We’ll see when 2021 rolls around.
Great news! I hope they have an equally or even better song than “On Fire”, which became really addictive to me with time.
The thing is, On Fire wasn’t their typical song. So i’m scarred.
Lithuania, you have ONE job! Hooray!
One job if the song is any good. Otherwise, nah.
Yay, I’m glad the Roop are back! I hope they’ve got a strong song in them.
Yay.
I am scared that Ieva will also come to the national selection, she supposed to be a part of Lithuanian national selection this year but then she moderated the selection, she already won against The Roop back in 2018 …
As a Lithuanian I can assure you that even if Ieva participated, she would not stand a chance. 2018 selection was pretty weak, so her winning was not surprising. The rebranded selection got pretty ruthless. Including what we saw this year when one of the biggest names in Lithuanian music industry Monique fell short.
Hooray! What a relief
And “On Fire” was my favorite of 2020 so that’s especially exciting for me
Congrats! I really liked On Fire and I can’t wait to hear another NF song by them. 🙂 That said, I re-listened their 2018 entry, I Do, and while still having an interesting instrumentation and a great voice, it’s a bit too repetitive for my taste. I don’t think I Do would’ve been in my top 20 this year. Maybe around 25th-30th place. So, I hope that their huge chance on winning again will be backed up with a song which really is better than most, if not all competitors. But in any case, we’ll still have bunch of cool… Read more »
I would also like to know if Israel’s songs are still planned to be released this month? And also is Cyprus revealing their act in November or not?
Last year they revealed the Sandro as the artist on 29th of November, so we should expect an announcement soon, atleast I hope so.
true Tamta was also revealed on 29th or 30th I think..
I think there were implications it was her, and that the song was called Replay, on December 8, and her confirmation was on December 22 (I was actually in Tel Aviv that day, though I found it out from an ESC website)
oh? 🙂 than I was mistaken
Armenia and Cyprus were the only nations to have named their acts for TA prior to Kenges Festival (though many more came in in January that year). Now 20 nations are ahead of them.
Really happy about that!
Yes! This is the news I needed to hear today! As with all the 2021 artists, I hope their song isn’t too “forced”, but a song they genuinely like and want to perform. With Little Big also trying for Russia, I hope we can see our most liked groups from last year dueling this year. That would so epic!
Not picking them would be such a robbery for Lithuania.
Depends on the competition.
And the song itself, of course.
Of course, that is probably more important.