Lithuania: Wiwi Jury reviews Benas Malakauskas and Germante Kinderyte

The Wiwi Jury — our in-house panel of music unprofessionals — has arrived in Vilnius to take in the local sites and review the 24 qualifying songs in Lithuania’s national final Eurovizijos Atranka 2018. We start with Benas Malakauskas with “My Memories” and Germante Kinderyte with “Turn It Up”. Did these performances make us want to turn up the volume? Read on to find out!

Benas Malakauskas –  “My Memories”

“My Memories” reviews

Anthony: Benas returns, but it’s the same old scenario after another last-gasp escape. He went on the charm offensive with his vocals and stage presence, only to end up in a Marmite situation — warmed by the public but not the juries. Benas needs to work on his performance if he’s to have any chance of making it past the next round, as the whole package still feels basic.

Score: 5/10

Luis: This is an advice to everybody who wants to become a singer: if you can’t hold a note, then don’t do it. It’s not necessary, there are wonderful singers who do little more than whisper. Benas is a clear case: the song is totally inoffensive but it works as background music until he hits the chorus. Or rather misses it, because he starts throwing dodgy notes that are incredibly disturbing. In the end, it all comes across as something you would not want to listen more than once.

Score: 3/10

Lukas: From an upbeat song last year, Benas has gone into a much more lyrical side. “My Memories” is a nice song and Benas performs it well but it is not that memorable. In the bunch of ballads in his heat, it really got lost. The whole song has way too many words and there isn‘t any kind of climax. With some work this could be a strong entry but for now it is not that strong.

Score: 6/10

Renske: Benas looked very classy on stage during the first heat, but there is something incredibly uncomfortable about this entry.  Some parts of the song seem very sweet, while other parts sound like a bad X Factor audition and that’s of course not the best way to interpret a song as “My Memories”.

Score: 5/10

Robyn: “My Memories” is a lovely song but at least in the first heat, Benas did not deliver a strong vocal performance. It could have just been nerves. The beauty of Eurovizijos Atranka is it gives singers the opportunity to really get comfortable with their song, so there’s a lot of room for him to improve.

Score: 6.5/10

In the Lithuanian Wiwi Jury, we have 13 jurors but only room for 5 reviews. The rest of our scores can be found below:

Before calculating the average score, the highest and lowest scores are dropped. This is to remove outliers and reduce potential bias. We have removed a low of 3 and a high of 6.5.

WIWI JURY VERDICT: 4.95/10

Germante Kinderyte – “Turn It Up”

“Turn It Up” reviews

Anthony: After hearing an Aussie songwriter got involved, Germante literally turned it up and delivered “Tonight Again” vibes. However, it was shocking to hear the juries giving her nul points. It’s understandable if they find it a tad generic for their liking. Unfortunately for them, I’m on the televoters’ side and appreciated her fun-filled energetic performance, despite the vocal issues.

Score: 7/10

Luis: Germante sells this quite well despite her obvious lack of vocal ability. This might sound harsh, but with a song as loud as this one, she’s too exposed, and at least on this first show, she didn’t hit all the notes. The song is decent, a bit repetitive, but it can do some harm in Lithuania’s selection. Luckily for her, Eurovizijos Atranka is a marathon, and she’ll have plenty of weeks to improve.

Score: 5.5/10

Lukas: The similarities to Paula from last year is very obvious here. From the song to the entire performance. Germante is the youngest act this year and you can see it from how nervous and unsure she was. “Turn it up” is a good song and has a great beat but Germante‘s performance brings it down. She needs to work on her English pronunciation and vocal as well.

Score: 5.5/10

Renske: While “Turn It Up” is very poppy and totally fits today’s airplay standards, it’s perhaps too poppy for Eurovision and because of that, it sounds like an average Junior Eurovision entry. Germante has to work more on her personal style, because the whole song feels like it is an Ariana Grande reject, rather than a product of herself.

Score: 6/10

Robyn: A female singer dressed in red, with her hair in a topknot? But no, this isn’t a rehash of “Rain of Revolution”. “Turn It Up” is a fun piece of Scandipop and Germante comes across a little like Sweden’s Isa. But her vocals aren’t quite strong enough. She almost gets away with it just from attitude alone, but she will need to up her game to offer a performance worthy of Eurovision.

Score: 7/10

In the Lithuanian Wiwi Jury, we have 13 jurors but only room for 5 reviews. The rest of our scores can be found below:

Before calculating the average score, the highest and lowest scores are dropped. This is to remove outliers and reduce potential bias. We have removed a low of 3 and a high of 7.5.

WIWI JURY VERDICT: 5.91/10

See our list of Eurovizijos Atranka 2018 rankings

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