Latvia is getting serious about Eurovision again. Positivity for this year’s batch of contestants and songs is high, matching or exceeding that of last year, which saw the country place 6th with Animata and “Love Injected”, their best finish in the contest since 2005.
DJ Tom Grevins expressed his hopes and opinions on Latvia recent entries to the Supernova website, giving a sense that he was proud of what Latvia was bringing to the Eurovision table recently – something that wasn’t always the case, “This feeling that we are not ashamed of what we put forward to the international finals is a huge leap forward! [For] Quite a few years for me, personally, it was a bit embarras[ing] what we put forward to represent the country.”
This year’s show producer and jury member, Kaspars Roga, also echoed this opinion adding that the jury has been “given a very serious and difficult task” because of the quality of artists being represented from Latvia. Adding in the LTV press release that there were “no clear winners” due to the high level of talent. He encouraged the Latvian public to put their faith behind what they thought would be the most successful and popular artist, hoping that the larger European audience would surely follow suit if the Latvian voters chose well.
Project manager, Ilze Jansson, said when they chose the Latvian entries for 2016’s class, they felt the huge responsibility to find national sounds that could transcend the Baltic music scene and even beyond. Something that Grevins followed up by adding his wishes to see a top 3 placing this year, and a second hosting by the country within the next 10. Latvia hosted once in 2003 after Marie N won with “I Wanna.”
Ambitious plans for this Baltic state for sure.
As previously reported by ESC+Plus, the live show will air today at 20.25 CET. The 20 selected artists will be announced for the first time before going on to compete on the 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th of February where what started out as 88 applicants to the national broadcaster LTV, will then be narrowed down to the one winner of Supernova 2016.
Check out the announcement show here.
After that, please share who your favorites are with us at ESC+Plus.