After Dons success in qualifying last year, Latvia have followed up his solid male ballad with, well, I’m not entirely sure…
Fun behind the scenes fact: in the last 30 days this site has received a full three visits from Latvia, that's less than Kuwait or Namibia. This is good news to hopefully minimise any hate mail for this review.
I don’t like to pile on the ethnic numbers for three reasons. Firstly, I tend to be pretty receptive to those, indeed my personal 1 and 2 of the year at this stage are Albania and Greece. Secondly, on principle and for the interest of a diverse year I’d rather a country send something regionally identifiable, at least every so often, and it has been a while for Latvia. And thirdly, it’s just a bit more impolite when a country shows of a bit of culture and tradition to then have a go at it.
That paragraph is of course preparation for me having a go at this. Bur Man Laimi is practically unlistenable to me. 30 seconds is more than enough before skipping through and realising there’s not much variation in the whole song. I don’t intend to listen to this again until rehearsals or the semi depending on what access we have this year. It's just a very difficult and unpleasant listen.
Of course I know very little of what this is supposed to be, but I also don’t really care, and nor will any viewer. If I am having a hard time with this, and the fans in general are mixed, I can only imagine the casual reaction will be to skip this.
For what it is worth, I take it’s performed well and there is potential for the visuals to look nice.
The closest comparison I think of is Tulia from Poland who failed to qualify in 2019 albeit with a pretty good 60 televoting points. Most of those however where received by diaspora countries (which Latvia lacks) as well as the now absent Hungary and Belarus. Czechia awarded that 7 points whilst Lithuania are here and should be fans of this but beyond that pair this sound may be a very hard sell and I’d argue this is far worse than Pali Se. Throw in the first half draw and I don't see this qualifying. There’s not much point discussing the jury appeal in my view but this was 3rd in its own national final, and there won’t be much respect shown I don't feel if this somehow does qualify.
Personal Rating: 2/20
Staging Potential: 13/20
Televote Potential: 4/20
Jury Potential: 4/20
Track Record: 3/20
Total Rating: 25/100
Early Prediction: Semi 2 12th-15th