Lithuania 2026: Lion Ceccah with ‘Solo Quiero Mas’
Eurovizija this year lacked the really obvious winner there has often been but Lion Ceccah emerged the winner having been the jury second place (on count back) and winning the televote:
Allow me to break the ice since there's no point in delaying the reveal for the rest of the review but personally this one annoys me a bit and I'm left cold to whatever Lion is singing about. I don't really mind the song or the beat but there I a lot of pretention and window dressing on something pretty ordinary in my opinion. As a song, this is another feeling like it's from the 2009 contest and maybe could have been enjoyable through that lens but I think we're supposed to see this as some deep, arthouse entry. To me, it's just a guy spray painted silver. I guess if he wasnt I might be calling this out for lacking a USP so hypocrisy retorts are valid.
I was also ready to say this didn't strike me as particularly appealing to Lithuania's usually consistent diaspora but this won Eurovizija with a Televote more than double the runner up so more comfortably than it looked on pure points and very competitive against the last few year's winners there on votes cast. Potentially residual love from last year's song played a part or maybe I'm searching too hard for explanations and others just do really enjoy this. Anyway, instinct would say this receives a little less than the usual haul but I can't really back that up. I'm focusing on diaspora as I think that's the main hope for Televote points particularly in the final. Yeah it's memorable as 'the silver glitter guy' but is that getting votes? and there's just better packages out there.
The jury is also a bit hard to predict if they'll see this as artistic or if like me they'll see a standard song thrown into several languages and presented like this for the sake of it. There's a strong vocal and no real technical issues however so I expect it to do fine on that front, maybe better than the Televote.
It's not the best semi ever for diaspora support (no Norway, UK or Ireland) but having some jury appeal, second half draw, only needing to beat 5 countries, plus the general standard? Yeah this is sailing through and in the final lower mid-table probably. Lithuania sneaking into the top 10 is often a cool dark horse tip but mathematically I think the points to do that this year will be way beyond this.
Personal Rating: 9/20
Televote Potential: 10/20
Jury Potential: 11/20
Staging Potential: 13/20
Track Record: 14/20
Overall Rating: 57/100
Early Prediction: Semi One 6th-8th, 15th-19th in the final.
Volatility Factor: 1/5 - Some small upside if the juries really come on board but realistically this is finishing somewhere right in the middle most times.