Eurovision 2019 spotlight: Latvia's Carousel with "That Night"...
Out of the three Baltic countries that were once part of the Soviet Union - Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania - Latvia was the one country that started strong but has really underperformed recently. They have failed to qualify for the finals in the last two years, and in the last ten years only made the big show twice. Last year, jazzy singer Laura Rizzotto came in 12th with her respectable but straightforward song "Funny Girl", which was lost in the very competitive second semi, which threw powerhouses like Russia, Romania, and Poland under the bus. This year, they bring another intimate song of love and obsession. Can they do better on the second try?
Latvia - "That Night" by Carousel
Carousel is an indie-folk band from the country's capital and most populous city of Riga. They won Latvia's national final competition, Supernova, to be able to travel to Tel Aviv, helped by the jury scores over the public vote, which preferred Marcus Riva's dance-pop nugget "You Make Me So Crazy". Carousel, featuring singer Sabīne Žuga and guitarist Mārcis Vasiļevskis, came in second in the public vote, so it wasn't a total surprise, and their soft sound, which reminds me of the Common Linnets from the Netherlands from a few years back, certainly got them noticed. But the circular lyrical content and the sleepiness of the track (as opposed to the edgy emotion of the Linnets' "Calm Before The Storm") make this a rather bland alt-country pastiche in the end...
No matter how many times I listen to this, the feeling and content of the song slip through my mind like sand through fingers. I can't even place where the title of the song appears here, and with such a simple-worded lyric I don't think people will even be able to remember what this was. As for voters, the other two Baltic States are in the first semi's, as well as Belarus, leaving Russia and Sweden as the only neighbors in this one, along with historical big voters Ireland, Germany, Malta, Norway, and the UK Certainly, the musical performance by Sabine and Marcis is fine, but this is a song contest, and while it's not the worst (trust me, there are), this is way down the pack. (Rating: 3/10)
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Latvia, who had gained its independence from Russia in 1991, was the last of the "Baltic States" to enter Eurovision, starting in 2000. That year, they ended up in third place, which is not bad at all, and in their third year, the country won the whole even with their most successful entry, "I Wanna" from Marija Naumova, who performed as "Marie N" in a show that was a lot of "gimmick"...
As for my personal favorite from the country, that would be their entry from 2016, when dance-pop singer Justs brought the dark and funky "Heartbeat", which ended up in 15th place in the big show, so far the country's last finals qualifier...
But there are quite a bit of crazy years from this country, more than the usual. I mean, for a place that gave us songs like "Hello From Mars" and "Cake To Bake", this is their peak, dressed as pirates in 2008 for "Wolves Of The Sea", which happened to come in 12th in the finals and was followed by six years of semi's failures...
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