Our next preview takes us to the land where amber washes up on the beach, where the world’s first portable mini camera was made and where eating salad is cool. It’s Latvia!
History
Latvia debuted in the Eurovision Song Contest in 2000 and will make their 24th appearance in the contest this year. They began their time in the contest successfully, with “My Star” by Brainstorm finishing third on their debut. Only two years later, Marie N gave Latvia its first, and so far only win with “I Wanna”. After six years of semi-final failure, Aminata brought Latvia back to the final in 2015, finishing seventh with “Love Injected”. At the 2023 contest, Sudden Lights finished 11th in semi-final 1 with “Aijā”, missing out on the final by just one point and leaving Latvia out of the final for the sixth year in a row.
Selection
The Latvian broadcaster, Latvijas Televīzija (LTV) organised the tenth edition of Supernova to select their 2024 entry. The selection consisted of a semi-final and a final. In the semi-final, a combination of jury and public voting chose ten of the 15 competing entries to advance to the final. The same method was used to select the winner in the final. After winning both the jury and public vote, Dons was awarded the Latvian ticket to Malmö.
Artist
Artūrs Šingirejs, better known as Dons, was born in Brocēni in western Latvia on April 10 1984 to a Belarusian father and a Latvian mother.
Dons began his career after appearing in the Latvian talent show Talantu Fabrikā (Talent Factory) in 2003. He released a duet album with Linda Kalniņa, whom he would end up marrying, called “Viens Otram” (To each other). After the success of this album, he released his first solo album “Lights On” in 2006.
In 2007, Dons switched to performing in his native Latvian. His second album and first in Latvian “Lelle” (Doll), was released in 2008. The album won Best Rock Album at the Latvian Music Recording Awards later that year. He has since released six albums since then: “Signāls” (Signal – 2013), “Varanasi” (2014), “Sibīrija” (Siberia – 2015), “Tepat” (Right here – 2016), “Namiņš. Kaste. Vārdi” (A cottage. A box. Words – 2018), and “Tūrists” (Tourist – 2020).
Since becoming a household name in Latvia, Dons has won the Latvian Music Recording Awards’ Top Radio Hit award seven times for the most played song in Latvia and Song of the Year at Muzikālās Banka five times.
Dons previously attempted to represent Latvia in the Eurovision Song Contest twice with the songs “My Religion is Freedom” (2010) and “Pēdējā Vēstule” (The last letter – 2014), finishing second both times in the national final.
The song that Dons will perform in Malmö is called “Hollow”. It was written and composed by Kate Northrop, Liam Geddes and Dons himself. The song also has a Latvian version called “Lauzto šķēpu karaļvalsts” (Kingdom of broken spears).
Song Review
If you haven’t seen Dons around on social media, he is definitely winning the battle for meme king of the year!
Dons is an artist who pours his whole soul into his songs. Combined with his dynamic vocals, you get a performance that is both simple and harrowing. If this contest was decided on vocals alone, Latvia would be fighting for the win. However, they have massive obstacles to overcome.
Latvia is starting the second half of the show, following the loudest half of any semi-final in history. With six straight non-qualifications behind them, the odds don’t look good for them either. However, I still think they could slip through. Latvia have actively been trying to qualify but they have just gotten unlucky every time. Hopefully Dons can be the one to break this curse.
The One That Got Away
Going up against one of the biggest artists in your country is no easy task as a emerging artist but Vēstulēs took it in their stride.
Despite still being high school students, the duo Vēstulēs brought “kur?” (what?) to Supernova, the only song in Latvian in that year’s contest. Against the odds, they finished second in the final. If this is only the start for Vēstulēs, I can’t wait to see what they get up to in the future.
Veiksmi Latvijā!
Do you think Dons has a deep message or is it all just hollow? Leave your comments below. Stay tuned tomorrow for another Eurovision preview!
(Sources: eurovision.tv, LTV, YouTube)
Thinking About It 