Lithuania LITHUANIA 2016 - Donny Montell - I've Been Waiting For This Night

[LastDreamer]

My full ranking of the favourite pre-selection 2016 :

1. Baiba - Mayday
2. Saulene Chlevickaite - Strong
3. Evelyn Joyce - When It Sings
4. Behind The Moon - Did It All
5. Milda Martinkenaite - If Tomorrow Never Comes
6. Ieva Zasimauskaite - Life Not That Beautiful
7. Alice Way - Hero
8. Ruta Sciogolevaite - United
9. Erica Jennings - Leading Me Home
10. Elena Jurgaityte - I Won't Come Back

11. Ugne Smile - You Don't Know
12. E.G.O. - Long Way From Home
13. Neringa Siaudikyte - Never Knew Love
14. Vlad Max - Don't Wanna Let It Go
15. 4 Roses - Butterfly
16. Istvan Kvik & Ellada - Please Don't Cry
17. Ruslanas Kirilkinas - In My World
18. Donny Montell - I've Been Waiting for This Night
19. Deividas Zygas - Survivors
20. Valdas Lacko - Stay Tonight
21. Aiste Pilvelyte - You Bet
22. Jurgis Bruzga - Hold On
23. Catrinah - Be Free
24. Berta Timinskaite - Stars In A Rainbow
25. Egle Jakstyte - Leisk Dar Buti
26. Dovydas Petrosius - Starlight
27. Lawreigna - Falling
28. Petunija - Tomorrow

 

[tuorem]

Time (!) for me to review last year's Lithuanian entry, after several months of silence. Why not? There is still some time to do so.

Donny Montell - I've Been Waiting For This Night
Status: average, as usual xboring

Song: Lithuania is one of those countries that have unfortunately failed to send a song I would even remotely like since I started following the contest in 2009. Even putting my taste aside, I think that most of the time their songs usually don't have enough musical merit to be featured in a song contest: Love (2009), C'est Ma Vie (2011), This Time (2015) were just cheesy and unoffensive to me, "Something" (2013) was probably one of their most outrageous effort - "Nothing" would have been a more appropriate title - while "Attention" (2014) was their best effort to date imo: the studio version is awful but it somehow made sense live, there was at least some kind of originality (I had never heard of electro-raggae before). To all Lithuanians out there, sorry to say, but I haven't genuinely enjoyed any of your contributions so far. I followed the Lithuanian NF a bit last year and I hoped Donny Montell wouldn't win because I didn't see the point of hosting a ten-week national final to end up choosing a Melfest-reject carbon copy. :? Anyway, even before hearing the song, I wasn't expecting much from him since I didn't like "Love Is Blind" in 2012 (too cheesy), and honestly both are quite on the same level for me => they're pretty anonymous. Donny went from a Michael Jackson impersonator to a vanilla Melfest male singer both looks-wise and musically. "I've Been Waiting For This Night" is an unctuous pop song whose boy-meets-girl theme isn't exactly part of the "unseen before" category at Eurovision: a man expresses how much he is in love with the woman he meets at night. The lyrics are of course banal and not subtle in the slightest, personally - unless the music is really good and helps me forget about what is said - I've ceased to fall for this kind of standard lyrics a long time ago. True passion may lead artists to write elarating lyrics that could be considered over the top too, but this is not the case here, it's just a bunch of words put together without any genuine message behind. Musically, it is unfortunately unadventurous as well since it sounds like a Melfest reject: all the ingredients of the so-called perfect pop song are there (minus what truly matters imo: originality, character, emotion, meaning) and reinforce my feeling that most Swedish composers interested in the contest are actually assembly-line workers. :? It starts with a mellow electric guitar-piano intro that happens to remain the sole instrumentation of the first verse Donny sings. Then the chorus comes in rather abruptly, turning that slow and melodic start into a faster-paced electronically-enhanced tune. I hadn't noticed at first, but now I can see why people might call it catchy, the change of pace and the way the lyrics flow are indeed rather enjoyable. The drums, backing voices and electronic sounds kind of elevate that part imo, I have a sense of "vastness" when listening to it. Moving on, the instrumentation of the second verse is similar to the first one, with the exception of a beat and clicks of fingers added not to lose entirely the build-up of the chorus. After the second chorus, there is a bridge that uses vocalises that are usually found in pop-rock band songs (see Denmark 2011 or Finland 2014), the chorus then resumes with a light electronic beat and a short high-pitched melodic loop before we get back to the former arrangements (with some vocal ad-libs). The song ends as it started: with the first melodic line. Overall, the idea of mixing scandi-pop with elements of pop-rock isn't a bad idea, it's just that every element of that song has been heard countless times both in and out of Eurovision before, and as all the patterns and codes have been religiously followed to the end as usual, the song doesn't add anything to the genre. Putting the lyrics aside and although the melody is too standard for me, I feel like there was potential to make something way less "vanilla" with the instrumentation. To sum up, I don't hate it and I don't think it's bad, it's just generic and what I expect from a handful of Melodifestivalen songs every year already.

Voice: I don't think Donny has a "voice print", it's very plain to me, I don't feel anything when he's singing. However, he performed well both in the semi and the grand final, like in 2012, there is no point in discussing that.

Staging: As quite a lot of acts in 2016, Donny was alone on stage. The performance started in the dark with only two white lights pointed at his back, blue lights then surrounded the stage and Donny started singing and making a sort of choreography. Sorry to say, but those I-dance-but-it-doesn't-look-like-it moves once again can be seen every year in Melfest, I guess people probably think it's stylish, personally I feel like it's getting old. The backgrounds and the floor finally come alive during the chorus: I'm not sure what it represents, it first looks like a moving canopy with dark gray and green shades, and then becomes a stormy sky with unclear lightning. It's kinda cool, green and grey aren't used that much in Eurovision stagings. Donny resumes his dance routine during the second verse while a white glow seems to follow his steps, then all the bright spots on the floor are sucked up towards the center, before turning green and exploding when the second chorus starts. The LED screens displayed again that stormy sky with occasional blue-ish/green-ish explosions on the floor, combined with a burst of fireworks. Hints of purplish pink appeared here and there during the bridge, before Donny took his jacket off and performed a somersault; finally some other bright fireworks, blue/white strobe lights and smoke columns completed the picture for the climax of the last chorus. Donny was well-groomed with his green-ish shoes, close-fitting black pants and shirt and white jacket. I wasn't fond of his hairstyle, but I don't know why I felt like he curled his hair not to be mistaken with Justs, who had similar looks. Anyway, I would lie if I said the staging wasn't great: it was great, dynamic, not too random or distracting. My only complaint is that it looked a bit empty at times during the verses, I know the cameras were obviously focusing on Donny, but I wish they would have shown the floor more as there was nothing but blue lights behind him. I have no opinion on the somersault, it's ok to me.

Outcome: Lithuania qualified for the final and placed 9th (!) as juries ranked them 12th and televoters ranked them 10th. I understand that they benefited greatly from the disagreements between both parties, but as much as the staging was great and effective, the song was just not doing it for me. And not only that, I thought it was rather unremarkable in the lineup to be honest, hence why I was surprised to see them do so well in the end. Most people (including me) predicted Latvia to be the most successful Baltic nation last year, well, we were definitely wrong! Like Bulgaria, I think that Lithuania benefited from the fact that Sweden didn't send their usual scandipop act, so lovers of that genre logically voted for them. In my personal ranking, "I've Been Waiting For This Night" is ranked 35th (out of 42): it was way too generic for me to get excited about it. We'll see what you'll choose this year, I hope I'll be able to root for you someday. Good luck in Kyiv.

 

[takeshi14121990]

GJan or Leon Somov & Jazzu would be just perfect

 

[Mainshow]

5 points - a generic and average Melodifestivalen reject.
I loved him back in 2012, though. "Love Is Blind" was way more eventful and original.