Latvia

It seems that the Eurovision national final/selection season starts earlier and earlier each year. Slovenian's had a few shows already, the Albanian selection artists are now known, and Latvia's published all the songs that met the eligibility requirements on their website.

Punters can vote for their favourite by registering for the site (I've not tried, so dunno if folks outside the country can participate), and they've not published artist names. Clever idea, since often established (or at least known) artists appear again and again, year after year, regardless of song quality. Yes, including that stoopid banjo song last year. Sentimentality be damned!

Of course a studio allows singers to do multiple takes until they get it right--or splice together bits from several takes to make it sound like they had a good one. So going by studio versions is a bit of a crap shoot. But hey, that's what most countries do to pick songs for the live final. Or semifinals. Or quarterfinals. Etc.

I think you get the idea.

There's a lot songs in the Latvian selection. I was downloading some stuff at work last week and decided to listen to the songs for myself. Only the following stood out to me (in a positive way, at least):

• Beautiful Song
• Think About
• Only One
• Heaven

Which probably means nothing. So there.