Latvia's Eurovision 2011 Entry

Latvia missed an opportunity today.  Faced with a grim choice of bottom feeders, voters could have opted to entertain Europe by sending an unintentional camp number from the Waiting For Guffman School of Amateur Staging.  Sadly for us (fortunately for Latvia), “Banjo Laura,” by Lauris Reiniks, finished in second place tonight.

Instead, Latvians selected the most competent song they were presented with “Angel in Disguise” by Musiqq (not to be confused with Musiq with one Q).  I can’t really describe the song because I’ve already forgotten it, but I can say it was inoffensive and mostly in tune. The song is completely unremarkable, and Latvia stands virtually no chance of making it out of the Semis.

UPDATED: Now that we’ve listened to the recorded track a few times, we’ve both come around “Angel in Disguise.” It fares much better in the studio than it did in the live performance. It’s a higher energy song than the way Musiqq presented at the Latvian national final. They started off the song sitting down, which makes you think they’re going to sing some Walters and Kazha-style happy folk pop crap. It sucked the energy out of the song live. For Musiqq to have a shot to get out of the Semis, they need to STAND UP, for goodness sake.