"Is Triana Park's "Line" too one-dimensional to take Latvia to the Eurovision Song Contest final?
Country: Latvia
Song Title: "Line"
Artist: Triana Park
First Semi-Final: Position 18
Last year's entry: "Heartbeat" - Justs (15th Place)
For the past few years, Latvia's reigned as the alt-pop kings of Eurovision. Aminata's "Love Injected" and Justs' "Heartbeat" (written by Aminata) set the standard for Latvia as a nation that was finding a way to blend pop songcraft with more experimental structures and melodies. It's definitely been a better tack for them to take than being the "Cake to Bake" people again. This year's entry, Triana Park's "Line", seems to follow in those same footsteps - does Latvia face decreasing returns by going to the same well again?
Like Mike, I'm digging the college radio approach Latvia's taken the past few years with their entries, but this one doesn't quite do it for me. I like the build of this, but there's not much to this song beyond its hook of "tell me babe oh where we draw the line". I'd love for there to be just slightly more to the song, even if it totally earns the breakdown it builds up to.
Triana Park's got a clearly defined visual aesthetic that, despite my reservations about the song, seems like it will serve them well on the Eurovision stage. The official video for the song has great energy and color, and if the band can match it's highly developed visuals for the live performance, with the semifinal-closing position they have, a memorable performance there could lock them in for the final for sure.