Lithuania: The Roop invited to Lithuanian selection in 2021
A new Lithuanian selection has been planned for Eurovision 2021 – with an invitation for The Roop
The Lithuanian national broadcaster, LRT, and The Roop were still undecided of what will be the road map towards the Eurovision Song Contest 2021 but now an announcement has been made.
LRT have confirmed that The Roop, will have to enter next year’s national final with a brand new song but as promised they will be receiving the prize money from LRT for winning Pabandom iš naujo in 2020. However the national broadcaster will be granting the band a pass to appear in the final. The Roop were the favorites to win the Eurovision Song Contest 2020 in Rotterdam with the song "On Fire".
Deputy Director General of LRT, Gytis Oganauskas, confirms this by stating:
– We are all saddened by this situation – the song “On Fire” was considered one of the main contenders to win the competition. The band has received a lot of sympathy both in Lithuania and abroad, but unfortunately we will not be able to appear on the big Eurovision scene. Eurovision is first and foremost a song contest, which is gaining popularity every year in Lithuania, stimulating the creation of new songs and performances, thus attracting many who wish to try their hand – music producers and performers. We were looking for a solution to not deprive them of this opportunity, and at the same time not to deprive The Roop.
– As a result, we have made a somewhat non-standard decision: we will be preparing for a new national selection, and The Roop will be nominated to appear in its final. We appreciate and thank The Roop for taking a responsible approach to preparing for this year’s Eurovision Song Contest. We understand that the group has already invested a lot of time and money in this, so we also decided to transfer to the group the voting funds that were to be used to prepare for the big Eurovision
Together in the same announcement, the lead singer from The Roop, Vaidotas Valiukevičius, has not yet accepted the invitation and still is considering where to accept such a gesture or not.
– It’s only been a month and a half since winning the song ‘On Fire‘. Everything is going very fast. Too fast. We need to think hard and make a decision much later.
Lithuania in Eurovision Song Contest
Lithuania has been taking part of Eurovision Song Contest 20 times since its debut in 1994.
The debuting year 1994 Lithuania ended last, and the best result is from 2006 where LT United performed the iconic song "We Are The Winners (of Eurovision)". It didn't win though, but went 6th. Since the introduction of the Semi-finals in 2004, Lithuania has been in Eurovision every year and qualified for the Grand Final 9 out of 16 times.
With both Estonias victory in 2001 ("Everybody") and Latvias victory in 2002 ("I Wanna"), Lithuania is the only Baltic country that haven't won Eurovision Song Contest.
