Latvia's LTV organized the national selection Supernova once again. 15 semi-finalists were selected among the 108 submissions and 10 of them reached the final. Dons took an easy win with his Hollow. He has been twice the runner up already: in 2010 with My religion is freedom and 2014 with Pēdējā Vēstule.
Artūrs Šingirejs aka Dons (39) is a Latvian singer-songwriter, born of Belarusian father and Latvian mother. He has learned to sing and play guitar by himself and has studied culinary arts instead. He started performing at school but didn't get into music until 2003 when he took part in Talantu Fabrika talent show where he also met Lily (or Linda Kalnina, his future wife) and they did an album together. His solo debut album came in 2006. Since then he has become one of the most succesful Latvian singers and has won Top Hit Radio award eight times for the most played song, and The Song of the Year award for five times. Add twice the Best Pop Album (out of five nominations), Best Rock album once (out of two nominations) among other nominations and awards won over the years.
He has been living in London and Los Angeles and have had several stage names during his career, such as Art Green and Art Singer. He has also done television and been talent show judge, among other to Aminata, and even in Supernova in 2015.
Another curiosity is he's done the 25.000 km Trans-Siberian Railway! And he has dubbed Olaf in Frozen, too! And did you know there's also Latvian version of Hollow: Lauzto šķēpu karaļvalsts.
So, what do I think? Hollow is a good song and he's a good singer. But somehow it may be a bit too good for Eurovision, meaning it is forgotten among all the holabaloo and circus and may not appeal to televoters so much as it may be a tad forgettable. Hopefully jurors will award it better.
Our Home Jury gave it solid 5's and 6's mostly proving no one hated it yet no one loved it either. Something that screams 11th in every country.
Ten studio albums so far, over 50 singles released makes him one of the most seasoned artists this year.
1. Dons - Hollow (jury 12 + televote 64.845 = 12) 24
2. Vēstulēs - Kur? (10 + 31.477 = 10) 20
3. Katrina Gupalo - The cat's song (8 + 17.739 = 8) 16
4. Alekss Silvers - For the show (7 + 8.285 = 7) 14
5. Saint Levića - Tick-tock (6 + 3.487 = 4) 10
6. Edvards Strazdiņš - Rock'n'roll Supernova (3 + 7.830 = 6) 9
7. Ecto - Outsider (2 + 4.915 = 5 ) 7
8. Avéi - Mine (4 + 2.946 = 3) 7
9. Funkinbiz - Na chystu vodu (5 + 1.143 = 1) 6
10. Papīra Lidmašīnas - Mind breaker (1 + 2.018 = 2) 3
Agnese Rakovska - AI
Patrīcija Spale - Heaven's raining down on me
B/H - Amsterdam
Jar of Kings - Wildfire
Sasha Sil - Love is a language
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