ButterTart
Like Mussolini or Kennedy
1st: Brainstorm - My Star (158pts)
View attachment 7028
MESMERING
Really, it's astonishing seeing how Latvia decided to go for much of the rest of the decade when they got it SO RIGHT with their debut. Pulling out a woozy, winsome psychedelic orchestral delight which could've easily stood up with the best of Britpop in the charts of 1995 was one thing. Pairing it up with a performer as transfixingly weird as Renars Kaupars was another. It feels like it could've at any second gone a hair too offbeat and ended up as novelty freakery, but the 'shrooms just kicked in babes!' vibe worked perfectly, with a performance really just based entirely on Renars FLAILING AND MINCING (™ VoR) across the stage ending up compellingly watchable, scoring Latvia a podium finish from the off (and really, it's a dying shame this wasn't the one they won with...)
The dearly departed @Dinlo once described this as "the track that'll be playing when I eventually walk up the aisle", and honestly, I hope he DID eventually manage to score that one - it's a track that'd fit a wedding day beautifully. Moopy sends it through to the semi-finals as Latvia's qualifier by nine points, and as the third male qualifiers all in all.
8 x 12 (Penelope, VoR, Queen of the Bay, Jacques, win_the_game, Ill Advised, Pingu, Madison)
1 x 1 (David 5000 - PERVERT!)
This is decent, and very much the correct runner-up.