Special - Lithuania - a rising Eurovision nation | Eurovision Song Contest News - 2009 Moscow, Russia 

William “Billy” Butt is a legendary composer and producer in Sweden. This year he is involved in the Lithuanian and Latvian Eurovision Song Contest selections. In a special article written for the visitors of esctoday.com, he shares his thoughts and opinions about the music scene in the Baltics and in Lithuania in particular. According to Billy, Lithuania will become a music nation to count on and it's only a question of time before we will see Lithuania score a victory in the Eurovision Song Contest.

BY: WILLIAM BILLY BUTT



Just like most of its neighbouring Eastern European states Lithuania has risen out of the ashes of 75 years of Soviet economic, social and cultural oppression with a paramount dignity and impressive pride. As recent as a decade ago the thought of ever becoming a member of the European Union let alone participating in the Eurovision Song Contest was, for this great Baltic nation but a dream. But the dream has come true and despite its disappointing results so far in the few Eurovision Song Contests in which Lithuania has participated, I am a firm believer in the fact that this is a country which is going to surprise us all in the not to distant future. Interest for the competition has increased remarkably in the last three years and slowly but surely the Lithuanian music industry is getting better and better and bracing itself for international recognition. I believe that it is only a question of time before we hear the international jurymen who deliver the votes to the final saying "And finally… Lithuania twelve points – la Lituanie douze points!"



We all remember how Lithuania’s neighbours Estonia and Latvia both won the contest, but we also remember how we all forgot the winning songs almost immediately after we switched off our television sets! Despite the fact that mediocre songs won for Estonia and Latvia, we all rejoiced in these small countries successes. However, even if it seems as if Lithuania has dragged itself behind its Baltic neighbours in the Eurovision Song Contest, there is good reason to believe that an eventual winning song from Lithuania may not be forgotten as quickly as those of its neighbours. There are many reasons for this theory. I will try to explain them now...

The main reason for me being convinced of Lithuania’s potential to win the Eurovision at some time in the near future is the fact that I have personally attained a thorough knowledge of how the country and its music and television industry functions. But before I explain my findings let me first give a rough background about these Baltic nations and their music culture.



Many people in Scandinavia where I live have a very limited knowledge of the difference between the three Baltic States, but the difference is quite unique. Estonians in general do not enjoy being called Baltics – many of them prefer to be considered as Scandinavians because of their close ties with Finland. They are not unlike the Finns, whose music is not really considered as very viable in Eurovision circles. It must not be forgotten that the Estonian winning song was not Estonian. It was written by an Englishman and one of the performers was an immigrant from the West Indies. Latvia on the other hand is definitely a full blooded Baltic State, but is in the unique position of having a very large percentage of its population being of Russian origin. Consequently, popular music in Latvia is grossly overshadowed by influence from Russian pop music. It is quietly whispered in Riga that Latvians will not vote for Russian artists in the Eurovision and that Russian-Latvians will not vote for Latvian artists. Despite this, a Russian artist strangely enough performed the song, which won for Latvia a few years ago!

I was personally at the taping of this year’s Eurovision songs at the Latvian Television studio in Riga a few weeks ago and I couldn’t help but notice how the best songs were performed by Russian artists! These conflicts in Latvia’s social structure do have some effect on the Eurovision Song Contest. There is little feeling of national pride surrounding the contest and from what I have learned in Riga, the public interest for this year’s contest is not very encouraging.



Lithuania , on the other hand is a totally different country whose social structure is more stable than its neighbour’s and whose people have a very high feeling of national pride. Unlike Russians in Estonia and Latvia, Lithuanian Russians (who make up about 17% of the country’s population) are more integrated into the Lithuanian culture. All Russians in Lithuania speak fluent Lithuanian whereas I have yet to find a single Russian in Latvia or Estonia who speaks Latvian or Estonian! This socio-cultural phenomenon manifests itself in the country’s music insomuch as when artists perform in Vilnius or Klaipeda it is hard to tell if they are Russians or Lithuanians. Unlike Latvia, Russians and Lithuanians do have a tendency to co operate with eachother on the cultural arena and there are many pop groups which consist of mixtures of Russian and Lithuanian musicians.

When I was invited to participate as a songwriter and producer in last year’s Lithuanian National finals of the Eurovision Song Contest, I would hardly have believed that there could be so many professionals in this small nation. And I use the word “professionals” because that is exactly what they are except for the fact that their professionalism is often limited to an area within Lithuania’s geographical borders. The best example of this I can think of is the fact that one Lithuanian artist group named “Mango” produced by Lithuania’s up and coming production company actually sold more than 50,000 copies of one of their recent albums. This is an astronomical sales figure for such a small nation! Other groups such as “Bavarija” have enjoyed major successes with their albums and the music market in Lithuania is booming. This makes me wonder why a popular group like Mango does not ever enter for the National Eurovision Contest?



There is obviously a lack of knowledge in what is good and not good for Eurovision, and there is of course the normal age old fear of the fact that a failure in Eurovision could spoil the career of a rising star or already established artist, but this is rapidly changing year for year and when it does change we are likely to see Lithuania, just as Sweden was in the 1980’s a very frequent chart topper in Eurovision circles!



There exists in Lithuania, a sort of national eagerness to win Eurovision and interest for the contest is rising steadily every year. People who normally don’t interest themselves in pop music have started to realize that a victory in Eurovision would bring about 2000 foreign journalists to Vilnius and thereby project the country’s social and economic face to an international audience of Europeans who up to now probably know very little about Lithuania. In all honesty I must say that everyone in the Lithuanian music industry and especially the Lithuanian Television Authority (LRTV) under direction of Janas Viljamas are really making hard efforts to make this possible. Viljamas, who is a fair and excellent organizer reminds me of Sweden’s successful Eurovision Producer from the 1980’s Kåge Gimtell under whose direction Sweden attained many successes in the finals. I believe that Viljamas will do the same for Lithuania. He has already proved himself to be a person who listens and adheres to criticism and good advice. After the public outcry surrounding the voting system at last year’s contest, whereby a jury, which included journalists who prior to the contest, had written about the competing artists and songs, and who selected a disastrous song to represent Lithuania some vital changes where inevitable. Viljamas announced recently that telephone and SMS voting only will choose this year’s winner and there will be no jury.

However, there is only one somewhat negative thing about the way in which the Lithuanian contest is arranged. I think both Viljamas and the Lithuanian TV authority will soon discover it and if they change it, Lithuania will be well on its way to becoming a more recognized Eurovision nation than it is today. It concerns the number of songs which compete in the national contest. Being a nation which stresses an emphasis on democracy, LRTV, in its honest endeavours to give everyone a fair chance, allows almost every submitted song to participate in the contest provided there are artists who will perform the entries. This means that if you send a song to the Lithuanian contest you can more or less be sure it will be televised in one of the national semi finals. But the result of this is that Lithuania actually has between 55 - 60 competing songs in its national semifinals! Consequently, there are as many as seven national semi finals, and most of them contain poor songs which really should have been deleted in a filtering process in order to give the public perhaps 2 or maximum three semi-finals in which the best songs are performed. By the time the 5th semi final comes many TV viewers are tired of Eurovision and this can effect viewer participation in the final contest.



So one can rightfully conclude that there many good songs and many good musicians in Lithuania. Many of these are just waiting to be discovered and, instead of becoming a “one hit wonder” country in the Eurovision, like Estonia and Latvia became, I believe that the Lithuanian tactic is to slowly progress and learn from mistakes in order to build as platform for a future firm foothold in the Eurovision Song Contest. Lithuania could, if these music resources are mobilized, become a very serious actor on the Euromusic arena. One thing is for sure. If and when Lithuania wins the contest, we can expect a National Victory Party similar to when the Norwegians won in 1985 with Bobbysocks. And I can assure you all that when it comes to partying the Lithuanians are much better at it than most of us – but then that’s another story.



William “Billy” Butt

Executive Music Producer

Stockholm - Sweden



Esctoday.com kindly thanks William “Billy” Butt for his contribution!

William “Billy” Butt, is a well-known composer and producer in Sweden whose works have topped the Scandinavian charts for almost three decades. He was born in East Africa of Indian parents and grew up in Ireland where he attained a diploma at the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin. He also
studied Music Production in the United States where he was a pupil of Les Paul junior in New York. His credits include the famous American Christmas song entitled It’s Christmas in New York. He moved to Sweden in 1983 where he has participated in the Swedish Melodifestivalen on
several occasions as a writer and producer and won in 1988 with the song Stad i ljus that the international well-known artist Tommy Körberg sang. Billy has also
discovered and launched the career of one of Sweden's major female artists
Lisa Nilsson. About the same time he produced one of the biggest selling
Swedish albums of the 1980's "Vingar" with Mikael Rickfors.



In the mid 1980's Billy was chosen by the former Soviet Culture Department
in Moscow to be the very first producer from a western country to jointly
produce an album with a Soviet group. He worked with the Russian
producer and composer Vladimir Matetsky and together they formed and produced
the successful Russian group "Bazykina".



In last years Lithuanian national Eurovision selection he wrote, together with Bobby Ljunggren and Marcos Ubeda the song In Your Eyes which was performed by the Lithuanian artist Amberlife. This year Billy is involved in the national selections in Lithuania and Latvia.