03/03/12 ESTONIA

The Estonian Final was held on March 3rd at the Nokia Concert Hall in Tallinn. Before the final there were 2 semi-finals where the list of 20 was whittled down to a final of 10. Lenna and Ott Lepland made it to the superfinal where Ott Lepland was announced as the winner of Eesti Laul.

During the semi final Ott was seated at a piano whilst in the final he sang the whole song stood in the middle of the stage. He is backed by a female singer who is stuck right at the back of the stage where you cannot see her, which I don’t like. Ott does not do very much and stays very much on the spot. It may well benefit the flow of the song if he starts n the piano and then does the rest of the song stood up as this will create some movement and help build the song.

The song is a slow quiet ballad that does gain some strength through the choruses. That said it just feels a little flat and samey and is not very memorable. I don’t even think having some dancers would help the song. This said Ott does put emotion into the song and sings it well. Now of course many will be wondering if the song will be left in the original Estonian or translated into English. Unfortunately I don’t think changing the language will save this at all.

Estonia picked a really, really good top 3 for Eesti Laul butended up choosing the wrong song for Baku. Lenna or Tenfold Rabbit (who came 3^rd) would have been much more original choices and would have made a mark on the contest, even if they were a little too different for Eurovision. Unless major staging, styling or even language changes are made this is a definite DNQ.

SONG – Kuula (Listen)

ARTIST – Ott Lepland

COMPOSERS – Ott Lepland and Aapo Ilves

LANGUAGE – Estonian