ESTONIA

The Estonian Final was held on March 1st at the Nokia Concert Hall in Tallinn, hosted by Marko Reikop & Henrik Kalmet. Before the final there were two semi-finals where the cast of 20 was reduced to a final 10. The winner was chosen by televoting (50%) and an "expert" jury (50%). Then the top 2 progressed to a super final where the televote chose the winner. This was Tanja with the song "Amazing"

As always, the Eestl Laul roll call was a real mixture of song choices and genres with a mix of English and Estonian language songs. I watched some of the final online but as there was so much on during Super Saturday I also gained a lot of opinion from the twitter feeds I was getting. The fan favourite Sandra Nurmsalu only came mid table, nowhere near the superfinal places. The fans then seemed quite dismissive of the 2 finalists and most of the comment regarding this song were not positive.

 

Tanja's performance is quite a feat. Like Loreen 2 years ago she spends most of the song singing and dancing at the same time. However her dancing is much more acrobatic and balanced based. Her male co-dancer is clearly visible and the performance from a dancing point of view is very much a joint production. The song also has breaks in is so she has time to catch her breath.

 

The song is a minimalist dance style ballad. Like the performance it is very much a nod and have gained inspiration from "Euphoria". Tanja does not have the most stand out of voices although she must have some sense of control to be able to dance and sing to a decent standard. The staging of the Estonian final was quite simple and I feel that will a much stronger background, and possibly a better dress, it will be even more visual.

 

I think that the similarity to Euphoria is very clear, almost too clear. It is similar visually as well as in the song. Although I think this will gain votes from the public if juries are looking for individuality and something original - this is not is. I can also see a slight backlash from Eurofans who are also looking for something new and not a carbon copy of something that many hold dear to their hearts. Plus having read the lyrics to the song they almost don't make sense...

 

My feelings about this are mixed. I feel that the visual presentation of the song is really strong and Tanja's performance level is really outstanding. It's a shame this is not the Eurovision Dance Contest But the song is poor. This is possibly the first entry this year that I feel has more chance of not qualifying than getting through to the final. I think it will qualify but is not a contender for winning at all.

 

Artist - Tanja

Song - Amazing

Music - Timo Vendt, Tatjana Mihhailova

Lyrics - Timo Vendt, Tatjana Mihhailova