Eurovision 2011: The Best of the Rest (Part 2)

Continuing on through our tour of the 2011 Preselections, we move straight on from Bulgaria to...

Croatia: Few people who were in the Press Center in Düsseldorf will soon be able to forget Daria Kinzer's "Celebrate", complete with two costume changes and a special appearance by a creepy Willy Wonka impersonator.  But only the most hardcore of ESC fans remembers that the lovely Daria had some serious competition in this year's Dora: Jacques Houdek.  Daria and Jacques went head-to-head on three songs, with a public televote and jury vote selecting the best option for each singer.  The interesting thing about this, however, was that the scores were tied after the jury and televote was added together during the song selection, with the public favoring "Stotinama Godina (A Hundred Years)" for both Daria and Jacques (by a landslide), and the jury selecting "Lahor/Break a Leg/Celebrate" for the two.  Most national finals used the public vote as the prevailing factor, but Croatia deferred to the jury.   The uptempo number seemed better-suited for the lovely Daria, and so Jacques' fate as runner-up was sealed.  But we were tantalizingly close to having this, instead:


"Stotinama Godina" reminds me of the classic Croatian ballads of years past: songs like "Neka Mi Ne Svane", or "Nek' ti bude ljubav sva" (which, interestingly enough, Jacques performed during the national selection process).  It's hard to say if this would have made it into the Final (I'm sure that some would have argued that it sounded "dated"), but I personally preferred it to "Celebrate".  As for Jacques, I wouldn't count him out.  In a commercial for this year's UK version of "X-Factor", eagle-eyed viewers can catch a quick glimpse of Houdek auditioning for the show that introduced the world to Jedward.  Brace yourselves, my friends.

Follow Up Single Time!

As is customary in the days following Eurovision, many of the artists that we have come to know and love from their participation on the ESC stage realize that there is, in fact, life after the world's largest musical competition.  (Granted, the same can't necessarily be said about the bloggers you have come to know and love, who still cling to every fiber of their time in the Press Center!).  Whether an artist is a newcomer on the scene or a professional with an established career, it's only natural that new singles follow on the heels of the Grand Final.

Italy's representative Raphael Gualazzi released his album "Reality and Fantasy", and since its release in February it has reached #1 on the iTunes Jazz charts all over Europe.  (It's also available on iTunes in the US, and I give it my personal ESCInsider seal of approval!)  Raphael's keeping the momentum up releasing the follow-up single to "Follia d'Amore/Madness of Love", "A Three Second Breath".


We also have a pair of releases from Greece's artists.  Rapper Stereo Mike is currently working on a radio edit for his song "Μπορώ/Mporo (I)".  Taken from his new album "Ανέλιξη (Evolution)", Mike actually decided to release "Μπορώ" after asking his Facebook and Twitter followers what his next single should be.  He's currently in the studio remixing the track, but here's the full album edit: 



Not to be outdone, Loukas Yiorkas also has a new single out.  Teaming up again with composer Giannis Christodoulopoulos and lyricist Eleana Vrachali (the pair behind "Watch My Dance"), Loukas has unveiled his next track, "Για Πρώτη Φορά/Gia Proti Fora (For the First Time)".

Estonia sends Getter Jaani - "Rockefeller Street"

As expected, the Estonians delivered one of the most entertaining, high-quality, and competitive of the National Finals.  Since the change over from "Eurolaul" to "Eestilaul" three years ago, the quality of the Baltic nation's Eurovision selections has gone absolutely through the roof.  In the span of one event, audiences heard rock, pop, ballads, electronica, alternative, and even a waltz.

But, of course, there could only be a single winner, and that honor went to 18-year-old Getter Jaani and "Rockefeller Street"!


Getter, like many of this year's Eurovision performers, is a veteran of one of her country's televised talent searches (in this case, she came in 4th place on season three of Eesti otsib superstaari, the Estonian version of "Pop Idol").  In fact, her season of Eesti otsib superstaari was hosted by Tanel Padar, who sang as part of Estonia's winning Eurovision entry from 2001, and Ithaka Maria, who Getter actually beat in Eestilaul this year (more on her later, though).  Furthermore, the winner of Getter's "Idol" season, Ott Lepland, was on the judging panel for tonight's event.  Small world!

I definitely enjoy "Rockefeller Street" (although, as someone who grew up right outside of New York, I hate to point out that there is no actual Rockefeller Street in Manhattan!  Rockefeller Center is fabulous, though...).  It was written by Sven Lõhmus, the composer behind one of Estonia's greatest Eurovision songs, 2009's stunning "Rändajad", among other tunes.  There were other songs that I preferred in this year's Eestilaul, but I can definitely support "Rockefeller Street" in the ESC this year, even considering it's geographical misdirection.  It's youthful, catchy, and instantly recognizable. Just as importantly, it's simply fun!  I can easily imagine the Estonians putting together some sort of fantastic stage show for their three minutes on stage in Düsseldorf...this one has potential.

I would be amiss to omit some of my other favorite songs from my review of Eestilaul tonight, so here are a few of my favorites from the Final:

The Weekend Preview, 2/10

We've got another busy weekend ahead of us, so let's dive right into what we can expect from all over the Eurovision world over the next few days!

On Friday, Azerbaijan will finally make their decision on who they'll send to Germany this year.  Their preselection process started back in mid-November with 77 candidates, and they've finally been narrowed down to five final performers: Aynishan Qulieva, Ilgara Ibrahimova, Eldar Gasimov, Ilhama Gasimova, and Nigar Camal.  It's still a bit unclear how the song will be selected; last year, the top three candidates sang three different songs, and while the winning performer was selected the night of the finals, the winning song wasn't confirmed until over two weeks later.  Considering Azerbaijan's penchant for flexibility on their preselection processes (their dates have been moved around many times, for example), who knows what answers we may find tomorrow night, or what questions will remain!

Also on Friday, Ireland will pick the artist and song that they hope will bring the nation to the top of the Eurovision heap for an eight year.  Brief snippets of the songs were released last week, but they were heard in their entirety for the first time just today.

Don Mescall - Talking with Jennifer (written by Ronan Hardiman, Don Mescall)
Nikki Kavanaugh - Falling (written by Christina Schilling, Camilla Gottschalck, Jonas Gladnikoff, and Hanif Sabzevari)
Bling - Shine On (written by Patrick Mahoney)
The Vard Sisters - Send Me an Angel (written by Liam Lawton)
Jedward - Lipstick (written by Dan Priddy, Lars Jensen, and Martin Larson)

Ironically, "Lipstick" is the only song that has been removed from YouTube for copyright reasons.  Why ironically?  Well, first, as its considered the frontrunner in tomorrow's competition, and second, as a portion of the song was "accidentally" released on Amazon.com too early, prompting RTÉ to make the decision only one third in the hands of the audience's vote, rather than fifty percent.  The remaining part of the decision will be in the hands of regional juries throughout Ireland.

ESC 2010 Reviews: Estonia

Due to the ongoing global economic crisis, belts all over the world have had to be tightened.  Of course, this idea extends to Eurovision.  For many nations, budgets have been slashed in the arts and media, and sending an entry to the ESC doesn't come cheap by any means.  And don't even get me started on how much it costs to host the contest to begin with!  (According to ESCtoday, Norwegian broadcaster NRK estimates this year's event cost at over €24 million, or $31.7 million.)  Because of this, many previously participating nations have had to either drop out of the ESC for the year (Hungary, the Czech Republic, Montenegro, and Andorra) hold off on re-entering (San Marino, Luxembourg, and Monaco), or wait until 2011 to enter for the first time (we're still waiting, Liechtenstein!).  Estonia and fellow Baltic nation Lithuania nearly fell victim to this pitfall, but because of the generosity of local foundations and media organizations (in the case of Estonia) and the investment of private companies (as in Lithuania), we'll see smiling faces from Tallinn and Vilnius on stage in Oslo this May.  We'll come back to Lithuania in a little while, but for now, we're here to talk about Estonia.

To be completely honest with you all, up until last year Estonia could have almost completely fallen off the Eurovision map and few people would have noticed.  They made their debut back in 1994, but finished a disappointing second-to-last (Lithuania, also debuting, actually finished in last place that year, scoring the dreaded "nul points").  They actually won the contest back in 2001, the first nation from the former Soviet Bloc to do so, but out of the almost sixty winners that Eurovision has had since 1956, Tanel Padar and Dave Benton's "Everybody" has to be my least favorite.  (Pardon me while I channel Simon Cowell for a moment, but "Everybody" was the ultimate in cruise-ship-meets-awkward-bar-mitzvah-disco-kitsch, and either Greece, Denmark, or Russia should have won it that year.  Their 2002 entry, "Runaway", was much better, but the singer was from Sweden!  There, I got the rant out of my system.  Now let's never speak of this again.)

After their success in the early part of the last decade, they really fell off the mark.  As the semifinal system was set up in 2003, no Estonian entry could break through and make it to the finals.  They tried girl-pop, neo-folk, Brit-style rock, and whatever the hell this was.  Finally, though, they struck gold in 2009 with the haunting, ethereal "Rändajad (Nomads)", performed by Urban Symphony.  I'd normally put a link in here to have you go to YouTube to see this clip, but this one, in my humble opinion, deserves a full embed.  It was possibly my favorite entry from last year, along with Bosnia & Herzegovina, and it deserved to be placed higher than its eventual 6th-place finish (although, as a consolation, it was the highest-ranked non-English song in the competition that year).



I've heard that song a thousand times since last year's contest, and I still haven't grown tired of it.  After such a great showing in 2009, and knowing how dangerously close they came to dropping out of the ESC this year, I had a feeling that the Estonian Preselection, "Eestilaul", was going to be either a hard-fought battle among great tunes, or a low-budget affair that would make my eyes cross in a mix of horror and hilarity (do I need to show you "Leto Svet" again?).  I decided that I was going to challenge myself and watch this year's Eestilaul.

Oh, and just so everyone is clear on this point, I speak no Estonian whatsoever.  But, I'm a glutton for linguistic punishment, so I don't let an arbitrary speed bump like "not understanding what people are saying" stop me!

The main Eurovision website often streams individual national finals (and they currently have the whole thing archived here, if you want to check it out), so I watched the whole thing, from top to tail.  First, I was surprised how much I actually understood, not because Estonian bears any resemblance to English (it doesn't at all), but because the competition was colored with so much humor, poking fun at the music industry, Eurovision clichés, and even at the artists themselves.  Despite being almost completely in a language that I have no comprehension of, the program was universal enough for me to really get into, and I sometimes queue up the show and watch it over again, just for the fun of it.  And out of the ten songs in this year's Eestilaul, there were actually quite a few gems, and I've currently got about half of the selections hanging out on my iPod.  Here are some of the greatest hits from 2010:

6th place) Groundhog Day, "Teiste seest kõigile (Inside all of us)": A mid-tempo rock song with a soaring chorus.  It's a shame that ESC songs are limited to 3 minutes, maximum, because this was great, albeit too short.
4th place) Iiris Vesik, "Astronaut": A more avant-garde offering reminiscent of Björk or a more offbeat Kate Bush.  Surrealist and dreamlike...one of a kind
3rd place) Violina featuring Rolf Junior, "Maagiline Paëv (Magical Day)": Possibly trying to take the violin-torch from Urban Symphony and last year's ESC winner Alexander Rybak, Violina and Rolf Junior present an upbeat, danceable track that would even make Mr. Burns from the Simpsons smile.  At the very least, Mr. Smithers would appreciate it...
2nd place) Lenna Kurrmaa, "Rapunzel": Bringing to mind some of the girl-groups of the late 1950s and early 1960s, with just a touch of rock to make it current, Lenna's offering was sweet and sassy, and it nearly took the Eestilaul title this year.

So, after all of that, who's going to Oslo?



This year's Eestilaul victor is "Siren" by Malcolm Lincoln!  (The lead singer, Robin Juhkental, took the name from an incorrect answer on the Estonian version of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire", where a contestant was convinced that Abraham Lincoln's first name was actually Malcolm.)  This is definitely one of those songs that people will either love or hate.  I personally LOVE it, and have it in my top 5, nestled up with Israel, Croatia, Turkey, and Germany.  It's like no other song being presented this year, with a chorus that at times makes me think of British New Wave from the mid-'80s, and from different angles I hear touches of Motown and the current indie/hipster scene.  I can almost guarantee that traditional fans of Eurovision will hate this song (Slaviša?), and I'll be shocked and ecstatic to see it pass through to the finals (even though it's in the first semifinal, which is somewhat weaker than the second, and neighbors Finland, Latvia, and Russia can possibly send some regionally-influenced votes their way), but as a stand-alone song, in terms of how uniquely crafted and creative this is, I think that "Siren" is absolutely genius. 

My hat's off to you, Estonia, and I look forward to next year's Eestilaul!