This Saturday night, it’s Eesti Laul. What is usually a jewel in the Eurovision music calendar came out with an extraordinarily bland set of songs this year, as if Estonia’s songwriting youth were overwhelmingly experiencing seasonal affective depression. So I ask with the loving concern of a friend, “Estonia, are you okay?”
Because I love Estonia and its music scene, and I hope I’ve got the bona fides to prove it. I got Tallinn as my Spotify Wrapped city last year.* I’m going to see NOEP (the tall one from Meelik) in London next week. I’ve been to Eesti Laul twice, and I’ve even gone to Tallinn Music Week, where I watched Duo Ruut performing in a shopping mall and Catlin Magi create magic with a mouth harp in a makeshift concert hall and sang along with Sibyl Vane in an industrial bar and stayed up until 3 AM just so I could watch villemdrillem, even though that meant enduring a crowd full of teens more interested in making out with each other than actually watching a lineup of Estonian soundcloud rappers.
Don’t get me wrong – there are some glimmers of brilliance in this year’s Eesti Laul final.** Brother Apollo’s Bad Boy is pop metal (with a key change!) that’s stupid in the best way, with men pretending to be macho in order to impress girls. Anet Vaikma delivers serotonin as promised in her upbeat pop song titled Serotoniin. And Peter Poder has brought Korra Veel, an 80s synth banger that gussies up its morose lyrics with an irrepresible drum track.
But there is one act who, barring absolute disaster, will win this year’s Eesti Laul, and that is the rap-folk collaboration between 5MIINUST and Puuluup. Their song is titled (nendest) narkootkumidest ei tea me(kull) midagi, which roughly translates to “We really don’t know anything about these drugs.”
It is perhaps the first Eurovision song that can be read as an plea to a police officer; an explanation of one’s innocence when found with a stash. Or, perhaps we should take 5MIINUST at their word and accept that they indeed are not rich enough to be doing drugs, but rather that they stick to Lay’s potato chips and IPAs. Either way, (nendest) simply demonstrates that the best Eurovision songs are ones that feature authentic voices singing about authentic experiences. The runaway success of this song with both the Estonian public and Eurofans is evidence of how that authenticity resonates with audiences.
And yet.
And yet.
I have a niggling fear about the (well-deserved) success of 5MIINUST and Puuluup, this year of all years. In a Eurovision where anything remotely out of the ordinary is getting written off as a Kaarijaa knockoff, I worry that people (locals, Eurofans who can’t be bothered to broaden horizons beyond pop divas) are going to write these guys off as a Kaarijaa knockoff, instead of acknowledging their years of experience and multiple releases in Estonia. Will their staging be enough to win over the people who won’t take the time to look up their lyrics and find out exactly how funny they are?
And while I think that 5MIINUST and Puuluup completely deserve to go to Eurovision, I am also slightly salty that they got tapped as the weird act in a very vanilla Eesti Laul year. I got into Eesti Laul because it once had a reputation at the weird National Final. Who could forget the performance of Winny Puhh’s Meiecundimees uks Korsakov laks eile Latti, with its two drummers suspended in midair and camera cuts so quick that they induced nausea? Or Kaia Tamm’s Wo Sin Die Katzen, mixing German techno, dominatrix Alice in Wonderland, and giant furry costumes. Or Oed, who released an official video for their song Ohuloss filmed entirely on their phone (in portrait mode!) with ridiculous filters – fitting for a song about getting social media likes? Or Redel, who caused a whole swathe of Eurofans to learn all about the wooden towns of Estonia? Or my personal loves, Meelik, who managed to slip the horniest song ever onto a family show behind a guise of nerdy guys with socks and sandals.
All of these performances were bright technicolour weirdness, whereas what 5MIINUST and Puuluup have brought onto the stage so far has been middle-aged guys in suits doing a funny dance. They’re weird with a lowercase ‘w’, far from the glorious antics that the best of Estonia has to offer.
So I know who I’m rooting for on Saturday night, but with several caveats. With the victory of Windows95man last week, right now 5MIINUST and Puuluup won’t even be the weirdest thing in Eurovision, so I hope they find a way to hold the interest of the audience.
*Yes, I know that tons of other Eurofans got an Estonian city as well, but mine wasn’t Tartu, so I feel like that needs to count for something?
**Ollie is not on this list for a reason, and that reason is Nickelback.
dudepoints.fun 