Estonia: Twenty Eesti Laul Semi-finalists Revealed

/ hulluna

Estonia – ERT, the Estonian national broadcaster, has revealed the twenty semi-finalists in this year’s Eesti Laul competition. ERT revealed that there had been 258 entries. There are, as usual, a  few familiar faces…

Stig Rästa who represented the country in 2015 alongside Elina Born is back, as is Gerli Padar who was the entrant in 2007 in Finalnd. Rolf Roosalu, Indrek Ventmann and Karl Kristjan have all tried their luck in Eesti Laul in previous years.

The 20 semi-finalists are:

  • Aden Ray – ‘Everybody’s dressed‘
  • Desiree – ‘On My Mind’
  • Ellis Parna & Gerli Padar – ‘Sky’
  • Elina Netsajeva – ‘La Forza’
  • Etnopatsy – ”Külm’
  • Evestus – ‘Welcome to my world’
  • Frankie Animal – ‘(Can’t keep calling) Misty‘
  • Girls in Pearls – ‘Spellbound’
  • Iiris & Agoh – “Drop That Boogie”
  • Indrek Ventmann – ‘Tempel’
  • Karl Kristjan & Karl Killing (feat. Wateva) – ‘Young’
  • Marju Lanik – ‘Täna otsuseid ei tee’
  • Metsakutsu – ‘Koplifornia’
  • Miljardid – ‘Pseudoprobleem’
  • Nika – ‘Knock knock’
  • Rolf Roosalu – ‘Show a little love’
  • Sibyl Vane – ‘Thousands words’
  • Stig Rästa – ‘Home’
  • Tiiu x Okym x Semy – ‘Näita oma energiat’
  • Vajé – ‘Laura (Walk with me)’

All songs will be revealed by 20th December 2017. The semi-finals of Eesti Laul are to be held on 10th February 2018 and 17th February 2018, with the national final on 3rd March 2018.

224 thoughts on “Estonia: Twenty Eesti Laul Semi-finalists Revealed”

  1. The Norwegian entries will reportedly be released on January 15 while the final is on March 10.
    In other news 2 more rumored MF hopefuls have been revealed:Kikki Danielsson and The Idol winner Martin Almgren.

      • As a whole?Most definitely ERT.Too many employees that leave no funds for any original,high quality program.Most of them are there because of the omnipresent clientelism.Their union is horrible and in essence runs the whole thing.Plus,the broadcaster is politicized.Always leaning towards the respective government and in the last 3 years it’s become worse.Not a shred of independent reporting.

        • Well, YLE has exactly the same problems and their flag ship news’ editor had to leave because of censoring news about prime minister. They’ve totally lost it. YLE used to be quality broadcaster but those days are long gone. But yeah, ERT wins for now, but YLE is catching up.

    • My beloved Tunisia, which I already loved before discovering Emel, is in. :)
      It was my first holiday without parents when I was 16 years old. I went with my sister, who is 2 years older. There was no internet and there were no mobile phones and thus we could do whatever we wanted for 4 weeks without our parents knowing. We went to the desert for a week with a Tunisian lover my sister got. Our parents wouldn’t have approved. LOL :)
      Some things were better in the old days. :)

  11. ESC Portugal has a very interesting article on the languages that have been used the most in the contest.

    Here’s the Top 10

    10th: Swedish and Norwegian (35 songs)

    The last time we heard Swedish in ESC was with Finland (2012), though :)

    As for the last entry sung in Norwegian, we’ll have to go back to 2006:

    9th: Hebrew (37 songs)

    The last song in Hebrew, though not entirely, was in 2014:

    8th: Greek (48 songs)

    Last time heard in 2016:

    7th: Portuguese (49 songs)

    We all know when we have heard it the last time…

    6th: Dutch (58 songs)

    The last time we got to hear Dutch in ESC was in 2010:

    5th: Spanish (60 songs)

    Do you really want to hear “Do it for your lover”?

    4th: Italian (62 songs)

    Last time?

    3rd: German (100 songs)

    The 100th time there was a song in German was for Austria, in 2012:

    2nd: French (174 songs)

    La dernière en Français:

    1st: English (631 songs!!!!)

    Apparently, only Yugoslavia, Morocco, Monaco and Serbia & Montenegro have never used it! Bravo!

        • I do. Btw, I am not a young man anymore but even I can’t remember a world cup without Italy. It will feel strange … plus the average for looks will drop considerably on my list. LOL

            • Btw, we had a lovely sunny day and I visited the monasteries in Wiblingen and Blaubeuren. BaWü has so many gems few people know about. The library in Wiblingen is a fantastic yet slightly insane Baroque affair:

            • The whole monastery is balancing on the slim line dividing (or linking) Baroque and Roccoco. :)
              Alas, BaWü has always sucked at tourist marketing, even though the state is full of UNESCO World Heritage sites, more than 20 fantastic monasteries (9th to 19th centuries), some of the finest residential palaces in Europe (LuBu, Rastatt, Mannheim, Bruchsal etc.) and so much more: The Black Forest, Lake Constance … :(
              I offered to help out several years ago but since I am not a member of the CDU, I got a polite: Thank you but no. Perhaps I should try again now that we have a Green Party prime minister. ;)

            • Not sure about that as your high brow take on culture contradicts Green party’s and neo lefties people’s commisar style approach on the matter. Everything should be understood by every one and everything should be for every one. It has been sad to see how left has totally lost their grip on high culture and green hippies of course never have it to begin with.
              BaWü should really reach for higher profile as tourists are looking for new experiences within familiar contents. Tourism in Finland is booming.

            • Luckily, the German Green Party is pretty elitist. :)
              Finland deserves every visitor it gets imo. It’s such a beautiful country if you have fine weather. Of all the places I visited, I liked Petäjävesi Old Church best. It is such a perfect comination of beautiful nature and foolk culture. <3 Being a 80 % vegetarian who does not like fish, food was difficult though. But that's what it is like in all Nordic countries.

            • I don’t really know. I know that Morgan already was around when I joined in 2005 because we got into e-mail contact pretty soon. Other oldtimers include Dimitris, Donnie and Mermaid but I don’t know if they came before or after me (sorry if I forgot anyone).
              I think that Morgan is n° 1. He joined in 2002 if I remember correctly.
              Btw, do you know the history of ET? The site was built by a German student (Manuel) after Lena’s victory in 2010. Manuel posted links on ESCToday, which was the major hub back then, to bring attention to his new site, and if I remember correctly, only Morgan, Shevek and I started commenting here to get the site off the ground and escape the increasing lunacy on ESCToday. Razvan and Xello were already on ET and thus they deserve the fame of oldest ET regulars. Sam, who later went on to ESCInsight and now is part of the Bulgarian delegation was on ET too. It remained a quiet and intimate place until ESCToday was hacked before the Baku contest. People were forced to migrate to ET. As it is always with migration, most people blended in perfectly but one hated everything about his new home (I think you can guess who that was …). After the Baku contest, Manuel said that he would close down the site because he was going to Dijon first and then to Canada. Hulluna and Morgan decided that the site had to be kept alive and took over. That’s it. History lesson over. :)

            • Thank you! That was a good history lesson. And exciting too, totally suitable for founding fathers with hacking and migration and everything. I started to read somewhere round 2008 so I knew all the regulars and their antics by the time I joined 2016. At the hindsight should have done it earlier! 😃
              There really isn’t too much choices if you like your people opinionated, educated and witty and not only when it comes to music. Screaming the sole modus operandi of other forums you’ll get time to time here as well, of course. Some people are of course cut for that. Internet savvy millenials tend to like it that way. It’s universal problem. I’m glad Dimi takes care of news for us so you really can stay here!

            • I forgot to mention sweet Roselil vom Odense, who was among the early regulars too. Alas, she vanished two years later when she got married and moved to København. :(

      • But wanted to celebrate our dear neighbours beating those ultra bores 😃 That much I remember about football. These totally corrupted ”sports” events are just not for me. Football could be beautiful game, but there is nothing beautiful how it’s been run since 90’s.

        • That’s the reason I gave up following club football which has become totally obscene with the introduction of the Champions League. I still do European and World Cups though. I simply love this sport too much. Plus, I have always liked the Italian approach to football. *blush*

          • LOL I know so many guys who love Italian approach to football (so no blushing there) and for me, who finds football a bit boring it represents the total football, it’s core. It really can’t get more uneventful than that. It screams for Freudian analysis😃

            • I don’t like sports like handball or basketball where the teams score every few seconds, and some football matches without goal are still among my favourites ever. :)

            • I hate basketball, it’s just crazy. Only spectator sports I still is rugby and some occasional ice hockey. Ice hockey I have played in my teens a lot and was a big fan for a very long time. We just grew apart. Rugby came with all it’s glory with my ex who was university level player in AUS. I kind of fixated with rugby types with him too 😃

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