Koit and Laura are fabulous, serving us a tropical lite Goodbye To Yesterday. I want to whip out my hula skirt and shimmy along *.*

I should listen to everything at some point to give them all a chance but I'm loving the chorus for Kerli's song and it would make a really interesting entry. The verses are growers too, I'm appreciating them a lot more on third listen.

 

That said I've seen comparisons that it is reminiscent of iamamiwhoami which sounds like the most awful thing possible.

 

My initial thought upon first play was Bjork

I can really see those influences! Spirit Animal strikes me as the kind of thing that will win on the ~visual spectacle~ in addition to being a strong song.

Spirit Animal is*.* but it's not really alt enough that I'd compare it to Bjork or iamamiwhoami, it would definitely stand out though.

 

In Or Out is a bop, but very Poundland Ace Wilder.

Liis Lemsalu and Uku Suviste are my two favourites based on the studio versions, Elina, Daniel and Kerli not overly impressing me on first listen. I quite like Almost Natural as well, they remind me of SMILO.

I've just come across 'Verona' and it's wonderful, I'd be very up for another wonderful duet like Goodbye To Yesterday from Estonia.

 

Kerli's also got easily her best track ever (mainly because she's been a bit rubbish in the past and this is quite kewl).

 

(yes I'm waiting for Melfest so I'm digging around in what's already out there)

I've just come across 'Verona' and it's wonderful, I'd be very up for another wonderful duet like Goodbye To Yesterday from Estonia.

 

YES! It passed me by a little bit when I listened to them all the first time, but it must have been fatigue because listening again the past few days and it's heavenly. That or 'Keep Running' to win please. Elina Born's song unfortunately hasn't grown on me at all which is a shame.

If you believe forums and apparent hype in Estonia, we should end up with a superfinal of Ariadne, Kerli and Koit/Laura. Then it will depends if Kerli's major fanbase can outweigh her Estonian haters as well as Laura's fanbase. And then Ariadne is the wildcard who apparently is a bit of a dark horse!

Poland also had their two SUPER DEFINITE frontrunners last year and what did we get in the end? oops

There's a sneak peak of all the performances from next week's semi

 

 

Keep Running and Spirit Animal seem to be staged faultlessly (I'm lowkey kinda coming around to the belief that Kerli could win in Kyiv if the field stays as basic as it is now, especially if it's staged like that). Verona on the other hand, in that clip at least, looks totally flat and dissonant with the rhythym and mood of the song. Looks essentially like they're trying to rip off the Goodbye To Yesterday staging and it's not working at all. Not impressed.

Kerli is my least favourite of my favourites (so is a 9/10 rather than a 10/10) but the staging there does look fantastic and I agree that it's looking like the most Eurovision winner worthy thing we've seen so far (as much as we can say based on 10 seconds!). Koit & Laura look fine, keeping it classy and could stand out amongst some of the other craziness. Liis looks really good but her vocals seem unimpressive, in such a stacked semi-final I could see her missing out.

 

Nevertheless, this is even beating Melodifestivalen in terms of quality this year I think. We have around 4/5 very good songs out of 14 from the first two MF heats but we have the same number of very good songs just from the first heat of 10 in Estonia, and the second heat is the more stacked of the two! Unbelievable standard from such a small country, Iceland aren't far behind either!

Go home you're drunk Ryan

Running order is out.

 

1. Liis Lemsalu "Keep Running"

2. Koit Toome ja Laura "Verona"

3. Whogaux & Karl-Kristjan feat. Maian "Have You Now"

4. Lenna Kuurmaa "Slingshot"

5. Daniel Levi "All I Need"

6. Elina Born "In or Out"

7. Ivo Linna "Suur loterii"

8. Rasmus Rändvee "This Love"

9. Ariadne "Feel Me Now"

10. Kerli "Spirit Animal"

 

I don't know if this was random or producer decided but I could buy either one making sense.

Running order is out.

 

1. Liis Lemsalu "Keep Running"

2. Koit Toome ja Laura "Verona"

3. Whogaux & Karl-Kristjan feat. Maian "Have You Now"

4. Lenna Kuurmaa "Slingshot"

5. Daniel Levi "All I Need"

6. Elina Born "In or Out"

7. Ivo Linna "Suur loterii"

8. Rasmus Rändvee "This Love"

9. Ariadne "Feel Me Now"

10. Kerli "Spirit Animal"

 

I don't know if this was random or producer decided but I could buy either one making sense.

 

Well it's obvious they don't want Verona to win :(

But, Spirit Animal would easily be my second choice. Do juries have a stake in this?

It's a 50/50 jury and public to decide the top three who then go into a televote only superfinal. They announced during the heat that Verona wasn't in the top four of the jury votes in that semi so you wouldn't expect it to score amazingly with them but given it's probably going to be in the top 3 of the televoting they'd have to put it in their bottom three to really kill it off completely.

The jury in the final is completely different than in the semis so we can't really go off past jury performance too much. Biggest example was of course that INSANE second semi-final in 2013 when Birgit came 9th out of 10 with the juries but the televote pulled her up to sneak through in 5th. She was then 2nd out of 10 with juries in the final whereas she was 3rd with the televote, so a complete turnaround! She then won the superfinal by just a couple of percent.

 

That said I imagine Verona won't be a jury fave, I can imagine Daniel and Liis falling below it at the very least. I do think ERR are pushing Kerli to the win, they've wanted her in Eesti Laul for years so they are going to give her the best chance she can possibly have. If that means sabotaging her strongest competitors then so be it unfortunately for Laura who had an awful draw last year too but still made it to the superfinal.

 

Kerli is a definite for the superfinal, but nearly anyone could join her. My instinct says that if Koit & Laura or Ariadne are in the superfinal, they will get more televotes than Kerli. But both of those two are susceptible to a jury sabotage and Kerli could very easily be joined by the likes of Rasmus, Elina or Ivo. Ivo in particular is a wildcard here, he's basically the Owe of Estonia in terms of the nation's sweetheart. I doubt Estonian juries will be harsh to him as international juries will be to Owe so if Ivo does make it to the superfinal that could turn into a bit of a disaster for Estonia's strongest national final in history.

 

Gonna do a little prediction for the fun actually (jury scores first, televote scores second):

 

1. Kerli "Spirit Animal" 12+8 = 20

2. Koit Toome ja Laura "Verona" 3+12 = 15

3. Ariadne "Feel Me Now" 4+10 = 14

4. Ivo Linna "Suur loterii" 7+7 = 14

5. Rasmus Rändvee "This Love" 10+4 = 14

6. Elina Born "In or Out" 5+5 = 10

7. Lenna Kuurmaa "Slingshot" 8+2 = 10

8. Whogaux & Karl-Kristjan feat. Maian "Have You Now" 6+3 = 9

9. Daniel Levi "All I Need" 2+6 = 8

10. Liis Lemsalu "Keep Running" 1+1 = 2

 

Superfinal:

1. Koit Toome ja Laura

2. Ariadne

3. Kerli

 

Something like that looks about right to me~

Oh I got the scoring system wrong, they do 12-10-8 etc rather than 10-9-8 etc nowadays (used to be the latter) so edited accordingly ^_^

Been listening to Spirit Animal quite a lot, have only heard Have You Now (fantastic) and In Or Out (meh) of the others though. But, still, Kerli to win!

Only two of these songs wouldn't go straight into my amazing category in my rankings, really am spoilt for choice! I think my heart is with Koit/Laura or Ariadne but I should hopefully be happy with almost any result they throw at me... wait for Ivo to win! :kink:

Okay, finally listened to all of these:

 

9/10 Kerli "Spirit Animal"

8.5/10 Whogaux & Karl-Kristjan feat. Maian "Have You Now"

8/10 Rasmus Randvee "This Love"

7.5/10 Elina Born "In Or Out"

7.5/10 Koit Toome ja Laura "Verona"

7.5/10 Ariadne "Feel Me Now"

7/10 Liis Lemsalu "Keep Running"

7/10 Daniel Levi "All I Need"

6.5/10 Lenna Kuurmaa "Slingshot"

5/10 Ivo Linna "Suur loterii"

 

These are all based off the live version. A solidly "pretty good" bunch. Kerli is definitely my favourite, think it would look amazing at Eurovision. Have You Now could do with better staging but is solid and Rasmus gives me Justs vibes. Elina's song sounds quite cheap but it's an undeniable earworm, Koit & Laura could be better if it didn't feel so Denmark-dated by two performers who look and sound 40 but there's a catchy song in there. Feel Me Now has a very 00's vibe about it which took the full 3 minutes to grow but I ended up enjoying it. Liis, Daniel and Lenna are very run of the mill "that'll do" type fodder, while Ivo is just not my thing.