Eesti Laul

Eesti Laul
(The Estonian Song)
Eesti Laul; (The Estonian Song)
Genre	Pop music, etc.
Location(s)	Estonia
Years active	2009–present
Founded by	Eesti Rahvusringhääling (ERR)
Website	ERR official site

Eesti Laul (English: 'Estonian Song' or 'The Song of Estonia') is an annual music competition organised by Estonian public broadcaster Eesti Rahvusringhääling (ERR). It determines the country's representative for the Eurovision Song Contest, and has been staged every year since 2009. The contest was introduced in 2009, replacing the former Eurolaul festival, used since Estonia's first participation in Eurovision in 1993. Since its introduction, the competition has been one of the most popular television programmes in Estonia; it is also broadcast on radio and the Internet. In 2012, the semifinals averaged 199 thousand viewers, and over an estimated 296 thousand people in Estonia watched the final.

History[]

The contest was introduced by ERR, the organisers of the contest, with a different philosophy on the contest used previously. Eesti Laul was introduced to produce an Estonian contest, with Estonian musical tastes being presented to a European audience. The contest is also an open one, with all information of the songs being revealed in the selection process.^[1]

The festival has produced four top-ten placings for Estonia at the contest. The winner of the Eesti Laul has been chosen by televoting and panels of jurors since its inception. The competition makes a considerable impact on music charts in Estonia and neighbouring countries.

The introduction of semifinals in 2011 raised the potential number of contestants from ten to twenty. The festival is very well known for its alternative rock and electro-pop songs which make the contest more diverse than other Eurovision national finals, so it is sometimes referred to as Alternative Melodifestivalen by the media and the Eurovision fans. The introduction of a grand final hosted in Saku Suurhall has attracted substantial tourism to the city. Announced in September 2018, the then new lead producer Tomi Rahula made various changes to the 2019 edition contest including 12 entries in the final, 24 entries overall and broadcasting the semi-finals live from cities outside of Tallinn. Rahula also introduced an entry fee for interested artists and composers; the fee was halved for entrants wishing to perform in the Estonian language.^[2]

Format[]

The twenty selected songs in the contest are shown to the Estonian public through two semi-finals. From each semi-final, five acts get through to the final show. The winner is selected through two rounds of voting: the first round selects top three songs, selected through both jury and televoting; the second round selects the winner from the three songs through 100% televoting.

Rules[]

Most of rules are dictated by those of the Eurovision Song Contest. However, regulations have been introduced by the Estonian broadcaster. The competition's official rules are released by ERR early in preparation for each year's Eesti Laul, to ensure any changes are noted by songwriters and performers.

There is a limit of six people on stage for each performance. All vocals had to be completely live; human voices are not allowed on backing tracks. Entries usually are not publicly broadcast until the songs are previewed on television. Until 2017, competing songs were only permitted if they were written by all-Estonian team. Since 2017, foreign collaborations were allowed as long as 50% of the song authors were Estonians. Artists and songwriters were allowed to submit up to three songs each with an exception to this rule for songwriters who participated in songwriting camps organised by the Estonian Song Academy.

Winners[]

The first winner of Eesti Laul was Urban Symphony with the song "Rändajad", beating the televoting favourite Laura in the first round.^[3] At Eurovision, the group changed Estonia's previous fortunes at Eurovision, qualifying to the final (3rd of the semi-final, with 115 points), and placing 6th in the final with 129 points.

The most recent winner of the contest is Uku Suviste with his song "The Lucky One".

Year	Song	Language	Artist	Songwriter(s)	At Eurovision
Year	Song	Language	Artist	Songwriter(s)	Final	Points	Semi	Points
2009	"Rändajad"	Estonian	Urban Symphony	Sven Lõhmus	6	129	3	115
2010	"Siren"	English	Malcolm Lincoln	Robin Juhkental	Did not qualify		14	39
2011	"Rockefeller Street"	English	Getter Jaani	Sven Lõhmus	24	44	9	60
2012	"Kuula"	Estonian	Ott Lepland	Ott Lepland, Aapo Ilves	6	120	4	100
2013	"Et uus saaks alguse"	Estonian	Birgit Õigemeel	Mihkel Mattisen, Silvia Soro	20	19	10	52
2014	"Amazing"	English	Tanja	Timo Vendt, Tatjana Mihhailova	Did not qualify		12	36
2015	"Goodbye to Yesterday"	English	Elina Born & Stig Rästa	Stig Rästa	7	106	3	105
2016	"Play"	English	Jüri Pootsmann	Fred Krieger, Stig Rästa, Vallo Kikas	Did not qualify		18	24
2017	"Verona"	English	Koit Toome & Laura	Sven Lõhmus	Did not qualify		14	85
2018	"La forza"	Italian	Elina Nechayeva	Mihkel Mattisen, Timo Vendt, Ksenia Kuchukova, Elina Nechayeva	8	245	5	201
2019	"Storm"	English	Victor Crone	Stig Rästa, Vallo Kikas, Victor Crone, Fred Krieger, Sebastian Lestapier	20	76	4	198
2020	"What Love Is"	English	Uku Suviste	Uku Suviste, Sharon Vaughn	Contest cancelled due to COVID-19 pandemic
2021	"The Lucky One"	English	Uku Suviste	Uku Suviste, Sharon Vaughn	Did not qualify		13	58
2022	TBD 12 February 2022

Presenters[]

This list includes those who have presented Eesti Laul. In 2009, there were two presenters for the first time. Since the introduction of semi-finals, various people have presented the shows.

Year	Quarter-final presenter(s)	Semi-final presenter(s)	Final presenter(s)
2009	No quarter-finals	No semi-finals	Henry Kõrvits, Robert Kõrvits
2010		No semi-finals	Ott Sepp, Märt Avandi
2011		Piret Järvis, Lenna Kuurmaa	Piret Järvis, Lenna Kuurmaa, Ott Sepp
2012		Piret Järvis	Tiit Sukk, Taavi Teplenkov
2013		Anu Välba, Marko Reikop
2014		Helen Sürje, Henrik Kalmet	Marko Reikop, Henrik Kalmet
2015		Helen Sürje, Indrek Vaheoja	Marko Reikop, Henrik Kalmet
2016		Henry Kõrvits, Maris Kõrvits	Ott Sepp, Märt Avandi
2017		Elina Nechayeva, Marko Reikop	Ott Sepp, Märt Avandi
2018		Kristel Aaslaid, Martin Veisman	Ott Sepp, Meelis Kubo
2019		Piret Krumm, Ott Sepp	Piret Krumm, Karl-Erik Taukar
2020		Karl-Erik Taukar, Tõnis Niinemets
2021		Grete Kuld, Tõnis Niinemets
2022	Tanel Padar and Eda-Ines Etti, Uku Suviste and Tanja, Ott Lepland and Laura, Jüri Pootsmann and Getter Jaani	Maarja-Liis Ilus, Priit Log	TBA

References[]

^ Floras, Stella (14 October 2008). "Estonia: New name, new format, new dynamics". ESCToday. Archived from the original on 15 October 2008. Retrieved 13 June 2009.
^ Granger, Anthony (5 September 2018). "Estonia: 24 Acts To Compete in Expanded Eesti Laul Selection". Eurovoix. Retrieved 29 February 2020.
^ Floras, Stella (7 March 2009). "Tonight: Estonia selects for Eurovision". ESCToday. Archived from the original on 26 April 2012. Retrieved 13 June 2009.

External links[]

Media related to Eesti Laul at Wikimedia Commons

Official website

[1] Floras, Stella (14 October 2008). "Estonia: New name, new format, new dynamics". ESCToday. Archived from the original on 15 October 2008. Retrieved 13 June 2009.

[2] Granger, Anthony (5 September 2018). "Estonia: 24 Acts To Compete in Expanded Eesti Laul Selection". Eurovoix. Retrieved 29 February 2020.

[3] Floras, Stella (7 March 2009). "Tonight: Estonia selects for Eurovision". ESCToday. Archived from the original on 26 April 2012. Retrieved 13 June 2009.

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