ESTONIA 2024

    

Eesti Laul was an awesome final once again, and your winners in 2024 are 5miinust & Puuluup, singing, uh, "(Nendest) narkootikumidest ei tea me (küll) midagi" ["We don't (yet) know anything about (these) drugs"]:



About the Artist

Two groups of people here! 5MIINUST (Estoni Kohver, Päevakoer, Põhja-Korea, Lancelot) are a hip-hop group who have twice been Estonia's Artist of the Year. Puuluup (Ramo Teder, Marko Veisson) are a folk duo playing the talharpa. No idea why they're working together, but it was a great choice.

Best Things We Lost Along the Way

A few good things here! 

  • Ollie, "My Friend", 2nd: Two straight runner-ups for Ollie. He'll get there soon enough. This was clear ahead of everything else (other than nendest...).
  • Nele-Liis Vaiksoo, "Käte ümber jää", 3rd: Estonia clearly wasn't in a ballad mood again this year, but this would've been a respectable choice.
  • Anet Vaikmaa, "Serotoniin", 4th: Girl rock!

Song Analysis

It's very weird.

Estonia's History


Estonia's pretty small (slightly more people than Oakland County), but it's put together a solid track record at Eurovision. They won in 2001, the first Eastern European country to do so, and they've picked up three top-ten finishes in the last eight contests.


Estonia is 21st in my personal rankings - a bit above average - with one winner (2003). I really enjoyed their last few entries (Uku aside), just like the other Baltic nations. With "Rändajad", "Bridges", and "Goodbye To Yesterday", Estonia has three of the prettiest entries of the 21st century. (2024 does not follow that pattern.)

Prognosis

Absolutely qualifying, people should love this.

Current Rankings




















Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

State Meet Deep Dive: D2 Boys

Image
     In lieu of a full state preview this year, I've chosen to focus on one section of the meet: the D2 boys' race, which looks to be the most competitive one of the day. I spoke with several of the title contenders' coaches and took a closer look at their teams. Season in Review     There were high hopes for FHE coming off a stellar track season, but a few questions remained headed into the season. Would 1600/3200 strength translate to the grass? How do you replace a low-stick like Aiden Sullivan? The Hawks answered both of those questions ("absolutely" and "shockingly easily", respectively) with their crushing win at South Christian's Under the Lights meet. FHE scored 22 points in the Twilight race, putting all scorers under 17:00. Brendan Hoving, Liam Hinman, and Henry Dixon showed the first iteration of their three-headed monster; Hoving was the top runner this time, but Dixon has emerged as the #1 for most of the season.          Shepherd brough
Read more

Two Peninsulas Are Better Than One? A Hypothetical Statewide XC Championship

Image
       With UP and LP soccer finally being merged after years of separation (this had to go to court for some reason), there have been slight rumblings about a similar change to XC and/or track. That seems unlikely at this point, considering UP soccer didn't even have a state tournament while XC and track very much do, but what this article supposes is: what if that happened? Let's take the 2022 XC season and see how the state meet would've looked if both peninsulas competed together. The Basics      Merging the two peninsulas messes with the division cutoffs quite a bit. Most UP schools are very small - Marquette is usually the only one with a LP D1 enrollment number, and just 4-5 more fit into D2 most years. This causes a massive shift of schools up the division hierarchy: UP teams are in bold here - you can see that most of the divisional changes end up being LP teams. The seasons are also somewhat different currently, with UP finals occurring in mid-October. In the int
Read more

Region 9 Boys: A Deep Dive

Image
Going through this year's regionals, a few stand out as particularly tough cases to prognosticate. Let's take a closer look at Region 9's boys' race: the most unusual, confusing, storyline-packed regional in the state. Note: if you gave me an answer for this piece, I almost certainly edited it for grammar and clarity. Another note: I am NOT doing this for every region. Probably just this one. Final note: I guess I have a blog now? This is going to be my primary thing now, stay tuned for more fun stuff. Region Overview the blue circle is where the course is! The basic structure of Region 9 has stayed pretty much the same for over a decade: an assortment of Macomb and Oakland County teams head up I-94 to join the Port Huron schools at some flat, fast course on the edge of the Thumb. This year, that'll be Goodells County Park (officially hosted by D2's Cros-Lex), and the regional roster is pretty familiar. It's one of the least-changed D1 regionals this year, b
Read more