This opinion piece solely reflects the views of the writer and not those of ESCUnited as whole.
(Well, the first one was a success so here we go again. The last one reached Baby Lasagna’s press team, so I’m scared for my life. Let’s quickly churn out a second editorial before I’m knifed down by the Istrian mob.)
I love the way the upcoming Eurovision 2024 is shaping up. That’s an opinion not too many seem to share with me, but like… get taste? This year is good, and that there’s no clear cut favourite makes it exciting. Anyone could emerge as a winner. So, I embark on another journey, picking a dark horse fave and their live performance apart, breaking them down to their strengths and weaknesses and seeing if there’s anything worth keeping, improving, or tossing out.
Not every country is worth writing about – Lithuania and Norway for instance have live performances, but they also have a full package that shouldn’t be altered too much. If you’re into them now, you’ll like them in Malmö and, if you’re not, they won’t be for you anyway. Others such as Italy have many potential directions they can take, almost all of which work and listing them all feels like a pointless exercise.
So let’s instead risk my life again by talking about some Estonian drug dealers
What we’re looking for in this series are performances (and songs for internals) that have potential to do very well but aren’t quite there yet. And with that, I think Estonia is a very interesting one to look at. They have the longest title in Eurovision history, a pair of talharpas, and a meme dance. If you believe in the multiverse theory like I do, then there’s definitely a universe out there where (nendest) narkootikumidest ei tea me (küll) midagi wins Eurovision. Whether it’s our own remains to be seen.
These folk punkers sing in their own language and dart around the stage like agents of chaos. It’s madness, but is there a method to their madness?
It’s been a divisive topic, with weak people clutching their pearls and gasping for air as their fragile mindset buckles under the weight of a song by “thugs” singing about drugs in a language that isn’t even on Duolingo! Weakness is not to be tolerated however, so let’s dive into this marmite-y delectable Eurovision Icon in the making.
But first, a bunch of disclaimers
- It’s definitely NOT my objective to give Estonia false hope or deflate their chances. The spectrum of placements they can finish in is a wide one: as high as top five but as close to NQ depending on the direction they take it in the next two months. Currently, I think Estonia are looking at 6th-13th place in their current form. This can fluctuate up and down based on what other countries do since writing.
- It is also NOT my objective to offer ERR clear solutions for the weaknesses in their package. I’ll make a few suggestions, that’s it. They are the participating broadcaster, the responsibility is theirs, and it is their duty to support their representative as much as they can. They should have a clearer idea of what to do and offer 5Miinust & Puuluup the support they need. What I can do is point out what they’re doing (not so) well and what they probably should consider tweaking a bit.
- Finally, although I write for ESCUnited, these opinions are my own and do not represent what the rest of our editors think. If they want to get their opinions on, they’re welcome to write a counter-editorial.
Here’s the performance we’ll be analyzing today:
As with Croatia, I’ll be focusing on three aspects for this analysis: the Music, (the story told by its instrumentation and lyrics), the Staging (how the visuals impact the package), and the Performance (the skill and charm of 5M&P on a live stage). I think it’s better to merge performance and staging this time – these seasoned veterans know how to engage a live audience, and pointers on what can be improved there shouldn’t be needed here.
THE SONG
(nendest) narkootikumidest ei tea me (küll) midagi translates to “We (really) don’t know anything about (these) narcotics” and you can read it more as “we don’t know anything about no drugs, officer, promise”. Once you realize this, the rest of the song clicks together. The song is about the protagonists experimenting with drugs, getting caught by the police and shenanigans ensuing as they -high as a kite- try (and fail) to talk themselves out of a awkward situation. The message ultimately boils down to “Drugs are bad! they have bad consequences! don’t use them! Trust”. This is a very easy and rewarding topic for a Eurovision song that can be taken in many fun directions … exactly what you need for a song of this pedigree, as the Estonian-language doesn’t offer many lifelines to non-speakers.
The song is a fusion of hip-hop and nu folk, playing up to the strengths of the two collaborating groups. 5Miinust and Puuluup are two of the hottest groups in Estonia, and both represent the local music scene. For the purpose of a narrative, 5Miinuust perform the sleazier, smarmier parts, cementing them as the drug suppliers while Puuluup are their unsuspecting victims, caught in the middle of the chaos.
Musically, the talharpa (a variation of the lyre that is typical to Estonia) serves throughout the song as a leitmotif for the deep trouble Puuluup are in. The strings are aggressive, screechy, and have an almost foghorn-like quality. The objective is to overload the score with a jarring, almost dissonant sound, and that works really well with the message. The song is about an acid trip gone very, very badly, and a shrill sound brings that home well. Further layers of backing vocals and the longhaired guy’s scream vocal hit home. Cementing the song as not being for drugs, but against them. Puuluup and 5Miinust are attempting to break free from their trip and failing.
A special commendation should be made to Puuluup’s Marko Veisson (the guy who looks like the YouTuber VSauce crossed with a giant teddy bear) as his double vocal serves as a reference point for both the humour AND sympathy. Both help break down the language barrier a bit.
Lyrically, the song’s very humorous. There are several really brilliant lines (“I found these dresses in a dumpster idk how i got them on“) (“I don’t know anything about narcotics, just cider and lemonade, and I couldn’t tell you the difference between vitamins and speed“) (“[the drugs] activate my body like a hot stove“). These lines are all great and graphic, and the libretto liberally uses loanwords to provide some scaffolding for the international audience. They establish the song as fun, humorous and something that can be taken with a pinch of salt.
Of course, because the song is fully in Estonian, the actual impact of the lyrics is next to none – the lyrical content you read between the lines has to be translated through other, more visual means, which is where the staging kicks in:
PERFORMANCE & STAGING
The staging is where Estonia need some work. The entire ensemble is fun, but it’s very discordant and disorganized.
But before we dissect why that is, let’s focus on its strengths first. What should Estonia keep around at all costs?
‘(nendest) narkootikumidest’ starts in the middle of the audience with the designated 5Miinust member- idk what the who’s who is, and they all have silly nicknames anyway so let’s go with Sleazebro #1- hails the audience at home from the crowd in the arena. This is a smart approach, as a lot of the song is carried on vibe and seeing the audience enjoy itself during the performance helps sell it. It’s the ‘Trenuletul’ effect that we saw work out for Moldova two years ago.
Estonians aren’t particularly known for being emotionally permeable, but a crowd of Eurofans and Spaniards (remember that the Spanish crowd is an integral part of the ‘Zorra’ staging and that they wouldn’t want to miss out on the semi that features Nebulossa’s first live) jumping up and down, waving banners and flags and inflatable plastic hammers, will help establish a party vibe from the get-go. This works out in Estonia’s favour as ‘(nendest) narkootikumidest’ goes hard down the line. A start like this sets up the insanity that is about to unfold.
5Miinust are convincing as the incompetent drug dealers, wearing sunglasses and black suits. They come across as sleazy henchmen to their long-haired leader (more on him later), which is consistent with how the song utilizes their vocals.
Puuluup are centre-stage (as they should be, since their instruments are the axis around which the rest of the songs spins), backs against each other as if bound together, as if held hostage by the El Doucho Druglords; Then, the leader of 5Miinust emerges, and he and Marko engage in what appears to be a tavern brawl or rap battle. The two groups are at odds – again, this synergizes well with the song’s message.
These two figures are ultimately the two that make the song work, and the staging respects their importance. Without the long-haired 5Miinust guy delivering scream vocals, the party vibe falls flat. Without Marko’s exaggerated bass-baritone, the whimsical humour is lost. As disorganized as the staging is in motion, it does nail the basics of putting the two most important vocalists at the centre of the act, both of whom btw are excellent. ‘(nendest) narkootikumidest’ is much harder to sing than it appears and it would collapse if either main had failed to hit their notes.
The second verse is when the already iconic Narcotics Dance kicks in, and the introduction is a clever one. The four support characters dance in the background in front of a cleverly chosen backdrop – a giant eye. When we want to connect to people, we look at their eyes first, so putting one in the middle directs the audience to focus their attention on what is happening right in front of it. It also looks really good combined with the rhombuses that make up the EL backdrop.
Even though this is a wide shot, with the camera panning AWAY from the dance, you maintain focus on everything inside the red rectangle thanks to the eye in the background. If you replicate this with an audience going bonkers for the song in the foreground, this could count as a money shot.
The Narcotics dance itself is brilliant in its simplicity. Only a few moves, easy to replicate, but very droll to watch. Ramo Teder (the other member of Puuluup) sell this dance the most – an older endearing, grandfather-looking figure going all out on the dancefloor with a talharpa in his hand, not giving a fuck about arthritis … when will your elderly family members be this cool? Probably never.
The way the dance is used here also deserves praise. At the start of the second verse, the dance is contained to the background as the leaders of both factions seemingly settle their differences and fraternize. After the middle eight, everyone dances along. centre-stage, with the choreography used as the moment that ties everything together.
These individual components work really well. However, this all sounds way better than what it actually is. The live as a whole is not as good as the individual parts. The whole is a disorganized, incohesive jumble, with the attention darting back and forth between the six performers, all of whom are confined to a cramped space and are engaging in all sorts of shenanigans. It’s all a bit too unrefined. The long-haired leader of the 5Miinust gang does not interact with the camera and often turns his back TO THE CAMERA. You’re already wearing sunglasses, which makes establishing a connection difficult – you really want to clearly show the rest of your face and its locomotion to salvage some of that.
A lot of fans and pundits were disappointed by this live. The reason for that is because ‘(nendest) narkootikumidest’ already had a live performance predating EL, and that one was arguably better.
From Anu Välba’s morning show Hommik Anuga
I, too, prefer this live over the one in EL. There’s several reasons for that – the vocals are better, so if I want to listen to Estonia’s song (a regular craving), I always loop this vid over the other one. It’s also easier to connect with the artists as the camerawork is more stable and focuses on their faces. The song is still a chaotic, anarchistic trainwreck, but the chaos is organized; it is contained, it is controlled by the performers. Furthermore, the chaos is used for the benefit of the song, not as an uncontained projectile unleashed during the middle of the live as a distraction.
This live at Hommik Anuga establishes what the live in EL does not – it gets the acid trip gone bad vibe across. You know, the actual topic of the song. The EL version is a party song about two gangs of thugs fraternizing over a pint of craft cider if you didn’t know any better. It’s irreverent and shallow, and The Netherlands already have that market covered with their nihilistic zoomer nonsense. Estonia could have them beat on nearly every other aspect, though, and should play up to their strengths like the Hommik live did. The blue lights, the geometric shapes, the tendrils, the intense close-ups and strobe-lights … it all goes just as hard as the live in EL did, if not moreso, because it nails the immersion and the spirit of the music. And that’s ultimately what musicians should be striving for, no?
There needs to be some sort of a middle ground here without compromising the strengths of either live performance. It needs to be more performance and more unhinged and less six drunkards shrieking at each other in an alien language.
The performance in EL was acceptable and should do just fine in Malmö, but we shouldn’t forget it was also specifically catered to an Estonian audience. Estonians are able to distinguish between 5Miinust and Puuluup as both are high-profile, established acts in Estonia in their own right – Puuluup won an important award earlier this year even. Estonians would care about the bar fight and subsequent fraternization of two musical titans they know and love.
Europeans, on the other hand, will barely make a distinction between the four sleazebags in black suits and the two slightly older, slightly less dodgy old farts in black suits. If the confrontation into subsequent fraternization is to be kept as a part of the act, the two groups need to be differentiated more. The costumes 5Miinust wear should be distinct from the outfits Puuluup adorn themselves in.
We saw this contrast in the natural comparisons for this entry, Moldova’s ‘Trenuletul’ and Greece’s ‘Alcohol is Free’. In both of these songs, the older folk acts were wearing more traditional, classical outfits, while the younger punkers that accompanied them had more um… ecclectic, out-there garb. (I’m still thinking about the literal curtain tassels that were dangling from Roman Iagupov’s ears in Turin – we really should bring BDex back, pearl-clutchers be damned … then again, Joost would win BDex based on his haircut alone, so maybe not). This differentiation can be sustained by either giving Puuluup a more distinctly ethnic look or by modernizing 5Miinust’s outfits, or keeping the outfits similar in shape and giving one of the two groups a different colour.
Additionally, the acid trip vibe needs to come across better in Malmö. The big moment ‘(nendest) narkootikumidest’ builds towards is already okay, but it’s not a showstopper. Yet. The song is composed specifically on the topic of “Drugs Are Bad, You Shouldn’t Do Them, Allow Me To Demonstrate Why” and yanking up the trippiness can only benefit the integrity of the product. It improves the humour and the immersion and can take the already strong party vibes to dizzying heights of insanity.
Finally, 5Miinust improvise a lot and that makes them difficult to capture with the cameras. It’s clear in the EL live too – they move too quickly for the cameramen to capture them well. Either they hold back on their performance spiel (inadvisable – the song depends on crowd interaction), or you tweak the camera angles to focus strictly on the important characters until it’s time to go all out into the insane climax. This will help curb the chaos until it is ready to be unleashed in its full glory. Oh and the idiot yelling the WAAAAAA after the bridge off-camera better not do that in Malmö… 🙂.
In sum, The act needs to progress more naturally, and the third act needs to become THE showstopping moment of the night. Everything else builds up towards that final, insane dance. Contain the insanity, control the chaos. When the bridge comes in, release all the brakes – Go extreme, go ham, be as unhinged as you can be. If Estonia manage that, they will be near unstoppable in the televote.
OVERALL VERDICT:
Estonia are at the level of a Trenuletul, which is not a bad place to be. ‘(nendest) narkootikumidest’ is unhinged (funhinged?) but not nihilistic and empty and that gives this song a solid niche over other novelty entries, making a possible top 10 feel a bit more likely than it does for Finland or The Netherlands. However, there is more potential than what they’re currently showcasing, and it would be a shame to not explore ways to maximizing their yield. With the right level of refinement and guidance, they can become a huge sleeper hit nobody expects.
STRENGTHS
- Excellent representation of Estonian music scene. This entry couldn’t be more Estonian if it tried
- This is lyric-for-lyric the funniest entry in the year (so far)
- Grateful topic that is easy to visualize into something that would appeal to a broad audience
- Clever use of a meme dance (it suits the song AND is easy to replicate for fans)
- The two main vocalists are excellent … important since the song is deceptively hard to sing in tune
- In a contest filled with party music, has probably the most distinct and authentic sound that stands out even without gimmicks
WEAKNESSES
- Because the song is fully in Estonian, it relies fully on visual cues to gets the vision across
- Marko Veisson is so crucial to the song that the second he has a bad live, the entire performance collapses
- The staging is disorganized and all over the place, breaking the immersion
- The song is about an acid trip gone wrong and doesn’t demonstrate this properly
- The main lead of 5Miinust does not interact with the camera, making it harder to connect with him as a performer
IMPROVEMENTS FOR MALMÖ
- Organize the song’s chaos into a force you can control.
- Use more potent close-ups at better angles to help the audience connect with 5Miinust in spite of their sunglasses.
- Create better LEDs in the third act that help immerse the audience into the song’s psychedelic message. (Keep the central eye in the second act, though.)
- Provide better visual distinctions between 5Miinust & Puuluup.
- Reduce the screentime of the improvisation, and use the improv specifically to rally the crowd off-camera.
Did I seriously make this one longer than the last one, eughhh. I need another hobby.
Other Critical Analyses can be read here:
