I promised to write a proper review of Estonia in Eurovision 2014, but I've been busy doing nothing so that's not happening. So I'll just keep it short and bring out three main points that I would have written in my review.
1. Desperate, special "made for Eurovision" productions are bound to fail
Tanja was the only one in Eesti Laul 2014 whose main goal was getting to the Eurovision Song Contest. The others were there to present themselves and their music, and getting to the Eurovision would have been a great bonus for them, but Tanja admitted that getting to the Eurovision stage had been a long-time dream of hers. "Amazing" was written directly for that purpose and everything was done with Eurovision in mind. That's the problem. You cannot write and produce an intensional winner. Taking inspiration from previous winners and other successful entries, and formulating an idea of what you think will do well gives you an utterly bland result that lacks soul and character, which the source of inspiration most likely had. And that's exactly what I think of Amazing, it's dull and boring.
2. The excessive choreography was useless
Although I never liked the song itself, even I thought the choreography and stage show would impress the European audience and get us the the final. Boy was I wrong. Nothing worked. The stage was way too big, backdrops were hideous, camerawork and editing terrible. We were easily outdone by many simple and elegant performances, such as Sweden and the Netherlands. Now that I think about it, the performance wasn't that impressive at Eesti Laul either...
3. About the language
Six editions of Eesti Laul. Six winners. Three in Estonian and three in English. All three Estonian winners have done better than the three English winners. That's a fact. I'm not saying our English entries would have been better if they were done in Estonian, but the English language certainly didn't make them more appealing to the European audience either. Oh when will they learn?
