Estonia: 202 songs for Eesti Laul 2022

Estonia: 202 songs for Eesti Laul 2022
Thursday, 21 October 2021

  • The Estonian national broadcaster,  ERR, has received 202 songs for the Eurovision 2022 national selection, Eesti Laul 2022. 

    Estonia will be selecting their Eurovision hopeful via their tradional national selection format of Eesti Laul. With the submission concluded last evening, ERR, revealed that they have received a total of 202 songs for next year's national selection. 

    From the 202 songs received 84 of them are in Estonian while several are in English, Spanish, French, Italian and in made up languages. In addition, seven former Eurovision representatives have sent in their music proposals.

    In the next edition of Eesti Laul a total of 40 entries will compete for the right to represent Estonia in Eurovision 2022. This number is increased from the 24 that competed in previous edition.  The format will see also the addition of 4 quaterfinals which means that the national selection will consist of seven shows in total. Precisely the Estonian national selection will include four quaterfinals, two semi final rounds and one Grand final show.

     

    The 2022 format

    In the quarterfinals, five songs from each show will advance to the semi-finals. From the five qualifiers, three songs will be chosen by the public and two by a jury. In the semi-finals, five songs will be chosen for the final from each show,with the five finalists to be determined in two rounds: the qualifiers of the first round are decided by the jury vote in combination with Televoting while the qualifiers in the second round will be determined by televoting only. 

    The Grand Final show will consist of two voting rounds.  The first round of votes will select the qualifers in the Super Final with the public and the jury contributing each with a 50% share of the voting. In the Super Final, the winner and next Estonian Eurovision hopeful will be determined exclusively by televoting.

     

    Eesti Laul 2022 will unfold over the next months as following: 

    • 20/11/2021 - 1st Quarterfinal
    • 27/11/2021 - 2nd Quarterfinal
    • 04/12/2021 - 3rd Quarterfinal
    • 11/12/2021- 4th Quarterfinal
    • 03/02/2022 - First Semifinal
    • 05/02/2022 - Second Semifinal
    • 12/02/2022 - Grand Final

     

    Estonia in Eurovision 

    Estonia joined the Eurovision family in 1994 . On their debut participation they were represented by Silvi Vrait, who finished 2nd last with only 2 points. Seven years later the country was crowned winner of  Eurovision Song Contest 2001 for the first and only time until today. Tanel Padar, Dave Benton & 2XL, performed the song Everybody and against all odds achieved to bring the trophy from Copenhagen in Estonia.

    However this success didn’t continue as Estonia failed to qualify for the final from 2004-2008. In 2009 after successive bad results led to the establishment of Eesti Laul, as the show through which the country has been selecting its Eurovision entries the last ten years, having seven times qualified to the final.
    In 2019 with Swedish singer, Victor Crone won Eesti Laul 2019 and rerpesented Estonia with his song, “Storm”. The Estonian representative finished in 20th place in the final with 76 points, marking Estonia’s qualification to the final for a second year in a row.

    Uku won the Estonian national final back in February 2020 with his entry “What Love Is” and along with it the right to reprsent Estonian at Eurovision 2020 in Rotterdam. Unfortunately the contest never took place cause of the coronavirus pandemic leaving Uku’s ESC journey incomplete.

    However, the Estonian act was given a pass to compete in Eesti Laul 2021 finals, which he eventually won again with his song 'The Lucky One' and went off to representing the country in Rotterdam. Uku competed in the second semi final and depsite his strong performance didn't make it to the Grand Final. 

     

    News Source/Image: ERR