The Wiwi Jury — our in-house panel of music unprofessionals — continues to listen to and rank the 20 songs competing in Eesti Laul 2018. Next we listen to Indrek Ventmann and his song “Tempel”. Did he make us want to pray? Read on to find out!
Indrek Ventmann – “Tempel”
“Tempel” reviews
Steinunn: “Tempel“ is a rather “middle-of-the-pack“ kind of song. Indrek‘s voice is what keeps me intrigued in the beginning but then the repetitive chorus starts and I stop paying attention to it. Usually Estonian lyrics keep me interested but in this case it does nothing. It will probably do well on Estonian radio but is not quite a contender for the big Eurovision stage.
Score: 5/10
Antranig: Everything about this song screams “Estonian cruise ship bop”. He’s even got a look that every vacationing retiree would go for. I’m sure Indrek can have a lovely career performing “Tempel” on cruise liners sailing through the Baltic but Eurovision may be a bit of a stretch. This would get lost in a semi-final and there would be no life raft in sight.
Score: 3.5/10
Chris: Granted, there’s something positive to be said about the simplicity of “Tempel”. Indrek is selling us some kind of mantra, but he’s hardly Jim Jones. There’s just no charisma in the recorded version — the repetition gets boring after one listen. If he has something else to bring live, then this could improve, but otherwise it screams “skip” before too long.
Score: 5/10
Robyn: Perhaps the key to understanding “Tempel” is the lyrics. The frequently repeated chorus translates to “Here is my temple, springs and palm trees/here is my peace, here is my peace”. It seems better suited as a meditation mantra, rather than a Eurovision entry. “Tempel” is very minimalistic and it really hangs on the performance of Indrek Ventmann, the new guru of Eesti Laul.
Score: 7/10
Deban: An average pop song that climaxes on its first spin. It was a struggle to listen to this again! That said, it’s hard to point out what I dislike, or what I particularly like. Indrek will have to work hard to sell this one-note wonder.
Score: 5/10
Luis: This poor guy has horchata in his veins. It’s hard to get the point of this song: Indrek keeps on repeating the same line over the same base for three minutes. There’s nothing particularly exciting about this entry. I struggle to find a reason to replay it.
Score: 4/10
In our Eesti Laul Wiwi Jury, we have 15 jurors but only room for 6 reviews. The rest of our scores can be found below:
Angus: 8.5/10
Barnabas: 4.5/10
Cinan: 7/10
Jonathan: 5/10
Josh: 5/10
Jovana: 8/10
Lukas: 7/10
Rick: 7/10
Sebastian: 6.5/10
Before calculating the average score, the highest and lowest scores are dropped. This is to remove outliers and reduce potential bias. We have removed a low of 3.5 and a high of 8.5.
Nothing special here. Nice melody though.
4/10
To quote Aleksander Wallmann, “repetition is old, put it in a bin”. It is pleasant to hear a few times, but it gets exhausting after a minute or two. In comparison, Pseudoprobleem is shorter and more original in genre. Tempel is just very boring, even if Estonian is a beautiful language.
3/10
They sent a hypnotic four-chord song to a song contest. Seriously. In a contest, this should come last. This entry’s redeeming factor is perhaps the hypnotic vocal, and the miracle that the singer doesn’t get tired of singing it. 2/10
I like it, but The Power of “La Forza” makes it a hermit in the Temple of the forgettable.
This started of well and then repeated the same thing 6 times over 3 minutes!! What a waste of a semi-spot!!
A 3/10
Where can I find the acoustic performances of the songs like the one you included here?
Nvm, found it, disappointing that some chose to sing with playback.
I think that 5.85 is way too high for this song. It is boring and generic and should be more closer to 4 than 6.