Entries for Estonia’s national final Eesti Laul 2022 have closed and now broadcaster ERR has revealed some statistics about this year’s entries. The broadcaster has confirmed that 202 songs have been submitted for the national final.
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Of the 202 songs, 84 are in the Estonian language — that’s just over 41%. Songwriters had a strong incentive to support their native language — the entry fee was €50 for a song in Estonian and €100 for a song in a foreign language or multilingual.
Of the foreign language songs, entries were submitted with lyrics in English, Spanish, French and Italian. ERR also notes that there were songs written in a “made-up language”. Eurovision has seen songs in an imaginary language three times before. The best result was in 2003 when Belgium group Urban Trad placed second with “Sanomi”.
ERR has also confirmed that the entries include return bids from seven artists who have previously represented Estonia at Eurovision. In previous years, Estonian Eurovision stars such as Elina Born, Ivo Linna, Koit Toome, Laura, Lenna Kuurmaa (Vanillia Ninja), Stig Rästa, Tanja and Jüri Pootsmann have returned to Eesti Laul.
The 202 entries will be assessed by a 17-person expert jury. At that stage, the jury won’t know the identities of the performers or songwriters. ERR will reveal the lucky 40 competing acts in early November.
Eesti Laul 2022 — Dates
The popular national selection is expanding to include quarter-finals involving 40 competing songs. This means that with 202 entries, there will be a one-in-five chance of making the show. Through the quarter-finals and semi-finals, ten acts will end up progressing to the grand final.
The dates for the seven Eesti Laul show have also been confirmed. All four preliminary heats will take place before Christmas, while the latter stages will take place in February. Unlike recent years, there will not be a gap between the semi-finals and final.
- Quarter-final 1 — Saturday 20 November
- Quarter-final 2 — Saturday 27 November
- Quarter-final 3 — Saturday 4 December
- Quarter-final 4 — Saturday 11 December
- Semi-final 1 — Thursday 3 February
- Semi-final 2 — Saturday 5 February
- Grand final — Saturday 12 February
What do you think? Who would you like to see competing in Eesti Laul 2022? What returning acts would you like to see this season?
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Fabulous News! Four Quarter-finals, two Semi-finals and a Grand Final, with 40 competing songs! Wow! 202 entries! Eesti Laul is the reason I watch Eurovision! So many great acts! Go Estonia!
I would normally get worried when national final has more than three songs in the running for Eurovision, but Estonia does have a solid music track record, so that could turn out good. I can’t wait to hear all the songs once they drop in November and December. I don’t even mind that there will be a break between the quarterfinals and the semifinal final, because it will be filled with other national finals in the meanwhile. Good luck Estonia.
But…..a National final with only 3 acts!? If you have only 3 acts then choose internally it’s useless to make a big show for only that imo, or if the show is for choosing a song between 3 for only one artist previously selected it makes sense, like they’ve done with Sara aalto, Darude, Eden Alene or Roxen.
That’s a mistake. I meant to write down 30 songs, of course three is too little for a national final. Unfortunately I can’t fix that error because there’s a limited period between when you post and when you can edit on this site.
202 submissions is a very impressive figure considering there were only 156 entries for the 2021 edition (which is a reasonable number given that Covid peaked around the end of 2020 when the submission deadline was set). The fact that every one out of 5 songs stands a chance to make it to the quarter finals is a great incentive for both established and aspiring songwriters so one would hope the 17-person expert jury plays its cards right . I wonder if there is a particular reason why it stands at 17 and not 20 or any other even number.… Read more »
I don’t like fake languages. Lyrics become meaningless if nobody can understand a word. Maybe it was just a loophole to avoid paying the fee. Try esperanto next time.
or maybe apply your own meaning to it? no language is meaningless, and all languages are made up
If I apply the meaning, why should they get the trophy?
Yeah any language has a meaning, and if you create your own then you can give words any meaning, but that’s maybe what makes it weird or silly. I mean you can be singing about love or other topic while maybe you are singing words that don’t have a lexical or grammatical logic and you just invented it, It may result odd
I like it when the vocals are just one of the instruments of the song, but it’s kinda pointless since there’s no live instruments in esc.
But it’s still a tune. Just a recorded one. And the fact that vocals are the only “live” instrument doesn’t make them any less instrument. I’d personally like to see entries in fake languages. Especially, considering the lyrical quality of a lot of ESC entries.
Hopefully some of the Estonian language songs will be huge contenders for winning Eesti Laul. I’ve been hoping for another Kuula or Et uus saaks alguse XD
“I can never imagine the power…”
Super-excited about my favorite NF.
Made up language made up language made up language made up language made up language made up language made up language made up language made up language made up language made up language made up language made up language made up language made up language made up language made up language!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I hope that after they whittle down to 40 songs, they sort them By language for the quarterfinals. Two quarterfinals of just Estonian songs, and the other two populated by the English/other language songs. That way, I hope they maintain the 50-50 balance. I am just worried that if they present mixed language quarterfinals come out the English songs will come out way more ahead than the Estonian ones.
An imaginary language, it’s intriguing.
The another thing interesting is that Eesti Laul is the NF using the most different languages I guess, I mean 4 foreign languages (without talking of the imaginaries languages + the mothertongue) in a NF, I have personally never seen that.
Moldovan NF of 2018 had songs in English, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, and Italian. It’s yet to be seen which of the songs will be picked to end-up in top 40, but I hope that the language and style diversity will be present.
Oh thank you I ignored that, effectively it has already existed then. It’s an interesting approach for a NF to have between all these languages to choose.
The majority of the eurofans seems to prefer when a country sing in their own language in order to bring diversity to the contest but those I remember like Austria 2016, Estonia 2018, Denmark 2019 for example were pretty successful in the contest after all, so if the song is good in itself, it will be good and successful whatever the language in fact.
Same. I loved Austria 2016 and Estonia 2018 (and the non-English moments in Denmark 2019 are very charming too). It’s about the song, whether it’s in English, a national language, or any other. It has to be a good song, and the language used should feel like a natural fit in it.
Exactly, even if some languages are maybe less melodic or less easy on the ear than others, a good quality song overpass this.