There were an inordinate number of national finals in 2008 which held little suspense and might as well not have been held because the winner was a foregone conclusion. Eurolaul was one of them: as soon as the names of the songs (and more importantly lyricists and composers) that had made it through to the final ten were announced, a runaway victory by Kreisiraadio was inevitable.You have to look at these things in context though: Peeter Oja, Hannes Võrno and Tarmo Leinatamm are three of the most popular comedians and TV presenters in the country, and as Kreisiraadio they appeal to the Estonian sense of humour for their irreverence and willingness to send themselves up as much as anyone else. The fact that this brand of humour apparently fails to translate beyond the country's borders is neither here nor there. To your average Estonian televoter, Kreisiraadio meets Eurovision is the perfect blend of camp nonsense.
"A light-hearted song full of nostalgia for a bygone era of summer fun in the Socialist sun" is the marketing blurbesque soundbite I came up with when thinking of a way to summarise what the point of Leto Svet is, if indeed it has one. Even to my ears though it sounds like an excuse; one that is redundant in any case as all involved in the song admit it is three minutes of hokum. Whether or not this offends your sensibilities depends on how seriously you take Eurovision as a contest of musical quality. Given the fact that this has always been in doubt, and that these days it is as much about winning people over with performances, you wouldn't have much ground to stand in if you claimed there was no place in the modern contest for an entry like this.
Which is not to say of course that the song is any good as either a piece of music or a stage act: it is one of those entries that will either make people laugh, reinforcing for them what Eurovision is meant to be about (meaningless entertainment) and prompting them to vote for it on this basis alone, or they will simply stare at it in bewilderment. Even with the benefit of knowing what to expect from Kreisiraadio I was somewhere between the two when I first heard and saw the song - it made me chuckle, but only for about a minute and a half - so I am left wondering whether the massed audiences of Europe will be just as ambivalent about it. In which case I would think its chances of qualifying for the final verged on the non-existent.
Looking at the song with a bit of objectivity, a lot of it works. The fact that none of the lyrics make much sense - sourced as they are from phrase books and the singers' dodgy language skills - suits the overall tone of the music and performance perfectly. The music itself, produced by Eurovision veterans Priit Pajusaar and Glen Pilvre (who gave us, together or separately, the comparatively high-brow Kaelakee Hääl, Diamond of Night and Tii), is quite catchy and as well-produced as any of their songs, although this is less obvious here.
In its own way the song is quite canny. The tone it takes, which has seen it lumped in with the rest of this year's alleged 'novelty' entries, would suggest it is looking to gain sympathy votes from a Western audience who would rather get a laugh from (or laugh at) the contest than take it as seriously as the rest of the continent is said to. On the other hand, with the languages it is performed in and the overall style of its performance, which is not unlike some of the stuff you see on Russian TV, it seems to be playing squarely to a Central-cum-Eastern European audience. The piano bit in the middle eight is positively Slovenian.
The middle eight isn't really the middle of the song though at all; it's a premature climax, and a very well executed one at that. Needless to say it highlights the problem with the song as a whole - that it never quite gets to where it should when it ought to, be it the humour or the composition, and doesn't know when to call it a day. Consequently it's hard to predict a good result for Estonia this year, especially up against the equally garish and blatantly cynical Irish entry. Who knows whether people will be wiping the tears from their eyes in order to pick up their phones and vote for it, or just wiping the tears from their eyes.
3 comments:
Kreisiraadio stole the chorus to Leto Svet from Liz Phair's Tra-la-la Song, which in turn was stolen from Bob Marley's Tra-la-la Song, which in turn was stolen from Banana Splits' Tra-la-la Song. Thieves!
Can you be accused of plagiarising a song that's already been plagiarised from something else (x 3)?
I think this is a nigh on disastrous draw for the Estonians. It's hard to imagine the average televoter being readily enticed to take an excursion into the world of bonkers when they're still sitting there waiting for the mainstream Eurovision madness to break loose. Though come to think of it Alf Poier was on second, wasn't he? Who could have predicted at the time he'd be the founder of a whole new Eurovision genre? I reckon Leto Svet is going to suffer from the fact that entries like this have been so rapidly assimilated into the Eurovision vocabulary. Wackiness alone doesn't necessarily count for much any more.
You could argue that national TV celebs are the ideal candidates to shine in the modern contest, having the light-entertainment savvy to produce three minutes of effective television. But on the negative side they have little to lose by simply playing complacently to the home market. Is there even the remotest chance of Kreisiraadio throwing their onion and cake illustrations to the wind and pimping their routine into the same league as Lithuania's We Are The Winners? There's a good-natured innocence to Leto Svet that gives it the edge over this year's other novelty entries for me, but that's hardly a ringing endorsement now is it?
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