During the 2010s Estonia's national final 'Eesti Laul' gained a reputation for bringing the wonderfully weird to audiences.
With the first Eesti Laul quarter-final taking place tomorrow, we wanted to look back at the Top 10 WTF moments over the last decade. Let's take a look:
10. Mia feat I.M.T.B - 'Bon Voyage'
2012
Mia's entry starts off normal enough as a slightly different Euro pop track with an accompanying dancing couple. However, after two minutes the dancers become magicians and bring a live bird into the performance who somewhat joins in the choreography. Unfortunately it didn't help their result finishing 8th in semi-final 1.
9. Viinerid - 'Kapa Kohi-LA'
2020
Viinerid appeared live on the Eesti Laul stage as human sausages. Sausage body, human head. Although their music video may have executed the human-sausage hybrid more effectively, it was still quite the moment in recent Eesti Laul history. They finished 10th after the jury and televote and in the second round of voting by the public to save an act, they only missed out by a mere 50 votes.
8. Cätlin Mägi & Jaan Pehk - 'Parmumäng'
2019
Parmumäng itself was an interesting but slightly odd song using the traditional instrument of the mouth harp. What brings it truly into WTF territory is the singer Jaan who appears as a shrunken head throughout the entire performance. They finished 9th in their semi-final.
7. Indrek Ventmann - 'Tempel'
2018
Indrek performed a pretty decent song in 2018 but it was his on stage performance that particularly gets attention. Sitting in the one spot during the song, he is constantly harassed by people who yell, assault, take selfies, cut his clothes, shave him and more during the performance. He finished 8th in his semi-final.
6. VÖÖRAD - 'Maailm on hull'
2014
This starts off innocently enough with an Estonian rapper supported by a clown back-up dancer who he physically assaults. But it gets particularly creepy for those with coulrophobia when two clowns in straight jackets burst out from a box on stage to join the performance. They finished 7th in their semi-final.
5. Cartoon feat. Kristel Aaslaid - 'Immortality'
2016
It was the year after 'Heroes' winning Eurovision and the use of animation on screen was big.
No one did it bigger than the aptly named Cartoon who for almost the entire performance showed a cartoon version of the song and singer.
We only glimpse Kristel Aaslaid towards the end of the song who appears in an apparent motion-sensor dress (despite her movements not matching the choreography quite often). Although the idea of watching a cartoon instead of a live performance seems odd to us, the song finished 3rd overall.
4. Meisterjaan - 'Parmupillihullus'
2016
If there was an award for WTF overall impression, this would be it. Nothing individually makes it that odd, a wonderfully different song, a mouth harp, dancers tying up the performer, spoken word... It's just an odd but entrancing performance that encapsulates "Eesti Laul weird". He finished an impressive 5th place in the Grand Final.
3. Mick Pedaja - 'Seis'
2016
This is a song and performance that definitely splits people. A slow airy, moody and haunting Estonian language song that is part song, part art performance. For the most part he appears without face. It is blacked out while projections appear on it throughout the performance. It's weird but in a good way. He finished in 4th place, just missing the Superfinal.
2. Kaia Tamm - 'Wo sind die katzen?'
2019
This Estonian-German language song (Wo sind die katzen is German for "Where are the cats?") captured the fandom in 2019 with her catchy song and cat furry music video.
Her live stage performance took it to another level. It included: people dressed up as giant cats, a mulleted man in a shellsuit playing the fiddle, two back up dances dressed in balaclavas and concluded with her white-suited back-up singers dragging an Alice in Wonderland dressed Kaia away as she screams a final pitiful "meow". She finished 12th in her semi-final.
1. Winny Puhh - 'Meiecundimees üks Korsakov läks eile Lätti'
2013
This always has to be no.1.
The song translates to 'Korsakov, the guy around our area, went to Latvia yesterday' and that's only where the weird begins. This is something that needs to be watched rather than described. But if you like wrestling suits, hairy faces and musical acrobatics, this is the visual performance for you.
The song almost made it to Eurovision finishing in 3rd place and only missed the head-to-head Superfinal on countback.
So will we see more weird and WTF entries back at Eesti Laul this year? We certainly hope so!
The first quarter-final of Eesti Laul takes place Saturday 20 November 2021 at 9:35pm local time which is 8:35pm CET (Sunday 21 November 2021 in Australia at 6:35am AEDT). You can watch if via: https://etv.err.ee/