Introduction

The Estonian national selection is called “Eestilaul” and has been celebrating Estonia’s 20th anniversary in the Eurovision Song Contest. Like every year the quality of the songs was enormously high, a lot of contemporary music from all kind of music genres could be found. There have been two semi finals and one big final, which has been held in the Nokia Hall in Tallinn. One of the finalists was Lenna, who already sang for Switzerland and the group Vanilla Ninja in 2005 with “Cool Vibes” and made an 8th rank in Kiev. Other former participants were Kõrsikud, Traffic and Sandra Nurmsalu (Urban Symphony), who came 6th in Moscow with the song “Rändajad”.

There has been a super final and Tanja made the race with the song “Amazing”. Tanja, whose real name is Tatjana Mihhailova, she was born in Kaliningrad (Russia) in 1983. Tanja grew up in Estonia, started her career as a singer and actress at a very early age. She was a member of several bands and played in musicals (Fame, Kiss of the Spiderwoman and Cabaret), attended in numerous contests and song festivals (Utrennanja zvezda in 1998 and Fizz Superstar 2002) in Estonia, Russia and Ukraine.

In 2001 she was part of the due Nightlight Duo together with Ly Lumiste, the band entered the Estonian Eestilaul two times and made a 2nd place with “Another country song” in 2002 and “I can be the 1” in 2003, which came 4th. The group was produced by the popular Estonian composer Sven Löhmus, who composed three songs for Estonia’s Eurovision entries Suntribe with “Let’s get loud” in 2005 (20th rank in the semi final), Urban Symphony with “Rändajad” in 2009 (6th place) and Getter Jaani with “Rockefeller Street” in 2011 (24th place). The group had the best album of the year 2002 in Estonia. Tanja’s other band JZ Belle the album “Something more” was another big success in the Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

The song “Amazing” is a fresh up-tempo track with a memorable melody. In the Eestilaul Tanja had a striking stage performance with a lot of dancing and artistic lift figures. Let’s hope Tanja will not get short of air in the rehearsals. The arrangement of the song is a bit similar to Loreen’s “Euphoria”, which was a #1 hit all over Europe. With this entry Estonia could win the contest again. In 2001 the Estonian combo Tanel Padar, Dave Benton & 2XL won with “Everybody” surprisingly in Copenhagen. Might this be a good omen for Tanja?

History

Participations: 20

Debut: 1994

Biggest success: 1st place 2001 “Everybody” by Tanel Padar, Dave Benton & 2XL, 1x 3rd place “Runaway” by Sahléne in 2002 , 1x 4th place, 1x 5th place, 3x 6th place, 1x 8th place

This year it will be the 20th anniversary for Estonia in the Eurovision Song Contest. The debut entry “Nagu Merelaine” by Silvi Vrait came 24th only in 1994, but after this not very successful start in the ESC, Estonia became very much stronger. A lot of good places could be reached, even in the top 10. Then the guys named Tanel Padar and Dave Benton surprised with a splendid performance “Everybody” in 2001 and for the first time in history Estonia and likewise first Eastern European country could win the ESC.

The year after the Estonian broadcaster ETV has organized a wonderful event in the capital of Tallinn. The most successful songs from Estonia were: “Rändajad” by Urban Symphony in 2009 (6th), “Runaway” by Sahléne in 2002 (3rd) and “Once in a lifetime” by Ines in 2000 (4th) as well as Ott Lepland with “Kuula” (6th) in Baku 2012. Since the semi finals have been introduced in 2004, Estonia made it four times into the grand final.