Our second Baltic country of this year’s countdown is the most successful results-wise. Estonia was the first of the new wave of countries that entered Eurovision in the 90s to win the contest (in 2001) and they have had a further ten top 10 results (from 28 appearances) including last year’s entry which finished 8th. So it’s a strong pedigree that the winners of Eesti Laul 2024 have to live up to – though they’ve made their mark already by having the longest song title in Eurovision history. Will they make their mark in any other way?

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Nendest is a collaboration between two groups – hip-hop group 5miinust and Estonian folk duo Puuluup. 5miinust have been around since 2016, but came to prominence in 2018 and have released two albums. They’ve also twice won Estonian Artist of the Year awards. Puuluup are a nu-folk duo who formed in 2014. They’ve also released a couple of albums but not quite had the same fame as 5miinust. Their song title (in English “We (sure) know nothing about (these) drugs”) may be the longest song title in contest history, but it also does not appear as a lyric in the song – though the song lyrics do tell the story of the title.

Nendest is one of those songs that is hard to define genre-wise, being a fusion of more than one. What we do have is the inclusion of some Estonian folk instruments, a very catchy chorus and a signature dance move. As with Finland, I’d put this more in the “frivolous and fun” category rather than something with too deep a meaning. This is an entry I’ve actually moved up a few places following seeing them perform live at London Eurovision (which I attended) – they bring such energy to the live performance, it merited pushing up my ranking.

While I said Finland 2024 were more successor to Croatia’s Let 3 than Finland last year, I probably should caveat that and say that this entry is even more so a successor I think. It’s performing OK in the scoreboard app, hovering mid-table. On the scoreboard app for semi-final 2, it’s just missing out on a qualification spot, but the app isn’t often a big fan of these sorts of songs, and in the betting, while in 9th place to qualify, the likelihood (72%) is fairly high. They may have a big rival for their quirkiness USP within their semi-final (Netherlands) but they have a good chance to get a third consecutive grand-final appearance for Estonia.

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Estonia in the Eurovision Song Contest