Estonia Entry: Ott Lepland - Kuula

May 28, 2012 Critic Jonni 0 Comments

From my top 7 this is the highest placed Eurovision entry. Which is quite surprising; of course I liked a few others that did place higher, but I had to narrow them down didn't I? So Ott Lepland first found fame from the third series of "Eesti otsib superstaari", which translates in English as "Estonia is Searching for a Superstar". It is Estonia's version of Pop Idol. In which Ott Lepland won. He has an amazing voice, and although he sung a ballad, he made it sound recent and current. His voice just outstands me and I really hope he becomes that world-wide star he clearly deserves to be.

"Kuula" was sung in Estonian, therefore I haven't got a clue what he was singing. Kuula means Listen. However Ott Lepland has recorded versions in many different languages. The English version can be heard below, which is titled "Hands On". The English version is very good, but you just can't beat the Estonian version. The song was written by Ott Lepland and Aapo Ilves. The former is the singer, which makes me happy, as I like it when artists write their own songs, they're more meaningful, hence the reason why I like this song as it's full of emotion. The latter is a writer and poet who lives in Estonia, but has dipped into songwriting every now and again. Marvi Vallaste provides additional vocals to this track, and she was seen on stage with Ott Lepland at Baku, Azerbaijan. The UK gave 4 points to Estonia, which isn't too bad considering this is a ballad, so my vote helped somewhat.

This music video is another performance piece, however it's not as boring as the UK's entry, which was Engelbert Humperdinck's "Love Will Set You Free". It contained words, some I couldn't quite pronounce until he sung them, that wisped away like sand in the wind, it went nicely with the song, and kind of suggests "read me" if you won't "hear me". Which was a great technique to interest the viewers more.

Again, because it's a ballad, not much is going on, there's good use of the lights, and he is wearing a great suit, that I want to wear. This also helps to make this more entertaining. And then comes the voice in the second half of the song and you just can't stop listening to this over and over again. But not only that the song actually gets stuck in your head, which is rare for a ballad, and might be one of the many reasons he came sixth in Eurovision 2012.

Overall a great song that I'm still in love with, there's no sign of it charting on the UK chart this Sunday, but it might be in the top 200. I wish Ott Lepland the best of luck in the music industry, and I hope to see him crack the UK soon. He definitely has the chance with that amazing voice. The accompanying music video is different to what is about, and that is the main justification I have for giving him this rating. I hope others take a leap out of this music video and make people realise you can do a ballad music video and make it look good.