We’re still kinda mad at Ott Lepland for preventing us from getting reacquainted with the fabulous Malcolm Lincoln in Baku. We firmly believe that the quirky 2010-entry Siren is one of the strongest Eurovision songs so far on this side of the millennium. Sadly, high quality aren’t always recognized and appreciated by a broad enough audience to reach very far in this contest. And to be fair to Ott who ended up representing Estonia this year, he’s really not to blame as our buddies in Malcolm Lincoln competed with a weaker and even less accessible song this time around and didn’t even make it passed the Eesti Laul semi-final.
Kuula is a beautiful ballad, well performed by a super handsome guy. In fact regarding the aesthetics of this number we think it calls for a major hotness alert. Perhaps this is what clouded his vocal coach’s judgment as she according to Ott’s bio on eurovision.tv has proclaimed that Kuula has the potential to “be the I Will Always Love You of this century”. Now hang on a minute, did she just compare a 24 year old former Idol contestant from a tiny country tucked up in one corner of Europe to our beloved icon Whitney Houston and equally adored, still (thank God) living legend Dolly Parton? Eh, that’s simply stretching it a wee bit too far to our taste.
And maybe it’s the whiff of smugness that we sense in Ott’s performance that puts us off a little bit. Hopefully we’re mistaken as we really wish that Ott turns out to be the down-to-earth, true and serious artist his bio insists him to be. And that it’s just us being overly cynical when we find it conspicuous when his promo agent has to underline exactly how humble and genuine he is. He even donates money to charity, whatta Saint! And btw, the donations derive from his first book about himself. Exactly how many books about himself is he planning on publishing? Can we get a discount if we pre-order the whole book set?
Now it might sound like we can’t stand this guy, which really wasn’t our intention. We’ll give Ott a fair chance to shine and bedazzle us in Baku with his stirring ballad; we’ll be all ears, promise! Show, don’t tell would be the best advice we can give him at this point, really.