Tuesday, 25 February 2025

Eurovision 2025 Early Thoughts - Estonia

 

Espresso Macchiato - Tommy Cash

I have a hunch that 'Espresso Macchiato' will hunt Eurovision 2025 down for a long time. 

The hyping up of the entry has already started and the Tommy Cash PR machine has started applying the 'Europapa'/Joost textbook from last year, already charting in some countries and being the early talk of the town.


'Espresso Macchiato' is an entry that could go different directions in the next few months, but if there is one thing I can say with certainty is that Estonia will not win Eurovision!

I have not decided yet if the song is a joke/parody entry, a meta-joke or a statement/political comment about society. The videoclip and the staging in Eesti Laul made things more complicated. 

The song per se is a mockery of the Italian stereotypes sang in 'Italian', but it is just a vessel for Tommy Cash to sell his persona and is designed to dominate the Public vote.

He received Kaarija's endorsement, like Joost did last year, and the latter one endorsed him as well, trying to establish some short of 'The Bad Boys Club' in Eurovision that will have a representative each year trying to win the Public vote and turn the contest into a PR show.

The charting and streaming numbers so far suggest that 'Espresso Macchiato' has the same trajectory that 'Europapa' had last year. I have to admit that I was sceptical about 'Europapa' as well last year when it launched and remained sceptical throughout the season regarding its winning chances.

The same argument applies to 'Espresso Macchiato' and it is the Juries. No matter how well he will perform in Public vote, I still have my doubts about this, he will be tanked/penalised by Juries so hard that it will be out of contention early in the voting process. 

Netherlands last year received 58 Jury points before it was disqualified from the Final. And that was with a song that had a nice emotional instrumental part in the last part and was talking about unity and the pan-European values.

There is an argument floating around that if Tommy Cash is considered a favourite, the Juries somehow will give him a free pass and will boost its score, like they short of did with Finland in '23, but obviously that was not the case with Netherlands last year that was also considered a favourite. 

My projected Jury score for Estonia right now stands in the 25-50 points threshold and I don't think that it has enough/anything to push it into the three digit territory and this is where any discussion about the win ends once and for all.

Estonia's realistic goal, in my opinion, is a lower Top-10 result fuelled by a good Top-5/10 Public vote result. I do think that Tommy Cash's entry is divisive enough and the competition for the public vote will be harder for him, having other entries from the same region fighting for the top marks. My current projection is in the 75-175 point area, willing to re-access his numbers, but I do believe that 200-225 Public vote points is the maximum that he would get.

What do I see in my crystal ball?

Tommy Cash trying to do any publicity stunt to grab public's attention and win the PV, but that not ending well. Bottom-5 with Juries and a decent Top-7/8 with the Public vote and a 9th place overall

Televoting Potential: 9/10

Jury Potential: 1/10

Staging Potential: 7/10

Momentum: 8/10

My Opinion: 2/10

Total: 27/50


What the fair winning chance % would be?

0.1% - 1%

Best case scenario:

Top-5

Worst case scenario:

16th-20th

Pre-Contest estimated points:

SF: 100-125

F: J: 25-50 - PV: 75-175 - Tot: 100-225

Share your thoughts in the comments area. Do you think Estonia can overcome the jury vote deficit?

You can hear my thoughts about Estonia in the 4th episode of the Eurovision Analysis podcast 'Talk About Things'  co-hosted with the Eurovision experts @mat_rickard and  @Panos_Zannettos at

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