16 February 2025

Tommy Cash has won Eesti Laul 2025 with the eclectic and quirky Espresso Macchiato. A big favourite heading into the competition, and clearly a huge favourite with the audience, a similarly eclectic and quirky performance ensured no surprises would stop the Tommy Cash express. In the super final, Tommy won an astonishing 83% of the vote ahead of Andrei Zevakin ft. Karita (performing Ma ei tea sind) and An-Marlen (Külm). His next stop is the Eurovision Song Contest in Basel, Switzerland, in May and he’s already stated he plans to win that too. He had Finland’s Käärijä alongside him in the green room wearing a “Vote for Tommy” t-shirt and is also friends with Joost Klein of the Netherlands. One wonders what those three could concoct together.

There were no hiccups in Tommy Cash’s victory. He won the jury with 75 points ahead of An-Marlen on 68. Janek was next with 58 points, with Andrei Zevakin ft. Karita way back on 35. Felin was fifth with 34 points, then Ant with 32. While the final public points are yet to be revealed, we know the three in the super final were the public’s three favourites. Again, it questions the need for any jury, much less an international one, where the Estonian public, especially under this format of a super final and able to vote after the jury results are known, bullishly ensure their favourite wins.

Results

Super Final

01 Tommy Cash – Espresso Macchiato
02 Andrei Zevakin ft. Karita – Ma ei tea sind
03 An-Marlen – Külm

Places 4 to 16

04 Janek – Frozen
05 Ant – Tomorrow Never Comes
06 Felin – Solo Anthem
07 Frants Tikerpuu – Trouble
08 Elysa – The Last To Know
09 Minimal Wind – Armageddon
10 Marta Lotta – Tantsin veel
11 Gem98 – Psycho
12 Johanna Elise – Eyes Don’t
13 Räpina Jack ft. Kaisa Ling – Tule
14 Anna Sahlene – Love Me Low
15 Stereo Terror – Prty Till the End of the World
16 Tuuli Rand – Rem

Review & Ratings

01 Ant – Tomorrow Never Comes (6)
02 Stereo Terror – Prty Till The End Of The World (6)
03 Janek – Frozen (7)
04 Räpina Jack ft. Kaisa Ling – Tule (3)
05 Johanna Elise – Eyes Don’t Lie (7)
06 Felin – Solo Anthem (8)
07 Elysa – The Last To Know (8)
08 Gem98 – Psycho (4)
09 An-Marlen – Külm (6)
10 Frants Tikerpuu – Trouble (6)
11 Anna Sahlene – Love Me Low (7)
12 Tuuli Rand – Rem (3)
13 Minimal Wind – Armageddon (7)
14 Andrei Zevakin ft. Karita – Ma ei tea sing (3)
15 Tommy Cash – Espresso Macchiato (8)
16 Marta Lotta – Tantsin veel (5)

Andrei Zevakin ft. Karita was the big surprise in the results for me. It’s just hip-hop nonsense and repeatedly yelling the same line over and over as the chorus. The addition of Karita in this ensemble simply added some eye candy. To the locals, obviously there’s much more to it, and the jury rated it reasonably high too. I was surprised that Stereo Terror didn’t get a better result than 15th, especially compared to Gem98, who finished 8th. Roughly comparable in styles, Stereo Terror was simply much better. Janek thoroughly deserved his 4th overall while Johanna Elise, who presented solo after two previous attempts with the trio, Little Mess, acquitted herself well, especially vocally. Ant was solid as the opening act while Frants Tikerpuu produced a nice jazz entry with Trouble.

Honourable Mention

An-Marlen – Külm (6)

I had to watch Külm again because it simply didn’t register when watching the show this morning. I only remember the introduction and that An-Marlen was a bit of a babe, and noticed that again during the results phase. In hindsight, Külm is best described as a moody ballad/dance hybrid. It’s distinctive, and interesting, so I can see why it achieved the result it did.

My Top 5

05 Minimal Wind – Armageddon (7)

The vocals got a little breathless in the latter stages as Elisabeth moved around the stage. The song and voice are excellent. Elisabeth provided the funniest moment during the show when giving a present to Karl “Korea” Kivastik (the male host) that contained shorts with “Minimal” written on the front and “Wind” on the back. Elisabeth roughly outlined his crotch area to designate the minimal part before he turned around to show the wind. Korea then walked Elisabeth to a large present, which proved to be a fan. On it went for some “Maximal Wind” as Elisabeth danced around in front of it like a wind machine at Eurovision. Note that Ines, who represented Estonia at Eurovision in 2000, was the other host. She finished fourth in Stockholm with Once In A Lifetime.

04 Anna Sahlene – Love Me Low (7)

A very clean and accomplished performance of a generically Swedish type of song for this Swedish artist who represented Estonia at Eurovision in 2002. That made it a tad forgotten when considering all the others.

03 Felin – Solo Anthem (8)

Felin did nothing wrong here by rocking out a catchy song with some powerful vocals. Other entries were simply preferred.

02 Elysa – The Last To Know (8)

Elysa got buried against the more distinctive options. Another professional performance and excellent vocals. The song just lacked that extra level of pizzazz and excitement to push it to a top result.

01 Tommy Cash – Espresso Macchiato (8)

Quite simply, Espresso Macchiato stood out miles ahead of the rest in style and quality of performance. While I can imagine the song will start to lose its appeal over time, there’s always that initial buzz to the system upon hearing it again.

From my ranking before Eesti Laul, the only change is Tommy Cash jumping from fourth to first. Elysa, Felin and Anne Sahlene therefore drop back a notch. Except for An-Marlen, who I ranked 12th before Eesti Laul, nothing made a drastic improvement subsequent to the show. An-Marlen would probably rank around 8th now.

The average score of 5.9 is quite low for Eesti Laul. The last three years were 6.8, 6.7 and 6.6, respectively. Perhaps the likes of Tuuli Rand and Räpina Jack ft. Kaisa Ling would not even make the final if semi finals were held. Both scored just 3 from me and finished at the bottom of the results table along with Stereo Terror. This year was just the one show with 16 entries compared to 10 in the final last year, which will always dilute the quality. Ignoring that, the single night actually worked well so it’s worthwhile persisting with it. Now we see if Tommy Cash can cash-in in Basel.

Update: Full Results

It takes a few days for Eesti Laul to reveal the full public results, and they showed Tommy Cash dominating throughout. He scored 23,625 votes ahead of 5,233 for Andrei Zevakin in the first phase of the final. That domination increased in the super final, which is decided by the public only, with 41,414 votes to 4,334, ahead of An-Marlen third on 3,634.

Estonia: Eesti Laul 2025 Preview & My Top 16