“No stresso, no stresso, no need to be depresso”

February 20, 2025 12:25 PM

As various countries announce their entrants for the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest, there is controversy over Estonia's entry by Tommy Cash (also known as Kayne East, real name Tomas Tammemets). “Espresso Macchiato” (live performance, lyrics) won the qualifying Eesti Laul with 83% of the final round vote. The song is sung in an interesting linguistic manner, while Mr Cash drinks an Espresso Macchiato. The Estonian rapper is well-known for ... unusual ... music videos including Sdubid, Racked, X-ray, Leave Me Alone, and Surf.
posted by Wordshore (22 comments total)

The thing I want to know about is the royal blue suit with the overly long red tie.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:50 PM on February 20 [2 favorites]

I suppose Italy will be suing Nintendo next over Mario's voice?
posted by grumpybear69 at 1:11 PM on February 20 [1 favorite]

I had no idea Tommy Cash could sing like that. I also love how hilariously tame the music video for Espresso Macchiato is compared to his other videos.
posted by Cpt. The Mango at 1:46 PM on February 20 [3 favorites]

That's a fine song to hear once.
posted by The_Vegetables at 2:55 PM on February 20 [3 favorites]

weird estonian eurovision videos?

Thanks for the prompt to go hunt up Winny Puhh again, it's been a decade.

damn what is in the water in Estonia?
posted by Sauce Trough at 3:52 PM on February 20 [3 favorites]

That was a super fun way to tweak my YouTube algorithm. Thank you :-)
posted by Smedly, Butlerian jihadi at 4:14 PM on February 20 [1 favorite]

Now I want to see him do a duet with Salvatore Ganacci, maybe with some acrobatics or swordplay.

(and yeah that's a Eurovision style beat there)
posted by ovvl at 4:23 PM on February 20 [1 favorite]

Why the controversy? It's a popularity contest - it's not like people are required to vote for him. And yes, it's kind a dickslap to the Eurovision contest, but there's always a song or two like that. It will be popular for a couple of months, he'll get some brief notoriety and in a year or two no one will remember it, except those same people who remember things like "Tunak Tunak Tun" and "Dragstea Din Tei" (which is not me, I had to look them up).
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 5:56 PM on February 20 [3 favorites]

Thoughts:
1) I drink those tubes of 3:1 coffee. I like them.
2) It's weird it's in a Euro language that isn't entirely English. Not Italian either, but also not Estonian. A tourist pastiche, if you would. I'm sure Italy will love it :(
3) It might make the finals but it's not going to win Eurovision.
posted by fiercekitten at 6:04 PM on February 20 [1 favorite]

Reminds me of Pen Pineapple Apple Pen.
posted by inexorably_forward at 6:30 PM on February 20 [1 favorite]

Biggest scandal is that Israel is still a part of it.
posted by iamck at 7:57 PM on February 20 [2 favorites]

With respect to the staying power of Dragstea Din Tei, I have a friend who knows the lyrics by heart and will judge the quality of a karaoke venue’s songbook by its availability to this day.
posted by neuracnu at 8:18 PM on February 20 [4 favorites]

The formula seems to be:

1. pick theme for video
2. pick entirely separate theme for lyrics; write song
3. make music video that entirely ignores meaning of lyrics while synching with the song beautifully

Exception: Leave Me Alone, which seems oddly kind of heartfelt.
posted by gurple at 10:04 PM on February 20 [2 favorites]

Why the controversy?

The first link answers that question. The objection isn't to it being a silly novelty song - this is Eurovision! The objection is that it's 100% stereotypes about someone else's country:

"...we cannot help but raise doubts about the inclusion of a song that is offensive to a plurality of individuals in a competition followed by audiences all over the world,” Codacons said in a statement.

“Indignation has been expressed by numerous citizens [over a song] whose lyrics contain stereotypes about Italy and Italians – the usual cliches of coffee and spaghetti, but above all the mafia and the ostentation of luxury, which conveys a message of a population tied to organised crime.”

Pretty sure if the song had been from Italy or the stereotypes were Estonian, there wouldn't have been any official complaint issued. (But the song might not have won the national selection contest, and there would probably have been a lot of internal "do we want to represent ourselves this way" controversy.

the royal blue suit with the overly long red tie.

the mafia and the ostentation of luxury, which conveys a message of [ties to] organised crime.

It's kind of amazing how used-car salesman and organized crime operator are simultaneously well-known negative stereotypes and yet apparently unrecognizable or unobjectionable to 50+ percent of voters when it comes to politics.
posted by trig at 3:56 AM on February 21 [1 favorite]

> Now I want to see him do a duet with Salvatore Ganacci, maybe with some acrobatics or swordplay.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cPhKwRF4oY
posted by Cpt. The Mango at 8:49 AM on February 21 [1 favorite]

Italian words almost sing themselves:

Cazzo, cazzo, cazzo, cazzo / cazzo macaroni
inslata y burrata / pesto rigatoni!
posted by grumpybear69 at 9:45 AM on February 21 [1 favorite]

Oh, sure, but Prisencolinensinainciusol was totally fine.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 9:53 AM on February 21 [3 favorites]

Of the countries who have decided on their entrant (note: Sweden don't decide for another few weeks), Finland is currently the favourite.
posted by Wordshore at 10:49 AM on February 21

This seems no more or less silly than anything else at Eurovision. Nobody's even naked or homicidal in it.

The man does have WIGGLY LEGS though.
posted by jenfullmoon at 3:27 PM on February 21 [1 favorite]

No need to be Deeppresso.
posted by The genius who rejected Anno's budget proposal. at 6:14 PM on February 21 [1 favorite]

Mod note: Thanks for more links to Eurovision, adding this post to the sidebar and Best Of blog!
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 4:29 AM on February 22 [1 favorite]

The thing I want to know about is the royal blue suit with the overly long red tie.

The outfit is a homage to Andy Warhol: see the comparative video of Andy eating a burger vs Tommy drinking an expresso macchiato.
posted by Wordshore at 3:18 PM on February 22 [1 favorite]