Bojan with his Käärijä t-shirt

They rejected Korpiklaani? For what??

Essay time!

UMK was launched in 2012 and for personal reasons I didn't watch it that year, but this is what I've gathered afterwards, mostly from the Finnish Esc forum.

The traditional Finnish NF (RIP 1961-2011) was buried and Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu (New Music Contest) was launched instead. According to Yle it could be a platform for new artists to show their music. Kinda understandable, because the Finnish NF in later years tended to have established artists sent by their record companies.

However, the UMK jury consisted of radio producers and dj's who were ultimate hipsters and very against of what one could call traditional/cliché (=shitty) Eurovision style up to the point that Eurovision was barely mentioned during the broadcasts and even made fun of. The show seemed to be more focused on finding new music to play on said radio channels than finding a representative for Finland despite that being the end goal. The format was also very messy, rules changed manyt times along the way and the whole shitshow barely scraped 200 000 viewers (compared to over a million now).

Korpiklaani had announced that they'd sent Metsälle to UMK in fall 2011 and the fandom was of course very excited about that beforehand. Everyone was expecting them to be in the final, and their entry was even used in UMK tv commercials. Then the top-40 of pre-jury was published, and Korpiklaani wasn't there 🙂 I can't remember if there was ever an actual explanation given as to why they weren't chosen, but I guess they weren't new and fresh and radio friendly and anti-Eurovision enough 🙃

I can't find the 3-minute-long UMK version anymore, but this the album version of the song they were competing with:

Tel Aviv 2019: Straight outta Finland to Eurovision with a meme icon and his side-kick

“heeeeeey what is that song on that video???” Definitely not Darude - Sandstorm. Grow the fuck up.

I mean that they basically threw off the open call for songs from Finnish artists, instead opting for having one artist national final, usually one very known but very gettable-bored-of name so that they could get some more viewership rather when they pick a random nobody from a bunch of other random nobodies. Last year YLE got themselves an artist whose Eurovision ticket was long overdue, but this year they went the extra step and brought us HIM.

No, not that HIM. They can't go anyway as they've already disbanded. I'm talking about HIM.

Yes, THAT HIM. Meet Toni-Ville Henrik Virtanen, which thankfully has a pseudonym to publish his music with - Darude. Almost 20 years ago he published this beautiful techno single "Sandstorm" with lyrics like "du du du du du du du du du du du du". And now it's become the big-ass target of memery for the past few years on the Internet, with Darude being very well aware of it all - I don't think he has escaped questions about "Sandstorm" now that the Eurovision interviewers media is on horizon and interviews literally every single representative, no matter if they're shy or unpopular with the bookies at all.

And even if "Sandstorm" was the only thing to shake his tiny little Finnish world, it did not break Darude to be just a one-hit wonder (well he still looks like one but yeah) and he's got more music out ever since. And it probably sounds a little too tragic when YLE resorts to just nagging and begging Darude to represent their nation, even kinda secretly hoping that thanks to him Finland can have a qualification just solely for the meme factor. Darude even said so that he at first rejected their calls, but this year became THE year for him to go, and he's not alone obviously - his credited vocalist friend for this ride to Tel Aviv became Sebastian Rejman, a bit washed-up media star who already did some collaborating with Darude.

So the format was basically the same for this year's UMK - artist announced separately, then each of their 3 songs gets published every week on a specific weekday, with single cover art and a music video already, and the Finnish people together with international juries vote for the best track. Simple as that. Unlike with Saara Aalto though, all Darude & Sebastian songs were barely even distinct from one another in sound - just techno songs that have a piece of "Sandstorm" with themselves. Well only 2 do anyway. But still, techno/house songs to listen to on the radio when you're driving and minding your own business. And I had hard time picking favourites but all of them were alright I guess. Yet somehow my least favourite happened to win... and that was "Look Away", very much so inspired by natural disasters and how do we all ignore everything around us. No matter if it's a storm or hurricane or tornado or wind throwing sand at our eyes.

I don't know why the song didn't click with me all that much at first, I suppose it was because it's just a mindless gloomy techno song that raises global awareness (we already have Denmark talking about that, but they're insisting that "love is forever", while Finland is just... getting up more seriously in all this), and besides that, it's just incredibly repetitive. It consists more of the pre-chorus-ish chorus (I mean the line "is it in my head? Am I the only one?" and that other line preceding) and the actual chorus that mostly goes like "look away, look away, look away...". Even to the point when the song ends with some additional “look away”ing but under a different drum beat. What's it with Finns having a passion for the word "away"? We already had seen them sending a "Sing It Away", which was basically a cheer-up tune telling you to sing your problems off... while this year? We're trying to NOT look into the problems dead in the eye. We're looking... erm, uh, away.

But now I do have to say that I somewhat like it. Tell it to ya - the B minor chord is possibly one of my least favourite music keys, so I might as well be a little bit more negative on it if takes the song with itself to sound incredibly dull and painfully meh. So thankfully we'll be hearing it live half a step lower (idk if that's what it is with most EDM singers in Eurovision that shit like this can be possible, as well as idk why are they allowed into Eurovision in the first place. But seriously, why can't you just choose the same key you sang in in studio for Eurovision...), which made the song sound better to me - as a Nightcore junkie, I am passionate about hearing songs in different keys all the darn time, to see in what key would a certain song sound the best. It's usually the song's key that makes me like a song better or worse live rather than a live performance itself (though in some NFs I can see which of my favourite acts are DoA by not even emoting towards them - my emotion has to be evoked, and if I evoke it on purpose, well then, I'd just rather stay motionless completely on anything and only yelp if a song causes me to do this unexplainedly). We'll see how Sebastian will execute his singing live. As for now, he's the captain of this sinking ship that hit a small iceberg (another one of the disasters we usually "look away" from until it's found in our history books). Not Darude. Darude's just merely a musical hold-up of the disaster. It all has to depend on the vocalist and if the staging clicks with the audience. Sure, Darude can put on a red wig and green sunglasses so that he could click with the meme audience, but that won't get the Finns far.

So I like this song, it actually has some cool musical moments thrown in (I like the piano for one), I can enjoy this off my free time. But Estonia does it better at the "Finno-Ugric EDM-ish entry about Mother Nature's tantrums" category and I ain't even sorry for saying this. But I gotta be sorry for Darude. This year's UMK had the lesser care about it because... well, these songs weren't exactly inspiring or anything, and with people wanting something groundbreaking, their hopes kept on vaning away with each and every song release of the UMK entries': "oh so the next 2 two songs will be good right?" "oh so then the last one will be the best one, yeah right?" "...oh, okay then .-." And him, as the Finnish meme king, should have deserved a better year for a better Eurovision stint, so he could have become something à la Epic Sax Guy. Right now I mostly see a middle-aged DJ with 2 kids, not a redhead dude with green sunglasses looking shadily on us. And that's okay sometimes because memes don't necessarily need to be remembered for memes (just like I mostly remember Kanye West for music, and then memes come second), but Finland's gonna take a miracle to get through, and I hardly see any. That's an aina mun pity.

Approval factor: Eh, it's alright, but I would certainly not hold it up to high regards post-contest? lol.

Follow-up factor: it's kiiiiinda bleak knowing that after giving us probably one of the most favourable dark horse efforts for Eurovision they're now going down the dancier route, with one entry after being a banger, the other being a dad banger. Ah well. It doesn't flow so neatly in my eyes, it seems.

Qualification factor: almost dead in the tracks. Finland flows anywhere they can, having a lot of bad luck for 3 years this decade, and I doubt that the juries will be supporting this heavily, considering they are better at rating good vocalists over bad ones, so I don't think this will sail through. But I secretly have hopes in this. It's not that bad, but Estonia is in this semi too, and it's a friendlier EDM track, so I don't quite think that repetitive will out-compell the good formulaic. Plus, Sebastian has a lot to fix vocally, and I doubt that he will carry Finland any further if he doesn't fix anything, so so far the chances of Finland aren't looking up imo. Bottom 5 at the semi is more likely if not already the actual outcome. Maaaaybe 10th in the semi at best, but I doubt it.

NATIONAL FINAL BONUS

The more this section pops up in my works, the less I wanna recap national finals anymore. I hope there’s more breather moments with me having to review a lot of internal selection songs in between the ones from NFs, because this whole season was an utter disaster, and it’d help if the next one isn’t. So let’s check in on Finland's selection’s best:

• But seriously, did anyone ever see Darude as a Finnish representative coming??? No??? Me neither. I was just sitting there, waiting to see if there's a hope for Mikael Saari (you know, that balladeer guy from previous UMKs - I do believe some audiences love him just as much as Saara Aalto, who only was on one UMK and one Euroviisut) to be announced on this special separate programme. Nope - the trilingual hosting trio of the programme that included Krista Siegfrids in it as the token Swedish speaker just happened to happily proclaim Darude as THE Finnish hopeful... and the world was s h o o k e t h. Just look at him go. His smug grin is still iconic on here.

• During the wait for all the UMK songs to pile up, the excitement for Darude faded away and everyone moved on to support other countries. I can't blame them, because I have found like one decent song this UMK that's still worth listening to twice a year or so - "Superman". Where Darude becomes the everyday hero for ordinary people that have difficulties in live to do mundane stuff. Maybe this song would have made him look like a better meme than his current entry would have? Just watch him go on his DJ booth dressing like a knock-off superhero because EBU doesn't allow blatant advertising. A way better gimmick than Gromee's snakey hands. Alas, no one will have to hear "Superman" anymore. Granted it's just an EDM song just like any other, but somehow I liked it best, end of.

• There's at least one memorable screenshot from UMK as well, so I'm happy with that. I saw this pop up on my Twitter time line and I could not stop laughing inside. Seriously. Krista and this other guy should host ESC provided Eurovision is ever coming back to Finland. They had a lot of iconic outfit changes during the NF itself (and the NF itself had "Look Away" with some dancer on a cube but they scrapped the tall cube for Tel Aviv entirely), but those floral onesies are my favourite.

Now I kinda hope that there’s something that will alarm YLE in the meantime that Finland needs a better approach for Eurovision and we’ll see another fully-fledged UMK in the works next year, and then Finland can be great again. For now, I’ll just wish “onnea” to Darude and Sebastian, with hopes that people don’t look away from their song at all! (but most likely they will so what’s the point.)