Friday, April 4, 2008

Eurovision 2008: Finland

Tuom writes: Eurovision season has begun, as one may have judged by my earlier posting on Ireland's entry for this year. Therefore, I am going to (ab)use our blog to reflect upon all the entries that will be competing in the finals hosted this year in Belgrade on May 24. Hopefully this will encourage my friends Tytti, Pekka, and Timo (and Dave...) to post some comments on my ruminations :-)

Last year, the top 10 finalists automatically made it to the final event of the following year with United Kingdom, France, Spain, and Germany (the Big Four, or the biggest funders of the event) while the others had to qualify for the remaining ten slots or so. This year however, everybody - except Serbia (the winner) and the Big Four - have to qualify for the final. Now, since there are a record amount of 43 countries vying to be in the final, there will be two semi-finals.

Let's start with Finland, participating in the first semifinal on May 20. My hapless home country had a long track of bad entries and sometimes sheer bad luck, rarely making it to the top 10, until 2006 when it hit jackpot with Lordi's Hard Rock Halleluja, a novel approach - a combination of masks, hard rock, and pyrotechnics. Last year's entry (Hanna Pakarinen's Leave Me Alone) came across as a spin-off of what had appeared to be the heavy rock recipe to victory. Unfortunately, this didn't quite cut it , and Finland was reduced back to its usual place, i.e. somewhere between places 11 and 20. Despite this rude awakening, Finns were quick to note that at least Sweden placed even lower... BTW Dave claims heard Leave Me Alone on his satellite radio this past summer!

Once again Finns have laid their trust in the power of heavy rock. At this point, I can only assume that the rationale is, "If we can't win the competition by seducing the audience by means of traditional methods (i.e. sex and showmanship), we might as well scare the living sh*t out of them!" :-)

Finland's entry, by Teräsbetoni ("Steel Concrete"), is Missä miehet ratsastaa, or "Where Men Ride Their Horses." Teräsbetoni's claim to fame is that they perform shirtless; in my opinion, not much there to write home about... At any rate, I have to praise their decision to perform in Finnish; way too often since 1999, the entries have been performed in English by almost every country - and not just in English but in insipid English. Unfortunately Teräsbetoni's lyrics rely on some kind of macho humour that I don't quite get ("Where men ride their horses sheep don't dare graze"); as a result, I don't think anybody who doesn't know Finnish will get much out of this "noise." As for me, I prefer the traditional, almost required A-B-A-B-C-Modulation pattern, which Teräsbetoni - lo and behold - does apply here, but give me a power ballad or something poppy at any time instead of this. On the other hand, there was not much better to choose from anyway, so what can you do? But I'll leave the decision up to the 14-year-old teenage boys across the continent, who hopefully will be watching the Eurovision final on the 24th and televoting for Finland in testosterone driven fervour :-)

Enjoy!

or
http://www.eurovision.tv/medialounge/video/606

Here's a rough translation of the Beowolf-y refrain:
Missä miehet ratsastaa "Where men ride their horses
siinä lampaat ei voi laiduntaa sheep cannot graze;
Missä miehet ratstastaa Where men ride their horses
siinä kuulee suden ulvontaa one can hear the howl of a wolf"

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

oh you get it all wrong, it's about parody of machoism and it's pure music to the ears of intellectual women :)

Anonymous said...

Ah, Tuomo, I couldn't agree with you more on Finlands's entry this year! But I fear not even 14-year-old teenage boys in their testosterone driven fervour can't save us this time. There's no way we'll get to the final this year (yet again). And yes, please put those shirts back on!
As to those power ballads you miss, Tuomo, thank God there's Eastern Europe we can still trust. Rumania, yes please! And have you seen the Ukrainian video? That Ani Lorak must be the older sister of Tina Karol of 2006! Or maybe she is Tina Karol in disguise. There's a scary resemblance. An Ultra-Mega-Babe, in any case.
Hmm, which is scarier, Charlotte Perrelli or a Komodo Dragon? That's a tough one. Nah, I say Perrelli.