Hitz from Finland vol. 11

[credoimprobus]

Something a bit different this time because I'm too lazy to put together anything meatier at present: as a snapshot of Finnish pop Right Now, I give you Things Wot Have Been in the Official Download Chart* (re-entries excluded) in the Last Month. Consider it a Year in Pop clone! (Just without the poll, heh.)

Some of these I've previously posted/linked (inevitably), and anyone who watched eurovision will know the first one innit:

Teräsbetoni - Missä miehet ratsastaa
Waldo's People - Back Again
Cheek - Liekeissä
Chisu - Mun koti ei oo täällä
Mariko - Unstoppable
Kinetik Control - Lack of Divine Inspiration
Beats and Styles feat. Elastinen - You Got the Light
Lauri Tähkä ja Elonkerjuu - Pauhaava sydän
Ari Koivunen - Give Me a Reason
Jenni Vartiainen - Mustaa kahvia
Brother Firetribe - Heart Full of Fire
Voltage - Coffee Break
Stella - Korkokengät
Clifton Sextet - Nopeus kasvaa
Negative - Won't Let Go
Tiktak - Mutta mä rakastan sua
Jenni Vartiainen - Ihmisten edessä
Disco Ensemble - Bad Luck Charm
Herra Ylppö & Ihmiset - Sata vuotta
XL5 feat. Elastinen - Laatuaikaa

Discuss at will! (I leave any opinions of my own to the comments section because, again: lazy so's to leave perceptions uncoloured.)


*) the download chart because I find it more representative of what's really making noise than the proper singles chart

Comments

[credoimprobus]

Things out of those I've at one point or another planned to post: Waldo's People (as part of a Fresh Finnish Eurobosh post -- and hurrah, the last track I was waiting for on that one has finally hit youtube!), Cheek, Mariko, Disco Ensemble (as part of a mini-primer)

Things out of those that have been in the chart ALL DAMN YEAR: Chisu, Mariko, Lauri Tähkä, Ms. Vartiainen's Ihmisten edessä (and in that last case in fact since last year, omg)

Things out of those that are the sound of top 90s artists having an comeback (there's a bit of an epidemic of that this year, really): Waldo's People, XL5

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

RIGHT I have finally got a chance to listen to some of these (the youtube ones - can't get music on myspace at work).

Teräsbetoni - Loved this lot at eurovish! They're really serious, aren't they?
Waldo's People - Evanescence meets Eiffel 65 (not bad!)
Cheek - spiky Timbabeats with clucky rapping (hmmm)
Chisu - this lass is a little bit Gwen (m and a little bit Sia, and deserves WAY better than her electro-orchestral backing. Fire her producers.
Mariko - this is great! Lass in sparkly trews sings what could be an old A-Ha song? Some strange key changes but they stop it being too trad. Her voice is nicely distinctive too!
Beats & Styles - electro hipster boys, hmmm not that impressed with this one. Dudes the early 90s were way better than this, I was *there* innit.

(more later! must do work!)

[credoimprobus]

(ahaha I was going to reply to both parts in one comment, but I was too long-winded for the comment size limit.)

Teräsbetoni: serious or deadpan? A QUESTION FOR THE AGES, THAT. Re: eurovish I definitely approved of them winning our preselections (inevitably -- super-popular metal group + the finnish public = one possible result only, haha), because they def had the strongest combination of song + performance. Mind, though, as much as Missä miehet ratsastaa makes me grin like an idiot, it's still no Taivas lyö tulta!

Waldo: I'm very torn about this one -- the white boy rap bits are pretty much rubbish, but the girl is amazing. On the whole the amazing wins out over the rubbish, though, so I settle in the love camp on it. (Our current no. 1, incidentally!)

Chisu: 'her producers' = Chisu, actually, heh! She's totes AN AUTEUR, did literally everything on her album down to the mixing and recording herself. (Only thing she enlisted any help on was recording the vocals.) Previously an inhabitant of the behind-the-scenes songwriter/producer camp, and all that! Mun koti really isn't her best, as much as the Finnish public massively disagrees. (Did you catch the two other tracks of hers I've posted? It's a total injustice that they haven't been bigger hits -- esp with the latest, which hasn't even been playlisted on the top 40 stations -- when Mun koti has been inescapable since January.)

Mariko: I've never really gotten beyond 'like it' on this one for some reason, as much as I objectively recognise its greatness, but I've always thought it'd go over well enough here to warrant posting anyway (esp. as I've also got her pre-solo career group Kwan on my list of artists to post). Nice to see I wasn't wrong about that!

(Beats & Styles: as can be seen from the previous volume, I'm not very impressed with this particular single either, heh. They're a very hit and miss lot!)

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

NOEZ lj just ate my next load! ARGH. Quickly then:

Lauri - daft metal-string quartet enjoyable nonsense
Ari Koivunen - bet they use Pantene Pro-V, silly pop metal
Jenni Vartiainen - Mags Berger style electro loveliness (tick vg!)
Brother Firetribe - ridiculous overblown synth-metal duet ("the way you're sexing me is frightening")
Stella - small pixie woman doing Kelly Clarkson without the bite
Negative - bad hair, bad music (serious adult 'rock', yuck)
Tiktak - indie girls desperate for credibility doing My Sharona?

[credoimprobus]

Ari Koivunen: our latest Idols winner, ahaha. He's also the Idols alumni (poss first-ever winner Hanna Pakarinen excepted) to have the most cred in the public eye, assumably because he does retro metal instead of that silly pop nonsense. *eyeroll* Fun facts: 1) according to the gossip mags, he has BEEF with season runner-up Anna Abreu. (As I do not read said gossip mags beyond the headlines in the news stands, I alas do not know what this alleged beef concerns.) 2) sort of apropos yr Pantene comment, one of last year's most hilarious TV moments was from his performance at a televised festival: having started the gig with his hair in a ponytail, he at one point sloowly pulled his hair free of it, and the FANGIRL SCREAMS this action prompted was extraordinary. Ahahaha oh you wacky hair fetishists!

Jenni V.: Ihmisten edessä cert. deserves its status as Massively Huge Hit (seriously, it's on a par with Umbrella in hugeness) -- the lyrics are a huge part of that, really, I should dig up a youtube upload with translations. And it sounds, incredibly, even better in the summer! I've also warmed to Mustaa kahvia with repeat exposure, although generally it's a bit too traditional for my taste. (I still think Toinen is her best single, though!)

Stella: seem to be improving by leaps and bounds with each album; their first was kinda eh with some splendid melodies here and there, their second was already much better, and if the quality of the third (which I really need to get -- I've been meaning to since it came out the other month, after all) holds up to the standard of this lead single it's another twice as good as the previous album affair. I've gradually gone from "really like it" to "totally love it" on this single with exposure -- it's the sense of release in the last chorus that takes it over the edge, for me.

Negative: ahaha oh god, I hate these guys. And we have a million bands like this, because apparently "rubbish 4rth generation H.I.M clone" is one of the most popular band formats in the country. (WARNING COMPLETE SIDETRACK IGNORE AT WILL At least some of them actually evolve beyond the level of godawful now and then -- prime example: Lovex, who were one of the most godawful of the type at the time of their breakthrough, but are now suddenly kinda decent! Their new lead single had a quite tolerable emo-y chorus, although the verse was still unbearably whiny, and I actually like their follow-up single. Shock of the decade, there!)

TikTak: not very indie, technically, but the hunger for credibility I am willing to buy! (It'd certainly be high on the list of suspects for their choice to move from pop to rock, heh.) Not one of their best singles, this one.