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

[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!)