Preview: Finland’s Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu Final
Saturday’s Nordic extravaganza continues with the Final of Finland’s Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu, or “New Music Competition”. YLE has shown a number of introductory programs, semifinals, and a “second chance” round, which narrowed twelve songs down to eight. Seems a bit inefficient in terms of winnowing down the list of finalists, but it really helped to familiarize the public with the songs that could potentially represent Finland in Malmö this spring.
In their running order, the Finalists are:
- Arion – “Lost“
- Elina Orkoneva – “He’s Not My Man“
- Lucy Was Driving – “Dancing All Around The Universe“
- Krista Siegfrids – “Marry Me“
- Last Panda – “Saturday Night Forever“
- Mikael Saari – “We Should Be Through“
- Great Wide North – “Flags“
- Diandra – “Colliding Into You“
The winner will be chosen by a simple 50/50 jury/televote split, with no superfinal. All indications show that it is likely to be a closely-fought contest, so be sure to watch! The show starts at 19:25 CET, and will be streamed at Eurovision.tv.
Posted on February 8, '13, in 2013, Finland and tagged arion, diandra, elina orkoneva, eurovision, finland, great wide north, krista siegfrids, last panda, lucy was driving, mikael saari, Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu. Bookmark the permalink. 4 Comments.
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Not sure if I see anything that tops our entry from last year. I would be happy to see the present winner of your poll win, even if I do not feel invested in it enough to spend a vote on it.
Diandra has a pretty great voice; I just wish she had better music to go with it.
Stefanos, I’m surprised you said that because I was thinking the opposite. The song is absolutely amazing and she has just the acceptable voice to pull it off, but I left feeling like it needs to be just a little bit stronger.
Unrelated to that, I’m surprised at how much talent Finland has in their national. My top two right now are Arion and Diandra. Krista is definitely a guilty pleasure. I’m actually not liking the favorite of the poll. Hopefully, he doesn’t win.
I was actually referring more to her prior catalog than to this song specifically, though I still do not quite see this song going to Malmö. She is definitely a raw talent (one who won the Idols competition, as did fellow Eurovision-alum Hanna Pakarinen) who makes songs that would ordinarily sound like crap to me (like Outta My Head) instead sound listenable, and that is something.
I also like Krista’s entry for what it is: a well-conceived camp entry.
I think I will pick Orkoneva’s entry as my favourite, just to be contrary to everyone. No, it will not win, but I just find it charming, and reminiscent of when the American industry was more innocent. I wonder from where she is (Orkoneva is not a Finnish name). Bulgaria, maybe?
But in any case, only the following would have been a reasonable follow-up to last year, from where I am sitting:
OK, so we are no Russia, so we would probably not make 2nd place with these guys, but I like to think: why not 3rd? A song in Finnish with maybe a smattering of Swedish in time for Malmö? I cannot be the only thinking that, can I? I mean… can I?
Fast prediction of top 3 before the show ends:
Diandra wins (professionally performed), followed by Mikael Saari and Krista.
Let’s see how far off I am with this…