FINLAND

The Finnish Final was held on February 1st at the Barona Areena in Espoo, hosted by Anne Lainto & Ile Uusivuori. Before the final there were 3 semi-finals. The winner, chosen by televoting (50%) and an "expert" jury (50%) was "Something Better" by Softengine.

 

I didn't really pay too much attention to this year's UMK mainly because I was still smarting for last year's frankly upsetting result. Therefore I distanced myself and just hoped a good song would win. Due to the scheduling of the final I was able to watch the results coming in as well as the recaps of the songs during voting time. I thought that once again the range of songs was impressive from rock to folk to dance to weird! Each song had its merits as well as having reasons to be Finland's Eurovision entry.

 

Softengine is a very contemporary group. They look a bit like Frank Ferdinand, sound a bit like Coldplay but end up being a bit like The Killers. The singer is not exactly the most technically brilliant or show-stoppingly confident but he seems to pull this song off quite well, especially the strong choruses. Obviously the earworm-y 'oh-oh-oh-oh-ing'  and "all these words"- accompanied with well timed fireworks. As you will see, there is not a lot to say about this... for many reasons.

 

Being a typical band of 5, they stand (and jump about) for 3 minutes. The flashing red background used in their final performance worked well as it gave colour to their dark set and clothing but also punctuated the song during the lively parts. By the end two of the guitar players were getting a little more active, dodging about aimlessly. On the small stage it looked a bit uncomfortable and a little silly. On a bigger stage, and choreographed a bit better, it might actually help emphasise the performance towards the end.

 

This does sound like a song you could easily hear on Radio 1 or 2 which is a good thing, however  if any was to say it was a Eurovision song  think they would be pretty surprised. This is NOT exactly what people see as their stereotypical Eurovision fayre Although it has peaks and troughs and many, MANY earworms - there is no key change, no dance routine and certainly no time for a change of costume. This was more a performance to the crowd than a performance to the viewer. I feel this engagement to the camera and the connection to the voters all over Europe will need to be the thing they work on next.

 

I feel pretty positive about this. Firstly it is a good song and something that would work well outside the ESC. It's the kind of thing that if released Europe wide (especially Nordic, Baltic and western Europe) would do it the world of good pre-Eurovision. My main concern is this contains none of the formulaic traits we expect to see in a Eurovision songs. There are no gimmicks - it is a straight forward, honest, contemporary song.
Is this what Eurovision really needs?

 

Artist - Softengine
Song - Something Better
Music - Topi Latukka

Lyrics - Topi Latukka, Henri Oskár