FINLAND

The Finnish Final was held on March 7th at Mediapolis in Tampere, hosted by Krista Siegfrids & Mikko Silvennoinen. The winner was chosen by mix of televoting international jury votes. The winner was Aksel Kankaanranta with the song " Looking back"

Aksel is alone on stage singing behind a microphone stand. He is wearing a black top and a slightly shiny blue suit. Most of the time the background is black with some blocks of white moving across the stage, sometimes red blocks of light too and sometimes shaded figures appear on the backdrop too. These features do slightly co-inside the the lyrics of the song. As an added feature some of the lights and flashes also appear in front of Aksel either as slever lighting or possibly as an overlay on the camera rather than just happening behind him. The camerawork starts off tight of Askel but as the song progresses it becomes wider as it tries to take in the backdrop.

The structure of the song is very simplistic going verse-prechorus-chorus, verse-prechorus-two choruses and outro. The backing music is ambient and synthy and quite interesting to listen to by itself. It's very low in the mix and not particularly expressive or changing apart from the addition of  more beats during the second verse and extra percussion after the second prechorus which all peters out during the outro.

Although this was not the song grabbing the headlines during UMK, for me this was always the best song of the bunch and I personally was very happy that this won. The instrumentation builds well and Aksels voice is really easy to listen to. If I had any critique about his performance it would be that the visuals over took him a little. Yes, I see he is quite the introverted singer but even then that style is interesting to look at especially when it certainly sounds like he is feeling it. Having an act doing very little will stand out in itself. Maybe interacting with some dancers might help? Having actual people on stage rather than on the backdrop might make the whole thing come alive a bit more. Or perhaps it might work on some sort of satellite stage with the main background further behind him.  He could definitely do with some better styling, some more noticable lighting and something a bit more memorable as the backdrop - maybe less red would be good as that seems to be Finland's unlucky colour!
This is one of the more 'normal' songs in semi-final two, whether this will be its positive or negative will have to be seen but it may well be an island of normality surrounded my  shoal of odd looking fish. I think the jury especially will appreciate the musicality and the melancholic lyrics but the audience voting at home may feel compelled to vote for something a little bit more different.

Artist - Aksel Kankaanranta
Song - Looking back
Composer - Joonas Angeria, Connor McDonough, Riley McDonough Toby McDonough, Whitney Phillips
Lyricists - Joonas Angeria, Connor McDonough, Riley McDonough Toby McDonough, Whitney Phillips