What has Finland cooked up for us, I woner. Well, not really, I’ve listened to all these songs a thousand times already, so I know. So please, Finland, don’t let me down. Ok, you can’t let me down because I like all songs here, but still. Don’t let me down.
There was an intro I missed because of Vidbir, so you’re getting the abridged version with just the songs.
This is the definition of a song that’s generally fine, but it doesn’t really stand out among the rest of the entries. It’s a lovely radio song, though, and he has a lovely voice. However, I don’t think it would do well in Eurovision for this reason. It’s just a nice song and nothing more. I wouldn’t be mad if it won though.
Another pleasant song without anything lifting it to be outstanding. I certainly don’t hate this, it’s fun and dacey, but again, not very exciting. It’s a little reminiscent of We Will Rave from 2024, except actually good.
I wasn’t too certain about this based on the studio version because she had a lot of vocal effects layered on the song. Now that we have the real live performance, I can make a proper decision on this. And my verdict is that I really love it. Specifically, I love the lyrics: they’re so weird and esoteric - it’s like they were made to appeal to me. Even though I’m rarely too harsh on bad lyrics, I always appreciate weird stuff about skies the colour of tangerine and salty lemons. But the meat of the song is in the chorus. It’s just so sassy and catchy, made even better by her delivery. The staging is really eye-catching as well. The spinning ring and the clone dancers really add a lot to this. It makes perfect sense that this won the jury, and I would’ve absolutely been happy with this going to Basel.
You can’t go wrong with a pretty ballad like this. It’s very emotional and well-performed, but, once again, it’s the lyrics that make it again (seriously, this edition of UMK has great songs from the songwriting perspective). Unlike so many songs about breakups, this one is about growing old together. Even the translation is poetic, I have to imagine it’s even better if you actually speak Finnish. My favourite part of the lyrics is when she’s singing about dying before her partner and that they should remember that she’s always with them. And damn, the performance. I just feel it because she put all her soul into it. I don’t know how I’ll be able to rank all of these songs because they’re all perfect in their own way.
I wasn’t 100% convinced by this song on my first listen (back when it was revealed), but I still added it to my playlist in case it grew on me. And I’m proud to say that it indeed grew on me. I never expected it to do well for this reason: a lot of other people also said that they’d only fallen in love with it after a couple of listens. Then I also got worried a little because the key was lowered for the live performance, which surely meant that she couldn’t pull it off live, right? Thankfully, no. Even though it took me one more listen to get used to the new key, I still found it pretty good. The dark staging isn’t what I expected at all based on the mostly pink music video, but it surprisingly works. While I would’ve liked her to be more dynamic on stage - just like she was in the video - I understand that this is a very demanding song to sing, and I definitely prefer a perfect vocal delivery over the singer being dynamic. She got backing dancers to help with the dynamism, which helped. Still, I think that the staging is what killed it in a competition against other great songs. But I love it nonetheless.
I wasn’t willing to make any predictions about this winning before the live performance for one simple reason: UMK 2020. It’s no secret that Erika lost that year because her live performance left a lot to be desired. Clearly, she worked hard to improve her performance skills because this was basically perfect as is. It was the right choice to go with the suggestive-but-not-explicit staging. And after the disqualification of One Morning Left, there was nothing else that would have as much appeal to the televote either. I’m impressed by how well it manages to balance camp and class. I can easily see it in the top three of Eurovision in May. This is another song I really love, and I’m glad it won, even if I would’ve loved to see other winners as well. Good luck, Erika.
Finland stopped playing around in 2021, and I love it. A country that used to regularly NQ is now one of the powerhouses with multiple top 10 results and a clean qualification record this decade, which won’t be changing in 2025. I think that all songs in my top 4 would’ve safely qualified for the final, though Ich komme was obviously the right choice for Eurovision. I wish more countries approached their NFs from a quality-over-quantity perspective (though you can have both sometimes - Italy manages to have both).