UMK, Uuden Musiikin kilpailu, will be held on Saturday, the 2nd of March. We already know that the only participant in the contest will be the legendary musician Ville Virtanen, aka DJ Darude. Known world-wide for his 2000 megahit Sandstorm, Darude is mainly a composer of techno and trance music, praised for his talent to entertain club audiences around Europe and America. This year he will represent Finland in Eurovision Song Contest in Tel Aviv together with Sebastian Rejman, who will be the main vocalist. Seeing that the rules of the contest require the act to feature singing, it is a smart decision to have the singer of the Giant Leap to take up the task. The three possible songs to represent Finland will be published successively during three weeks in February, and the final choice will be up to public and juries on the 2nd. However, it is never too early to speculate, so why not start already? Let us hear what the self-proclaimed Eurovision nerd has to say about YLE’s choice this year.
Darude
First of all, what does Darude’s name mean? To this day it is a recognized fact that a well-known name does basically nothing in Eurovision stage. Internationally recognized artists draw media attention and sometimes enthusiastic applause from the live audience, but this attention rarely transforms into great points on the scoreboard. Finland’s choice has already received some positive response in social media, which is better than nothing, but at the same time it feels like fans are waiting for another Sandstorm. If, and quite obviously when, the representative song does not sound like Sandstorm, there will be some disappointment. Sandstorm is loved for its legendary reputation and ironic meme value – there is no song that could reach that level of devotion in an instant. So, again instead of focusing on the name of the artist, the Finnish team needs to focus on creating a great overall impression, a huge part of which is the song itself.
Trance to Eurovision
Darude has promised that his UMK songs will be accommodated to a proper pop format but will still be truth to his style. Here we can state that pop format is usually what works best in Eurovision (for example Lordi’s famous winning song from 2006 was heavy rock stuffed in a nice pop song -mold), but trance or vocal trance itself is surprisingly unpresented in the contest. One would think that this makes it that much easier to stand out, but up to the day techno sequences and DJs have not succeeded very well. In 2018 in Lisbon, Poland was represented by internationally successful DJ Gromee, and even though the song unquestionably reached fans of club music, it still did not manage to score a place in the final. The trance-inspired electronic dance sequences slipped into representing songs usually make the audience hop in rhythm but rarely capture the hearts of the people peering at the contest sitting on their sofas. Such was the case of Greece and Freaky Fortune duo in Copenhagen 2014.
However, Norway managed to reach 10th place in the final of 2017 with DJ JOWST. Cool Nordic style and chill vocals in a guaranteed “hipster” style (Got a pocketful of prose while I’m walking on my toes/ And I’m coping with a map that is roadless) might be a trump card especially when pursuing the goodwill of the style conscious juries. The style of Norway’s vocalist Alexander Walmann was more reminiscent of the rap artist Redrama, while Sebastian Rejman is more inclined towards the good old rock, so I am expecting something completely different. Darude and Rejman have previously released a track called Moments that features a somewhat traditional pop verse and a heavy trance sequence packed in 3 minutes and 55 seconds. While quite catchy, the song lacks coherence and a clear message, two things that are almost essential in successful Euro-songs of this century.
Although there is no denying that the winner of last year, Netta Barzilai’s Toy, was first and foremost electronic music and surely house-inspired, it was the creative madness and the message of the song that captured juries and audiences. Besides, the latest trend in Eurovision has been variety of the winners: next year something or someone completely different brings home the pot. Thus, it is usually not a good idea to mimic last year’s winner. If Darude, Rejman and YLE’s team manage to create something that actually stands out melodically and is fresh in its sound, there is a good chance of doing well.
Official source for UMK: https://yle.fi/aihe/umk