Just like in every culture, music has an important role in Finland too. But I don’t really intend to go into the details about how it all begun. First of all, I’ve no idea about it, and secondly, I don’t think you’d enjoy reading some dry history stuff. Let’s dig out the entertaining and funny tidbits instead.

There are very mixed feelings about Finnish music both around the globe, Europe and right here in Finland. Like, for instance, the annual Eurovision contest, which has due to terrible consecutive results of Finnish performers reached the level of being nothing less than a national trauma. Until, of course, this year when Finland won the contest with Lordi and surprised everyone, even itself.

And I think Lordi is a good example of how out of tune consensual Finnish musical taste is. When they won the national competition, everyone from broadsheet newspapers to yellow press and grandmas on the streets went ballistic about how Lordi will bring eternal shame to the country. Fast-forward a few months and they literally became national heroes being received by both president Tarja Halonen and prime minister Matti Vanhanen, having squares named after the band, statues erected, and on top of everything even getting their own bank card. From bitches to riches in an eye blink. And I cannot really imagine that the queen would hold a reception for the Sex Pistols at the height of their career. But then again, this is Finland after all.

OK, everyone knows Lordi and it ain’t really fun anymore now that they are swarmed with sexually explicit letters from their German fans. There’s much more to Finnish music than Lordi can offer.

Take, for example, the notorious former world-class ski jumper Matti Nykänen. His career in sports literally catapulted him (no pun intended) into everlasting bingeing, and along the way he became a stripper, a porn star and, yes, even a singer. And I’ve just scratched the surface here: he has said and done many admiringly stupid things. Even though many regard him to be a tragic character, he’s proud of it all. No, really, to do justice to Matti, I’d have to write a separate post. But I’ll stick to the topic and write about Matti some other time.

I’ve no idea why he’s so popular as a singer, but I sure noticed that sometimes it’s really hard to tell if people and media are laughing with Matti or at Matti. But at the same time, I don’t think he’s able to make a distinction either. I haven’t yet had a chance to see Matti perform live, but cannot wait for that moment to come.

So what does Matti cherish in his songs? He elaborates on V-style (jumping V-style with sexual connotations, that is), jumping and flying (in aptly named song Jump and Fly), on being Topless (I wonder which part of his career inspired this song), he confesses about a Night of surprises (I’m sure there have been many such nights during his long career) and Laps (lap as in lap dance - probably inspired by Topless). But he also touches on more ethereal topics in songs such as are Samurai, Markiisi De Sade (yes, that is Marquis de Sade), and about love and even life itself in the song meaningfully entitled Elämä on laiffi or Life is Life. ‘Nuff said, check them out and you’ll know what I mean. All those who went gung-ho about Matti here’s more. Amen.

Let’s stay on the infamous side for just a bit before we move on to hard science stuff. Are you also too young to remember why Finland sucked so bad in the Eurovision contests practically since its inception? I sure am, but that’s why I like the Internet so much as it brings back things some people would rather forget. What you are about to see is not really Eurovision material, but I cannot imagine it got much better than this. It is a music video of a song I Wanna Love You Tender performed by Finnish duet Armi and Danny that was labeled as the worst video ever. I know it was in the 80’s, but people, please. Just watch!

I’d like to know just one thing: what were these people thinking?

And now for something completely different. Even though it wasn’t really invented in Finland, air guitar is very popular around here. Actually, so popular that since the 1996 Air Guitar World Championships have been organized as part of the Oulu Music Video Festival. Pretty cool. “And just how is air guitar related to creating music?” I hear you grumble. Well, smart kids at the Helsinki University of Technology have as a part of their school project created an air guitar that you can actually play. Their Virtual Air Guitar records the movements of your hands as you do the air guitar and it transforms your gestures into sounds. Every drunk rocker’s dream just came true. Although I particularly like one kid’s honest reaction: “Look mom, magic gloves!”

The result is so cool indeed that you have to check out the videos for yourself. Especially make sure you check out the wannabe rocker professor video.

Rock on.

Mladen

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 20th, 2006 at 8:45 am and is filed under Culture, Finland, Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.