Windows95man's humorous performance ultimately pleased the Finns more than Sara Siipola's restrained stage show, writes HS culture editor Juuso Määttänen.
Tampere
Vote was strict, but the people have spoken: Finland will be represented at this year's Eurovision by the artist known as Windows95man Teemu Keisteri and singer Henri Piispanen with a song No Rules.
Second place Sara Siipola with a narrow point difference. Windows95man's total score was 313, Siipola's 273. The other UMK finalists were clearly further behind: the third With Mikael Gabriel and On Nublu had almost a hundred points less than Siipola.
The tight final result can be interpreted in many ways, but here is one option: the Finns showed the middle finger to the expert judges and decided to send a comedy show to the Eurovision Song Contest in Malmö.
Connections can poetically see last year's Eurovision.
Sara Siipola has been called “Finland To Loren“, no wonder. Siipola's style, the color of the stage show and the generally simple and stylish visual idea inevitably reminded me of last year's winner Tattoo.
Windows95man is certainly not new Wrapper, but it doesn't take long to find conformity here either. Windows95man is a previously unknown artist who stands out from the other competitors with his funny character and special outfit, whose stage show made the audience laugh out loud right from the first performance.
Finland didn't win Eurovision last year, even though it did Cha Cha Cha -performance clearly has the most audience votes. The expert judges robbed us of the victory, so to speak, by giving the most points to Loreen by far.
Someone might have thought that now it would have been worth trying for success with a complete opposite like Siipola. The Finns decided otherwise. We enter Eurovision with a joke.
Windows95man's UMK victory was not even hindered by the fact that UMK's international expert councils did not appreciate the performance but gave it the least points. It's pointless to hope that Finland will win Eurovision again this year, at least with town hall points.
Teemu Keisteri (left) and Henri Piispanen celebrate their UMK victory on Saturday evening.
“Joking in” is not a disparaging comment to Windows95man and Piispase.
When a joke is executed well, it's worth raising your hat. It was particularly successful No Rules a stage performance that probably took the audience completely by surprise. Thanks to that, the song rose to a completely different level than where it was just as a song. In that sense No Rules is clearly different Cha C
ha from cha.
Last year, Käärijä-huuma was already alive under the UMK final in Finland. It was clear as day that Käärijä would win the competition.
Windows95man did not have a similar position when he came to Tampere. The pre-favorite in the betting statistics was Sara Siipola, followed by Mikael Gabriel and Nublu and Cyan Kicks.
Windows95man's chances of winning were not considered to be particularly high, but on the other hand, almost all competitors probably had Jesse Markin apart from that, there was at least a small margin for victory.
No Rules is a perfectly entertaining eurodance pastiche as a song, but it doesn't have the same uniqueness as In Cha Cha Cha was last year. On the other hand, none of this year's UMK finalists had one, which is why for a long time the result of the UMK final was truly unclear in advance.
After the general exercises, you could feel the surprise in the air. Several of this year's UMK performances were plagued by a feeling of confusion or emptiness. Along with Windows95man, Sara Siipola's performance was clearly the best of the evening.
My first thought No Rules what I saw was that this might work against Siipola's presentation. Before No Rules During the UMK evening, there wasn't a single performance that managed to properly make people laugh.
When the last competition song of the night starts with a giant denim egg, continues with a mustachioed man twirling on the bars on the stage and ends with the heavenly descent of jean shorts on the stage, it is not difficult to determine what will stick in the minds of the voters the most.
In a way, Finland now made the opposite choice from the 2020 UMK. At that time, the one who offered the best vocal performance was voted the winner Aksel Kankaanrantaalthough he set the audience on fire with his wild performance Erika Vikman.
No Rules it must also be acknowledged that Henri Piispanen's song sounded really good. In this sense as well, it clearly stands out from the majority of comedy shows.
Sara Siipola finished second with her elegant stage performance.
Siipola it's a bit of a pity. Shit wasn't the most original song in terms of composition, but it was a really functional power ballad that would undoubtedly have had a good chance of doing well at Eurovision. Maybe even better than With No Ruleswhich will inevitably receive some unfair Käärijä comparisons.
Siipola's singing sounded a bit tense at the beginning of the UMK performance, but the performance clearly improved and was at the expected high level at the end.
When Shit– if the Eurovision budget had added pyros to the show at the end, a completely finished package would have been offered.
Siipola had a feeling that he really wanted to go to Eurovision. The second place must be a disappointment for the early favourites.
Cyan Kicks did not manage to create a similar phenomenon as last year.
Even UMK was also evenly matched this year. All the songs were well produced and quite successful in themselves, but there were no big surprises. The stage performances were also affected by the same thing.
Cyan Kicks, who participated in UMK for the second time, offered a stylish stage show played with precise camera angles with the song Dancing With Demons. It still left a slightly dull feeling. Due to its wild mood, the song was expected to go harder or, alternatively, to have as strong a visual idea as two years ago Hurricane– song had.
by Jesse Markin Glow was purely musically this year's strongest UMK songs, but the stage show was sadly unremarkable. The supporting idea was completely missing.
Sini Sabotage relied on outfit changes in their performance.
The other three the problem with the show was that there were too many things in them. The red thread was missing. A similar problem has existed in UMK performances in previous years as well: for example Bessin Ram bam bam suffered in 2022 from confusion.
Blue Sabotage Peel me -performance relied on frequent costume changes, but visually nothing looked particularly good. It was a shame to notice that the elegance of the music video had not been successfully brought to the stage show in the same way. Sabotage's performance also suffered from the uncertainty of the vocals.
Sexmanen Mania-in the song, a significant part of the song was heard from the background instead of live. The show had a funny idea of pulling the artist back and forth with a harness, but in the TV broadcast it conveyed the wrong sense of danger. I got the impression that the whole thing doesn't want to stay together.
Mikael Gabrielin and Nublu going Vox populi is a strong earworm as a song, and in advance I considered it the strongest challenger for Siipola. However, there were a lot of different ideas in the stage show, some of which should have been eliminated.
Mikael Gabriel and Nublu's stage show had many elements.
The rappers started the performance by standing on high lecterns, but after that the eyes were showered with all kinds of visual elements. Sometimes background screens were used, sometimes graphics made for the TV screen were used. Mikael Gabriel and Nublu threw money from their speaker stands, and after descending from them, they were still rolling toilet paper on the performance ramp. The show ended with a pathos projection of the word “pax” on the big screen on the stage.
In the midst of all this, it was hard to catch what the show really wanted to say. With a simpler overall, Mikael Gabriel and Nublu could have taken points away from Windows95man. Then the final result of the entire UMK could have been different.
In Malmö, Windows95man has a tight spot ahead of him. If the Eurovision audience gets excited about Kummeli-style humor as much as the Finns, a place in the final should be guaranteed. Victory celebrations may still not be organized in Finland this spring either.
Read more: Windows95man won the UMK – The victory was a complete surprise: “Everything was broken”
Read more: There were problems with Yle's voting
Read more: Two performances stood out the most in the UMK final, see the videos of the dress rehearsals
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