Edit:
Also also, while I was pondering for more options for that round, I realised I could've done the whole season with bands from my town. I shall post such set, once the season is over.
As mentioned earlier. Granted, this spans the joined municipalities of United Kouvostoliitto, which all members are happy to take part in.
ROUND 1
The Local Band
Kuudelta - In Your Dreams
I was tempted to post something
Very local and personal, as my sister made this music video, on my mothers’s company premises. Their guitarist is one of my friends and when they were younger I used to haul them to gigs, before they were old enough to get their licences. But them being 15-16 when composing those songs shows a bit.
Anyway, just like IKINÄ, which I posted in the league, Kuudelta is also has/had their training spot some 1 - 1.5km from my place, so I took the round description very literally. And as I live by a river and there’s a small riverside festival on the other shore, I’ve once seen their gig, watching from the other shore, while picking berries in a nice secluded strip of the shoreline.
ROUND 2
Do you speak-a-my-language?
Viikate - Karmiini Juhlasali
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8UPbKeoyUw
I hadn’t thought of their style this way, but from the start they’ve had a few distinguishing features. Firstly, that guitar sound. Secondly, the sombre lyrical content and singing style, which is very akin to the local schlager music (apparently that’s how it translates. needed some googling to help with that). As seems to be the case with so much music that I listen to, they made their big break around mid 90s. And despite their very locked in style, they still manage to produce songs I really like. A lot of their appeal to me is in the lyrics. With the amount of figure of speech and metaphors you’d need to be fairly adept in Finnish to get the full story of many of their songs, but I feel they’re worth checking out even without the linguistic knowledge.
ROUND 3
Legen(waitforit)dary!!!
Peer Günt - Bad Boys Are Here
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmUI6hki4DE
One of the originals, putting an international spin on their music, inspiring future generations that something like this could actually come from Finland. Unfortunately the stereotypical rock’n’roll lifestyle also destroyed several members rather fast. Not the style of music I listen to often, but they’re influential enough for me to be very aware of them still.
ROUND 4
Eurotrashvision
Norma John - Blackbird
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTLczT5h9Lo
This falls out of my usual specs of something I would listen to. But it came up when I got this home town origin idea and was searching for all things music around here. And as I learned after the round in the league, this would’ve been a more “valid” entry, as the made to the play-offs, which was a feature of ESC I wasn’t aware of.
ROUND 5
Ich bin ein Ausländer
Upendra Siriwardana - Vijja Devi
View: https://youtu.be/dXUCRgeu2Z0
Bit of a stretch, as she moved here last year, but still. She did rather well in The Voice, Sri Lanka a few years ago and probably not surprisingly she’s been active with the local cultural centre, encouraging immigrant youths to get into music. I’d prefer this cover
cover in English, but it doesn’t fit in the specs of the round.