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No hard rock this year
Finland: 12 artist names revealed for 2009
Jari Sillanpää was born in Ludvika in Sweden in 1965. He won the annual tango contest in Seinäjoki in 1995, after which he moved to Finland and had remarkable success. His first album from 1996 is the biggest selling Finnish recording in Finland ever. He was the runner-up in the Finnish national final in 1998 with Valkeaa unelmaa. The second time Jari took part in the Finnish selection was in 2004, when he won the final with Takes two to tango with 35,3 % of the votes. Jari was the first artist to ever perform in the new format two-day Eurovision in Istanbul in 2004. He scored 51 votes and got 14th place in the semi-final. Since his Eurovision performance he has had a successful tour with Katri Helena (Finland 1979 and 1993), released a greatest hits album and very publicly come out as gay. He released a new studio album in April 2008. He won the prestigious Iskelmä-Finlandia award in 2005.
Official website
Kwan is a hiphop/pop band fronted by lead vocalist Mariko. The band has so far recorded in English and their first album Padam was released in 2000. First two albums sold platimum and even the third one gold. Kwan's fourth album, Little Notes was released in 2006 and has since been also released in Greece. It was produced by Pauli Rantasalmi, the guitarist for The Rasmus. The band has won two Emma Awards.
Official MySpace
Website
Remu Aaltonen (born 1948 in Helsinki) is a real rock'n roll legend. He was the drummer in the 1970s band Hurriganes. He has been an active musician since the 1960s. Remu has recently collaborated with Popstars-favourite Tea Hiilloste.
C'mon c'mon video, (Tea feat. Remu)
Hurriganes performance in 1974
Sani (born in Hämeenlinna 1971) is best known as the lead singer of Aikakone, a very success dance music band who have been performing on and off since 1995. Aikakone took part in the Finnish national finals for Eurovision twice, and were the runner-up in 2002 (name shortened to Aika). Sani has released two solo albums, where she has been helped with ex-band members of Aikakone and songwriter and producer Maki Kolehmainen, who was also responsible for the Finnish entry in 2002, Addicted to you.
Official website
Aika at Euroviisut 2002 (YouTube)
Tapani Kansa (born 1949 in Hamina) is one of the longest running and most popular Finnish male solo artists. He started recording in 1967 and his first hit was a cover version of Delilah. He has had several records reaching gold and platinum sales. Ha has recorded over 500 songs and has recently completed a concert tour celebrating his 40 years as an artist. He has previously also taken part in the Finnish national finals for Eurovision with 12 songs and holds the record of most attempts without actually winning Euroviisut. His last attempt was in 1985.
Official website
Wikipedia page in English
Janita (born 1978 in Helsinki is a soul and r'n b artist. She already tried her luch with the Finnish selection in 1994. She has since continued her music career in New York.
Official website
Waldo's People is a popular 90's dance music act who are currently making their comeback
Passionworks makes melodic pop rock and have had some success even abroad
Riikka was previously with folk group Värttinä and tried as a solo artist in the Finnish national final in 2004 with Toarie. She also sang backing vocals to Jari Sillanpää in Istanbul in 2004.
Vink is a new pop rock band from Lohja
Signmark is a rapper doing hiphop in sign language
Tiara is a singer-songwriter from Rovaniemi and has had a couple of radio hits.
The hosts for the Finnish shows will be Jaana Pelkonen and Mikko “Peltsi” Peltonen as last year. The three semi-finals will be broadcast on three consecutive Fridays from the 9th January. The final will be held in Tampere on Saturday 31 January. Two artists will qualify from each semi directly by telephone and SMS votes, and the other six will get a second chance on the night of the final. Two more tickets will be given to those, who get the most televotes in the Second Chance round.
A CD with the entries will this year be released by Warner Music Finland.
Related polls
- 2008 esctoday.com award nominations: Best act not to qualify from the semi finals
- 2008 esctoday.com award nominations: Most traditional Europop song
- First quarter final in Bulgaria: your favourite?
- Jury vote, do you agree?
- Jury vote only in the final or in the semis as well?
- What mixture of televote and jury vote do you think is the best?
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Well, must admit I was disappointed at first - after Teräsbetoni, everything else seems bland... 
But maybe it's a good thing to send something quite different this time.
This is Kwan performing in Greece this year - they seem popular there..?
http://uk.youtube.co(...)/watch?v=f9g1yt9i6YU
(if they have a similar song now, that could be interesting.)
Good luck Finland!!
I will support a good song-always! I have no knowledge of the contestents but a good song is a good song (to the ears of the beholder,ofcourse).
I wish to say that according to my "private taste",2008 entry was a great song sang by a professinal singer...I enjoyed every second of it!
Yes, Lovex again would have been great indeed. I loved Anyone anymore.
well i beloved the rockish entries of Finland and i want more (Lovex, Kilpi, Nightwish, Apocalyp'.. come on there's more to go!)
Nice artists! But please Finland do not choose the 2004 singer.
Well it´s going to be a different kind of national final for us-no rock to choose-maybe a good thing, maybe not... the point is that there are many interesting names..as a Finnish person I haven´t actually ever heard of Tiara, Passionworks or Vink.. but Kwan´s song is going be good, hopefully 
Good Luck Finland!!!
looking forward to the songs
nice to hear that finland will have another kind of song this year ...yes i like rock but finland need to change their way maybe some of the others countries can use rock
Yes, Finland sens lots of rock... but that doesn't mean rock can't be new and fresh.
There are many types of rock, and Finland has a scene for many of them.
Hopefully rock makes a return next year.
Riikka is very good - but she has no chance I fear 
I see many of you thinking of something different for Finland this year. But don't be to sure. There is a good chance for a rock or pop rock song this year aswell.
But I think it's one year too late to send something different. Movetron or Cristal Snow should have made it last year. At this moment I don't see something real different. Maybe pop, maybe a ballad. But that isn't really new for ESC. I don't see such choices this year that I saw last year. But well, let's wait for the songs fisrt.
Jari Sillanpää! Jari Sillanpää! Jari Sillanpää!
Or someone else. I'm easy.
Only concern I have about Passionworks is that the singer doesn't sound like she would be very good live. The singer's voice is like a cross between Duffy and Nerina Pallot.
I hope that they will send something really good next year.
In the 2008 NF Movetron was absolutely the best, and their Final performance with that remix... Perfect!!!
I see many of you like Passionworks but I prefer the Kwan. Anyway I like most of those singers/groups, and I think it will be nice that Finland will send something different.
Firstly, I would like to say Congratulations Finland for deciding to bring in another style to ESC as they were becoming a bit boring. I was never a bif fan of the Euroviisut but from the artists chosen there is a lot of potential and witht eh right type of songs this might be one of the best SONG selection of the 2009 Season so GD luck finland.
POP seems to be coming back to ESC, I missed the Euro-Pop and Pop as we have been bombarded with Ballads and Dance songs in the last couple of years except for some exceptions.
Gd Luck Finland, I like many artists from this selection especially Kwan (songs + voices); Janita (great voice), Tiara (Good Voice + Great Songs), Vink (Great songs + voices), Jari (Experience & Nice Voice), Passionworks (Nice Voices and Vanilla Ninja Style Songs)
2 are my favourites before songs are released and these are Passionworks and Vink.
With the right song Jari might go to Moscow as well....
Finland only once sent metal song - Terasbetoni [and it was great!] Lordi's song is hard rock or even rock and Hanna's song is pop-rock
I am glad that they decided not to send rock or even more metal song...I want to see something new and fresh from Finland...
Jonny
Yeah, I think so too
Tapani Kansa? Remu Aaltonen? Jari Silanpää? This year´s selection will be even worse and weaker than last year´s!!! The rest of the contenders is no better. The idea in this selection is just to inject some air into dying careers. Awful.
I think I would love to see Passionworks for Finland (would fit best in the line of rock songs) or Kwan with a song like Tainted love or Diamonds.
But I must listen to all the songs first to decide. But the selection sounds really interesting. I also could imagine Riikka or even Jari again if he works with the composer of Milloin and Shanghain valots.
Riikka sounds interesting.
Very brave to send something else than hard rock. After all, it has worked really well for Finland the last three years!
Stockholm
Yeah, although I think Vanilla Ninja are better because listening to some of passionworks stuff, Vanilla Ninja songs are generally more memorable, and catchy 
Jari Sillanpää? Waldos People?!? A guy with sign language... Please.
Being listening to Passionworks on My Space and they sound promising although they sound like a lot of bands out there.
Jonny, I agree. Passionworks did remind me of vanilla Ninja
I haven't listened to all the artists yet but I think Passionworks were very good.
I agree with Minos, I want Johanna Kurkela again! That somg "Olet Uneni Kaunein" is really a masterpiece, if you don't know, search the YouTube!
But I like some artists... Mariko has cool songs, Waldo's People too... but NO Jari Sillanpää, please!
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