An Introduction to Finnish Music

So while we've been learning Finnish, each day we separate off into small groups of just 7 to go over a few things. My small group is lead by Taina, who is lovely and everyday she plays us a Finnish song or two. So I thought I'd share some with you - for better or for worse!

First up, we have a band called Eppu Normaali, and the song is called Suomi-ilmiö (The Finnish Phenomenon). Its a band that we're popular in the 80s and the song is about nuclear power.





Next we have some Folk music. Its a band called Värttinä (which means Spindle I think) and the song is called Linnunmieli. I have no idea what its about, as Taina said its like an old dialect of Finnish and most people dont know it.





Next is a Finnish girl band, called PMMP, the initials of their names (like ABBA someone pointed out...). Anyway, I guess it sort of indie-rock, and the song is called Pikkuveli, which means little brother.





Finally today, we had some Finnish hip hop followed by a traditional Finnish hymn. Both two very different genres. Anyway, the Hip Hop song is by a band called Fintelligens, and the song is called Kaikki Peliin. No idea what that means, but it was the song for the ice hockey world championship in 2003.





All I could think when listening to that was that the first line of the chorus sounds a bit like 'I want my mum'. Not exactly gansta, hehe. Finally the hymn was Sibelius, Finlandia-hymni; Its a patriotic song about the end of occupation and Finland's independence. "Your day is dawning, O land of birth".





Hopefully Taina will continue to intoduce us to what seems to be an actually quite varied music culture. I will write up more about my week on sunday, but tonight I am too busy, and tomorrow we are going to a museum again so will write it all up at the same time. Just had to do this before I forgot any of the songs. Moi Moi.

28 Hours Encounting!

Ah, my last day in rainy England (Ok, one shower in the last 5 days, but still). I've still got a ton of CDs left to upload, but perhaps I should pack properly first. It hasnt quite sunk in that I'm going tomorrow, and not coming back for a very long time. I'm thinking about Helsinki and not much after that, so feels more like a holiday. I thought to mark my last post in England for a while, I would mention some of the songs that I've heard since moving home for the summer that I quite like. Perhaps the British music scene is improving a little...

Kid Rock, All Summer Long - Every year you get a 'lets reminisce about summers past' song, and I fall for them every time. My favourite being Last Summer by Lostprophets, possibly because of timing if nothing else. Anyway, this ticks all the boxes for me this summer.

The Tings Tings, Thats Not My Name - Theres something quite catchy about this song, but I think I'll get sick of it as quickly as it grew on me. Despite the terrible 'The X X' band name formular, they are different to the bland regular Indie music that seems to have infected the British public and made them musically comatose, so I'll let them off.

The Script, The Man Who Cant Be Moved - This might be described as the bland Indie that I was just talking about, but its got more style than that, and the lyrics completely redeem it. I only heard this a couple of days ago but its very sweet tugs at the heartstrings.

Jordin Sparks ft Chris Brown, No Air - I heard this a lot at the start of the summer and I dont normally go for R'n'B type tracks, but I really liked the melody of this song. I heard a live version and decided I rather dislike the girl, but its a nice summer track

Usher, Movin' Mountains - Yes, more R'n'B, how strange. .But I've always liked Usher actually (another influence of my brother) and this track, although slightly overproduced, has good metaphorical lyrics.

Sara Bareilles, Love Song - I first heard this song on the way home from Guildford and heard it constantly while in Vienna (the fact we kept singing it didnt help) so will always remind me of that holiday and happy sunny times.

And thats my current summer soundtrack. I will no doubt make a whole new one by the end of next month. It'll be interesting to see what sort of music is being played around Helsinki. I hope to have internet at regular intervals - if not in halls then in the uni library, so there will be the odd update. I will definitely have a connection at my accommodation in Turku though, so will be back to boring you full-time by September (fingers crossed).

Forgotten Gems; Part 4

With only a few days before I leave, I'm almost certain I wont get all my CDs uploaded in time. So I have prioritised. All albums first, then compilation CDs, then singles. But I've been patiently going through them when I have the chance. So here's some more forgotten gems;

First up is a well-known Welsh rock band by the name of Lostprophets. This was the first band I saw live (excluding boybands) and they were awesome. I went on to see them a total of 3 times, making them my most watched band. This is my favourite track of theirs and the song they ended with the first time I saw them. Its from their second album, Start Something. Its called Burn Burn;



Next up, we have a track from another Welsh band, Manic Street Preachers. I was too young to appreciate it the time of release, but its now one of my favourite tracks. Its called Motorcycle Emptiness and is really moving when in the right mood. It wont allow me to embed the official video, so I will post a live performance;



We go now to another track from 1992, that is possibly more well-known. Its The Cure with the track Friday I'm in Love. Its just a song that is timeless and makes me smile every time. And reading on Wiki, its also apparently the opening track to a Swedish soap opera;



Finally, i'm going to end with a live track. Panic! at the Disco may have gone a little bland with the latest album, but their début, A Fever You Cant Sweat Out, is one of my favourite and most listened to albums. The band may have no credibility as the pin-ups for the latest emo generation, but at least they make good music while doing it. This is my favourite track off the album (although the album really should be appreciated as a whole). Its called Nails for Breakfast, Tacks for Snacks (you can tell they're from the Pete Wentz 'lets give all our songs the longest titles possible' school of thought);

Forgotten Gems; Part 3

Ah, back to uploading all my CDs. There's been piles of CDs all over the living room, and my mum (and even my brother) started moaning, so I've got back down to business. Here's some more forgotten gems, that I've since rediscovered.

First up is Christina Aguilera, with her power pop album Stripped. Just read that it was released in 2002, that was just before my rocker-phase, makes me feel old, how fast trends come and go. The album contains 16 full tracks, but never becomes samey. My favourite of all the singles released from it is Fighter;



Next up is Placebo. What can I say about Placebo? They're fantastic. Quality rock music, funky beats, cryptic lyrics, strange lead vocalist etc etc. Sounds like a typical formular, but they pull it off and make it seem fresh and original, because it is for them. I highly recommend the singles album Once More With Feeling (released before the latest album) that has all the singles (funnily enough) and you can hear the journey of the band from the early days (1996) to the more recent stuff. This is one of the early day ones (video features the old drummer) and is called Teenage Angst;



Just to continue about them for a moment. I liked them so much that once upon a time I stood (or more likely sat) outside Virgin Megastores in oxford street for 2 hours at 7am in the cold depths of February to get a wristband to a gig and signing for just 200 lucky few. The gig was fantastic, and I got a signed album out of it, along with a chat with the drummer (who is lovely, very cool guy).
Another piece of trivia, Dima Koldun's video to A Dlya Tebya is a quite obvious copy of the video for Pure Morning by Placebo. I thought it was a strange band to pay tribute to, maybe Dima's a fan?


Back to the videos. Next up we have a track by Bloc Party. Their first album was a real favourite of mine when it first came out. I remembered having it on in the car for weeks driving back and forth to work, while on my gap year. On the re-release of the album was a song called 2 More Years which really struck a cord with me in terms of lyrics, so without explaining that any further I'll just post the video.



Next up is a singer-songwriter called Get Cape Wear Cape Fly. Real name Sam Duckworth from Southend. He spent years touring with just his guitar and a laptop. I love the track Call Me Ishmael, but for some reason there is no evidence of the official video on youtube, in fact most of his videos seem to be absent from youtube. So instead I have decided to post War of the Worlds, possibly his most well-known track (and possibly the reason its one of the only ones on youtube);

Forgotten Gems; Part 2

Continuing with the uploading, I've been having some major technical issues today. First the internet wouldn't connect (after trouble shooting, it suggested I look for updates, so clicked 'yes' only to be asked to connect to the internet in order for it to do so! Gah!), and then iTunes itself seems to have gone on strike (it did this yesterday too). However, I have still got some tunes to share with you today.

First up is an old anthem from the yellow holiday camp where me and Rach lived last year. In fact, the day I bought this album was perhaps our first act of noise terrorism. Yes, me and Rach had complaints after frequent party's (and by party I mean just the two of us in my room, drinking Russian-based cocktails and singing loudly to various music - hardly the level of skins). I digress, this is 'Atlantis to Interzone' by The Klaxons and is a stonker of a track. It used to be my alarm you know, as you can image - it worked.



Now, lets move onto a little known band by the name of Larrikin Love. This is the first song I heard of theirs and loved it. How excited was I then, when my friend told me she had booked tickets to see them in Harlow of all places (scummy essex town near where I live where nothing exciting ever happens apart from this gig and the birth of ME 21 years ago). I dont quite know what genre you'd call it - I think i created a genre on Sounds of Europe once when I called something very NME. Well, in that case, this band is very NME also. Anyway, they've split now, but the album is very good and this track is called 'Edwould'.



Then another track that I loved once upon a time, and still very much do. I dont listen to it much, mostly because the album turned out to be a bit rubbish. However, this track is still very good and I'm surprised it didnt do better. I dont think it would be out of place on the Fratelli's album or some other brit-rock band. Anyway, they're called Boy Kill Boy, and this track is called 'Suzie'.



Finally, I'm ending, not with a full track but a Prelude. I just uploaded AFI (A Fire Inside)'s album Decemberunderground, and as iTunes does, the first track started playing. Its only 2minutes long, but I love this little intro to what is a very very good album. Its actually very mainstream for this band (believe it or not) and they were called sell-outs after its release. However it was a very successful album, and worthy of its success I think. So this is a little intro called 'Prelude 12/21';



Another four tomorrow perhaps.

Forgotten Gems; Part 1

I didn't end up going to the cinema tonight for various reasons but instead spent the night uploading all my CDs onto my new laptop. So far I've uploaded an extra 400+, but that my friends isn't even half way through. But, despite iTunes being an extremely annoying piece of technology at times, I've actually quite enjoyed sifting through my old albums. And along the way I've rediscovered some great songs/albums that I had pretty much forgotten, or at least haven't listened to in a very long while. So I thought I'd share them with you. These are from my pre-europop days when I was into indie, pop punk and emo so beware, hehe.

The first one, however, is a pure pop song from a pop gospel singer by the name of Stacie Orrico. Her most famous hit was 'Stuck', but the album has a really good selection of songs, even if it is a bit preachy in places, and I really like her voice. This is her second single 'More to Life'

The next discovery was from a band called The Used. This is a fairly 'emo' band that started off along the same road as My Chemical Romance. Unfortunately, while everyone was applauding the greatness of My Chem's Welcome to the Black Parade, The Useds' third album Lies for the Liars was overlooked somewhat. Shame, because its a real return to form after the second album and I think some of it is truly great writing in terms of both musical arrangement and lyrics. Here's the lead single 'Bird and the Worm'



Continuing with the emo for a while, another of my favourite bands of recent years is Funeral for a Friend. This welsh band (also Christian, but not so noticeably in their music) had a brilliant debut album, followed by an even better second album, Hours. Shame the third was such a let down. This is the title track from Hours, and the song that brought them to my attention, called 'Streetcar'.



Then bringing it back to the poppier side of things - Travis. I have just one of their albums along with the Singles album. They had some really great singles actually, and I think are pretty overlooked these days. My favourite one of theirs though is 'Side'. Not sure why, maybe its the lyrics, the hook, who knows.



Hopefully I'll end up finding more to post tomorrow. And I really should finish the Vienna diary (only one more day to type up). And maybe I'll end up making it to the cinema. I've been invited to see The Happening now as well - I'm gonna have a film overdose soon!