Sing, Europe, sing!

Today is the big final of the Eurovision Song Contest in Baku. Of course the weather today it pretty good and there are also lots of other things to do tonight then watching TV. Watching the ESC in Finland has one quite interesting extra to it though. Finland is the only country where the lyrics of all the songs are subtitled. For those of you who understand some Finnish it should be quite interesting to also follow what artists from countries like Serbia or Bosnia and Herzegovina are singing about.

Sweden's Laureen has good chances to win tonight.

Also quite interesting to know is that you can watch the ESC with two different commentaries. There is a Finnish and a Swedish audio line. It is really amazing through which trouble Finns go through to provide Swedish versions of everything for a minority of around 5 % of the society.

The show starts tonight at 10 p.m. on YLE 2. Have fun!

The amazing Voice of Finland

Since the end of December The Voice of Finland is searching for the best singer in the country. Those who haven’t seen the show so far will say: “What? Isn’t that just another stupid casting show? Aren’t they all the same?” But The Voice of Finland is actually really something else.

Jesse Kaikuranta

I met one of the candidates, Jesse Kaikuranta, in Helsinki. He explained that the concept comes from the Netherlands and has been running successfully in several European countries already. In four teams, each tutored by a famous Finnish singer (Elastinen, Lauri Tähkä, Michael Monroe and Paula Koivuniemi), the candidates compete against each other. Still the atmosphere within the teams is good, the candidates can choose to sing what they want and what is most important, the heads of the teams are really supportive. Also within the shows the critic is always constructive – in contrast to known formats e.g. Idols or X-Factor.

There seems to be something special about the version from Finland. Jesse told me, that even the creators from the Netherlands where surprised about the high quality the singers in Finland brought to the stage. Well, Jesse himself also amazed with great performance. One of the highlights of the show so far was his duet with Juho Räisänen singing Minä ja hän. Try watching it without getting chills.

You can find more great performances on their website. Check out e.g. Saara Aalto, Mikko Herranen and all the other extraordinary singers.

The show airs every Friday at 8 p.m. on Nelonen (channel 4). Enjoy!