Skip to main content

Presenting the 2010 stars: Kuunkuiskaajat - Finland



  • Two singers from Finland’s most successful contemporary folk group Värttinä will represent the country at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest in Oslo.
When Kuunkuiskaajat took most everyone by surprise (not me I can proudly say!) and won the Finnish final with 42% of votes for Työlki ellää it didn't take long before the critic started flying. The song has been accused of being "Russian" or "Gypsy" but those who say so should take a moment and study the Finnish music culture a bit more, especially the Carelian part of it, and while doing it read also a bit of Kalevala. In short it's based on a typical type of poetic song called rekilaulu where one sings the lead and the others repeat the same, often sung when riding the horse carriage to kill the time and entertain themselves. Simple as that. Perfectly Finnish, or rather Carelian, not Russian. Add a specialist in childbirth singing and a puppeteer and you have Moonwhisperers, or Kuunkuiskaajat who perform it.

But let's get back to the girls. Johanna Virtanen (33) started her musical studies at the Central Ostrobothnian Conservatory in Kokkola. She continued studying folk music and singing at the Sibelius Academy. She is a professional vocal teacher and is specialized in childbirth singing. In addition she plays harmonium, kantele and 2-row accordion. She joined Värttinä in 2001. Susan Aho (36) started playing accordion at the age of 13. She has a Master of Music degree from the Sibelius Academy Folk Music Department. Susan already played accordion on Värttinä’s “Vihma” album (released in 1998) before moving to vocals. Susan is not only a professional musician, but also a puppeteer. Currently she works at the internationally renowned puppet theatre Sampo.

While singing in Värttinä the girls decided they also want to do something else together in the sparetime and Kuunkuiskaajat is the result of that. They describe their music as retro-etno-schlager which actually is a very good definition.  For their Eurovision adventure they have made a very fitting video, as well as recently released dance mix for the joy of the fans. Their other songs include Taivaallinen, Maailman majoilla, Loputon tie, and you can follow their videoblog here on their way to Oslo 2010. Their debut album was released in late 2009 and Työlki ellää, that translates to You can live by working but business makes you rich, has topped the airplay charts on RadioSuomi for several weeks, but the physical single has not been released yet.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

ESC 2016 WISH LIST: MARGARET FOR POLAND

Małgorzata Jamroży aka Margaret has also been tipped for Eurovision and apparently she did turn it down but she'd be perfect. She's got a look and persona you can't unnotice nor forget, she's got hit songs, she has been voted or nominated for everything from Trendy artist to the Hope of the Year, Fashion Icon and Glamour Woman of the year besides the usual best video, song, album, debut..... Oh she's also a fashion designer! She's very clever with social medias and would surely use it to her advantage if selected for Stockholm 2016. Her debut album is titled Add the blonde , do we need to say more? Except it includes mostly Swedish written pop tunes like Tell me how are ya , Wasted , Start a fire and Heartbeat . And of course her debut single and internationally noticed Thank you very much that you can enjoy below with all its anti-textil feel. I think she's Eurovision perfection, she's cheeky and fun, can we have her?

SONGS OF THE YEAR 2015: #5 KRISTA SIEGFRIDS - ON & OFF

Krista Siegfrids is delivering nice pop tunes one after another and this one is particularly catchy and soon you will be singing along..... Hopefully her Melodifestivalen entry will be equally good!

ESC 2016 BELARUS: NAKED WITH WOLVES?

Today's funniest Eurovision related story comes from Belarus. Some sources claim Ivan wants to perform on stage naked and with live wolf or wolves. It surely would be a first on Eurovision stage! We have seen some forgotten underwear over the years, and some cardbox animals though..... Is it time to take things a bit further?  No, according the rules live animals are not allowed, and Eurovision being a family show nudity won't do either. (It seems to be ok to be half naked if you are a dancer though..... )

ESC 2016 ARMENIA: IT'S IVETA MUKUCHYAN!

Armenian tv has revealed tonight the name of their artist for the 2016 Eurovision song contest in Stockholm. It's 29-year-old Iveta Mukuchyan. Born in Yerevan she moved with her family to Germany when she was 6. At 23 she moved back to Armenia and continued her music studies. She has taken part in the Armenian Pop Idol finishing 5th in 2010 and she also did The Voice of Germany . In 2012 she was voted the Sexiest Armenian.  Armenian tv has made a call for songwriters all over the world to submit a song for her by November 13, 2015.  Let's see which direction the final choice will go, Freak or her latest release that you can hear below.... Whatever it is it will be an improvement from last year's fiasco.....

Regina Lund - naked and censored

Regina Lund's new video Jag är osynlig was censored by Youtube only minutes after it had been uploaded. In the video she was playing a female Jesus who gets crusified in the end. "I was shocked!" she says. "There's nothing more naked in it as in every church! It's ok to have naked man hanging on the wall but my nakedness is too much on internet? ". Oh well, no comment. She's prepairing a new album Dare Regina Lund and we of course remember her from her Melodifestivalen 2007 adventure with Rainbow star .

CAROLA'S BOOBS STEAL THE SHOW, SVT APOLOGIES

Update! Another thing got Swedes talking last night: Carola's boobs when she was giving away an award. This is not the first time her boombs cause headlines; her misfortunate adventures in the 80's in Japan wer explained with her boobs being too big for Japanese market. Ok.... Or was it the song ? Anyways, Carola apologies and says she thinks the dress is stylish and elegant (even her friends said so) and she's a mature woman in her 40s, not a 16-year-old girl and looks like one. The Swedish Oscars, Guldbagge awards were given out last night. Carola was there as a guest star to sing Barbra Streisand's The way we were when honoring the movie stars who passed away during 2012. However, the cameras were too much on Carola, not on the stars showed in photos in the background and that upset many viewers as that part of the show was to celebrate them, not Carola. Oh well...  The producer of the show tells in Aftonbladet the part of the show was made the sam

MALTA: THE QUEEN OF L-GHANJA TAL-POPLU - CORAZÓN MIZZI!

If The Travellers have proven recently one can do great singing in Maltese there's also someone else doing great stuff: Corazón Mizzi. While in Malta I was looking for some Maltese CDs only to find out they pretty much don't exist, and the most helpful staff in legendary D'Amato - probably the world's oldest record store today - suggested me Corazón's Hawn jien (2014 album). Having nothing else really to bring home I decided to go or it without even realizing it is the Corazón from Maltese Eurovision selections. And what a find it was! Thank you D'Amato! But let's start from the obvious: Eurovision. Corazón has been offering us songs in the Maltese Eurovision selection since 2009, actually making her best result this year with Falling glass , one of my favorites btw. I also liked last year's Secretly but that failed even the final. But Corazón's true calling is singer-songwriter in Maltese as this excellent album clearly shows. We have al

EUROVISION TWEETS REVEAL DETAILS....

Brandwatch, one the world's leading providers of analytics of social medias has summed up the Twitter buzz during the Eurovision 2013 final on May 18, 2013. Over 1,8 million tweets have been analyzed and it's rather fascinating stuff. On top you can see the figure showing topics. Romania and Ireland got the tweeting go wild as did Greece, Belarus, Malta and Armenia. And you can see political tweets took over during the voting..... The figure above is for the emotions. Once again Romania and Greece got it going wild. A lot of love and joy was spread all over during the show while hate & anger increased during the voting. Is someone surprised? But have a look and analize yourself here . And here you can access to country by country details. Did Ukraine's giant get people's attention? or Moldova's outfit? Did Ireland have sex factor? Or Azerbaijan? And what about Belgium's dance routine?

SUMMER SONGS 2015: ANNA TATANGELO - INAFFERRABILE

Anna Tatangelo is back with her kitchiest video to date, I guess. Inafferabile has a video that surely gets your attention but the song.... well, it's summer! Libera this is not for sure. Enjoy the scenery!