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FINLAND: #UMK17 REVIEW: NORMA JOHN - BLACKBIRD

 
86/120
Ta-dah! We have a winner! Norma John, the other big favorite by fans with Emma  beats Lauri Yrjölä narrowly and wins our little #UMK17 panel with their Blackbird

If Norma John is your favorite, too, vote for it in my poll on right or for real here
Norma John are Leena Tirronen and Lasse Piirainen. They form this indie pop band based on their long lasting friendship and tied together by weird sense of humour and the fact they are musical soul mates. The main point for them is to write songs together, and their musical collaboration has lasted years, since high school even if bands and productions have changed over the years. They think UMK is a good platform for new names to emerge.
Leena Tirronen came third in the first Finnish X Factor in 2010 and released an album under name Leena Ihmemaassa. Lasse is an allaround musician, producer, writer and dreamer. He's about to take over the hugely popular musical quiz show BumtsiBum! as one of its two pianists later this spring. 
Blackbird tells about breakup and constriction, how everything reminds of the other person when all you want to do to forget (s)he ever existed. It's dramatic and very visual, like a movie, 
Should they win they promise to do their best in Kyiv, most of all it would be a huge honor. 

So, in our little international* panel Norma John was the number one for three of us (Michele, Markus and Robert) and it scored well with all the others as well, except Francisco and 3M. "Beautiful melody, voice and lyrics. This touches me truly" said Robert. "Thoughtful and touching, beautiful voice, a bit sad but emotional performance. I like this and imagine a beautiful staging" from Valentina. "A tad dull" says Jack in a moment of complete honesty but he still likes it and hopes it will come alive on stage. Marco imagines "the Big North, ice and winter" and thinks it's a classy song that both juries and audiences would appreciate. 
This blogger picked this up with Emma with the first hearing, only to find out so did most of the other fans which is pretty rare actually! The song is hauntingly beautiful, as said by most everyone before. It's also a song that keeps your attention the full three minutes and as an icing on the cake when the instrumental parts comes towards the end you think it's over but no, surprise, the vocals come back to nail and finish it. Great song but once again the staging will be crucial in a contest like Eurovision. Well done, 86 points and our winner! 

Final ranking and reviews:
1. Norma John – Blackbird 86

*Valentina (SanMarino), Jack (UK), Michele (Sweden/Italy), Markus (Germany/UK), Marco (Italy), Francisco (Spain/Venezuela), 3M (Malta), Robert (Netherlands), 3K (Finland) and Blogilkar (Finland). Most jurors have years of experience inside and outside Eurovision as artist, producer and delegation members. Some are just active fans while 3K are a group of teenagers, non-Eurovision fans who follow it as randomly as any normal people, :-) 
All of us gave votes from 0-10 to each entry, so the maximum votes is 120. 

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