EUROVISION 2024 FINLAND- WINDOWS95MAN - NO RULES + UMK 2024

YLE brought Finland's UMK aka Uuden musiikin kilpailu 2024 the the biggest ever arena for our national show and expectations were high after last year's Käärijä and Cha cha cha mania and second place in Liverpool. Tickets sold out in minutes and the fever was high before the songs were even released. For the selection it all remained the same and open call received 419 submissions and as usual seven was chosen for the one off final. Why seven? Yle has explained it's the amount they can fully give their all for the production, music videos and staging. And why not? UMK is living its prime time and for a few years already every song has charted and three years in a row a song from UMK has been the most streamed and sold one of the year so sometimes less is more! In every way.

And just like last year most every act was already known, or even a big one. Except one. At least to the majority of the audience. And just like last year that one won. But unlike last year as a huge surprise! Instead of being the clear favorite, number one in charts and radio play and gaining attention also abroad this time the winner was the one who got lowest streams and chart positions, no one really talked about it before and in a way it was kinda forgotten. Until the stage show where it charmed the audience and became a runaway winner..... despite being last with the juries!

Eventually No rules reached #6 in both official charts and the Radioplay chart. Sara Siipola's Paskana was the fan favorite and spent several weeks at #1 being the pre-final favorite to follow Käärijä. Thinking back now that all songs are out for Malmö 2024 Eurovision Sara might have stood out more being a sort of ballad in league of Serbia and Portugal only this year, while No rules battles it out with Austria, Croatia, Netherlands and other ones aimed for televoters rather than juries. But time will tell and at this point I'm perfectly fine for Teemu & Henri doing it for us rather than Sara. 

Read more about Windows95man and Henri Piispanen here. 

This is Windows95man's first original release after a couple Dj mix tapes. Vocalist Henri Piispanen is in Pasa band, formed in 2008 and they have released already three albums. 

As I said already in previous posts this may not have been my favorite in UMK but I predicted their vixctory anyways, and after seeing their performance I was sure about it. And I'm ok with it. My other choice would have been Sara Siipola as I wrote above but here we go, no rules! I believe we will sail to the final pretty easily but struggle big time there. But then again, who knows?

In our Home Jury they scored anything between 2 and 9, half the jury being a bit ashamed, the other being entertained a lot. 

UMK 2024 (February 10, 2024)

1. Windows95man - No rules (jury 28 + televote 72.651 = 285) 313

2. Sara Siipola - Paskana (70 + 51.743 = 203) 273

3. Mikael Gabriel / Nublu - Vox populi (42 + 34.765 = 136) 178

4. Cyan Kicks - Dancing with demons (48 + 20.392 = 80) 128

5. Jesse Markin - Glow (34 + 19.381 = 76) 110

6. Sexmane - Mania (34 + 18.864 = 74 ) 108

7. Sini Sabotage - Kuori mua (38 + 6.872 = 27) 65