Music|The success of the wrapper has increased the popularity of nominated songs in Finnish, but because of Blind Channel, there are enough songs sung in English
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The search for representative songs for the new music competition started on Monday.
The final of the competition interests the public more than ever.
The UMK final is going in the same direction as Sweden’s five-piece qualifier Melodifestivalen.
The songs sung in Finnish have not replaced the English-speaking candidates.
Next The search for representative songs for the spring New Music Competition started on Monday. The popularity of the competition has grown all the time, and Yle, which organizes the competition, believes that the UMK final itself is at least as interesting as entering the Eurovision final.
The application period for next year’s candidates ends on Sunday, August 25. The organizers expect a large turnout. UMK’s popularity has also grown among the public in recent years, and the tickets for the final competition organized in Tampere’s Nokia Arena in the spring were sold out in a few minutes.
UMK: n YleX’s music manager representing the organizers Tapio Hakanen says that UMK is currently a remarkably important event for introducing new domestic artists and new songs.
“Part of the interest is that one of the finalists is going to represent Finland in the Eurovision final,” he says.
The UMK final is going in the same direction as Sweden’s Eurovision Song Contest, i.e. Melodifestivalen, whose final competition has gathered more TV viewers than the actual Eurovision Song Contest final.
Hakanen admits that a lot of work has been done at Yles to raise the profile of UMK, but there are not enough resources for a production like Melodifestivalen. The Swedish qualifying period includes several preliminaries, which are organized in ice rinks in different parts of Sweden. There are also much more candidates in the initial stages than in Finland.
Songwriters and artists are currently interested in UMK’s influence on the domestic music market, and therefore more and more songs sung in Finnish are available. On the other hand, the popularity of the Finnish language has been increased by Käärijän ie Jere Pöyhönen in Finnish No No No wild success in the 2023 five-year final.
“Furthermore, foreign Vius fans have reacted enthusiastically to, for example, Kuumaa and by Erika Vikman for performances”, says Hakanen.
The songs sung in Finnish have still not replaced the English-language candidates.
“Previously, it was thought that the choice of the English language was only related to music export, but Blind Channel proved that wrong, because the band gained a lot of fans in the country.”