Following the grand reveal of the seven acts competing in Finland’s Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu (UMK) 2023, it’s time to hear their songs one at a time. Starting off the week of releases is Keira. Her entry “No Business on the Dancefloor” proves that she very much has business beneath any and all disco balls.
The song has quite a dream team behind it: highly successful musician and songwriter Teemu Brunila, UMK and Eurovision star Axel Ehnström, also known as Paradise Oscar, and German chart-topper Jason OK.
Keira says the song brings some much-needed versatility to UMK.
“With this song, I could take something a little different from Finland to the world,” she says.
Keira – “No Business on the Dancefloor”
With her UMK song and performance, the energetic Keira wants to make Finns come out of their shells. Parties, mysticism and dancing can be expected from February’s UMK show.
Keira — full name Keira Lundström — made waves on The Voice of Finland, where she stunned viewers with her powerful voice. She said: “When I got to sing in front of thousands of people, this feeling of euphoria just washed over me”.
Keira cites Ariana Grande, Dua Lipa, Doja Cat and K-pop groups BTS and Stray Kids as major influences on her sound and style.
UMK 2023 song release schedule
The UMK 2023 songs are being revealed one per weekday until 20 January. They’re set to be released at 00:00 EET on the dates listed below:
- Keira — “No Business On The Dancefloor” (Thursday 12 January)
- Benjamin — “Hoida mut” (Friday 13 January)
- Robin Packalen — “Girls Like You” (Monday 16 January)
- Lxandra — “Something To Lose” (Tuesday 17 January)
- Käärijä – “Cha Cha Cha” (Wednesday 18 January)
- KUUMAA — “Ylivoimainen” (Thursday 19 January)
- Portion Boys — “Samaa taivasta katsotaan” (Friday 20 January)
UMK 2023 will take place on Saturday 25 February at Logomo Arena in Turku, starting at 20:00 CET / 21:00 EET.
The winner will be chosen jointly by Finnish television viewers and international juries. The public will account for 75% of the vote and the juries for the remaining 25%. The finalists were chosen from 362 applicants by a jury of music industry professionals led by Tapio Hakanen, YleX’s Head of Music.
What do you make of “No Business on the Dancefloor”? Do you think Keira could win UMK 2023 and represent Finland at Eurovision? Let us know in the comments below!
This is excellent! Hook, vocals, instrumentals, catchy lyrics. Don‘t care if it wins UMK.
On loop right now.
What way does Harry Potter swing, anyway? I don’t get it.
Being such a good wizard he swings it effortlessly of course, and thats how dancing should be – otherwise you have No Business on the Dancefloor!
He swings in the direction of his Wingardium Leviosa.
It’s a pretty good song but it’s gonna be hard to stage if these are her dancing abilities. I hope she wasn’t really trying and was just going for that ”I can’t be bothered” attitude. The song has several parts that simply need an impressive choreography and she’s singing about someone who needs to be a great dancer.
I’m hopeful but slightly worried. C’mon, Keira, impress us, please!
Still getting used to this ”account” and I misspelled my new email. Hoping that typo comment meets the same fate as many of them on my old account and never gets approved
I just found out that this cutie is only 17 and now I feel kinda bad…
You’re doing amazing, sweetie! (in a non-patronizing voice)
It’s a pretty good song but it’s gonna be hard to stage if these are her dancing abilities. I hope she wasn’t really trying and was just going for that ”I can’t be bothered” attitude. The song has several parts that simply need an impressive choreography and she’s singing about someone who needs to be a great dancer.
I’m hopeful but slightly worried. C’mon, Keira, impress us, please!
This is good !
It’s a nice song, with the instrumental and vocals being the best part. Imo it’s solid, though I think we haven’t heard the winner yet.
I am sucker for a good bass line so this is a good start from UMK.
Voice is exactly like Rihanna. Fortunately Finns never choose this, which don’t represent themselves!
This sounds more like an Ukrainian entry than the actual Ukrainian entry lol
A bop ! Good start Finland OMG !!!!
PS : The songs for Croatia Eurovision 2023 (Dora) came out & it’s very strong !!! For a 3rd consecutive year !!!
Damir Kedzo, Harmonica Disonance, Dana, Eni Jurisic, Meri Andrakovic & Hana Masic are bop !!!
I like the flute and the little vocal trill thing. Good song.
I can feel the studio killers aura from this song and she’s serving as well. I love it.
UMK, as ever, with a generally high floor for the competing songs. Hopefully they find a really really high ceiling with one of them.
I know I’m gonna be in the minority and will be downvoted but something feels a bit off to me in her delivery. The song is good. Her voice is great. But she’s looking a little stiff as if the song doesn’t really fit her personality. And she doesn’t feel 100 with the choreo. And that’s a controlled video and not a live performance. It all reminds me of how Kadiatou served One Touch at Melfest last year. I think as we’ve seen with Eleni and Chanel—these songs need a superstar performer to truly stand out at Eurovision and not… Read more »
Eleni Foureira’s age in 2018: 31 years
Chanel’s age in 2022: 30
Kadiatou’s age in 2021: 20 years
Keira’s age in 2023: 17
You can’t expect someone over ten years younger to have the same abilities as a person who has had over half of the young persons age to practice. When Eleni was 18, Keira was born.
Yeah. You’re probably right. You can’t send in a lamb to do a lioness’ job. Reminds me of Margaret too and Cool Me Down—that was even a better song to me but the live performance was a bit robotic. Mind you—I don’t think any of them were awful. It’s just didn’t have that next level of WOW. But as a song—all solid.
We all have to start somewhere, but yeah with performers that have years of practice the ones without that time seem to have less of that Wow effect. All good songs, even Cool Me Down.
I like it, nice hook, great dance song and the lyrics – like it or not will open up a dialogue with people as the Potter gifs start flooding.
One of my favourites of the season so far.
Love everything about it!
Sweat that salty water!
I regard that as a “brand”, a harmful brand, which is against the rules. Change the lyric or byebye.
Harry Potter is what I’m talking about. What I was replying to has been deleted.
But I went to uni with a man called Harry Potter. He’s certainly not a brand. 🙂
A solid start, I think.
This is a great bop! Love the flute drop, whick makes it instantly remembered. If she can carry this live and put on a show it could be a great entry for Eurovision indeed! Love<3
Lyrically quite poor but I do like the drop. It’s interesting.
It’s a good song, quite generic, but the music elevates it. The lyrics are cringe. I give it 4/5 – good start for this selection.
As an opener the question now becomes is this the peak or is this the standard. If this is as good as it gets than I’m happy, it’s a good song and I can see it making top 10 in eurovision if done right live. If this is the average song in the whole of umk though, umk might be the best nf this year beating even spain and norway who have outstanding lineups.
Regarding this, I think I’ve noticed a pattern, I think YLE drops the best songs on Friday, Monday and Tuesday, but I can’t check that rn
By “best” I mean the ones that end up doing best at their year’s UMK
the drop feels like it’s coming from Ukraine rather than Finland. plus, I like the colourful vibes from the music video; it reminds me of something that can be brought by Noa Kirel, who also happens to be the Israeli representative for this year.
What a good start