After two years of less than desirable results through internally selected acts, Finland is returning to open entry for its national final UMK 2020. And now budding Finnish acts can submit their potential hits for Rotterdam. But they’ll have to be quick — the entry period is only open for one week.
Broadcaster YLE announced the application period was open with a post on social media. The broadcaster asks, “Are you Finland’s next Eurovision representative? The song search is now open. Now is the time for action.”
Back in June, broadcaster YLE confirmed that Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu (UMK) would revert to open entry for 2020.
The 2020 edition is being held in partnership with youth-focused radio network YleX.
In September, YleX’s music manager Tapio Hakanen spoke about the recruiting process for UMK 2020. The competition aims to attract young, new talent (Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu literally means “New music competition”) and help boost the career of the competing acts.
Hakanen emphasized that they are looking for the complete package and are hoping to send a great singer with an equally brilliant song, with the proposal to be sent by the competitors themselves. No unknown voice demos or late-stage song pairing!
Hakanen also said that UMK 2020 was likely to involve between four and ten competing acts.
For Eurovision 2018 and 2019, YLE internally select its acts — The X Factor UK star Saara Aalto and international DJ Darude, respectively. In both years, each artist performed three songs at UMK, with the Eurovision entry decided by public and jury vote.
However, this format didn’t quite deliver the Eurovision results that Finland was perhaps hoping for. While Saara Aalto got Finland back into the Eurovision grand final, her song “Monsters” finished second to last. Earlier this year, Darude feat. Sebastian Rejman finished dead last in their semi-final with “Look Away”.
The grand final of UMK 2020 will be held on Saturday 7 March 2020 at Mediapolis television studio in Tampere. The competing acts will be announced at a special media event on 21 January 2020.
What do you think? Who would you like to see compete in UMK 2020? Who should fly the Finnish flag in Rotterdam? Tell us your thoughts below!
They get decent results with rock songs usually. I don’t understand why they avoid sending rock then. Those generic pop songs obviously don’t work for them.
Yes. Finland should sent Nightwish, Battle Beast, Beast In Black or Santa Cruz, for example.
I hope UMK will do/find/get something great this time cause Finns deserve it.
Finnish televote gave 12 points to Salvador or Jamala so it’s not a problem of Finnish taste. Give them something good to vote for.
They also usually gave points to Non-English songs. And for different music styles besides generic pop or ballads.
In 2018 they gave points to Hungary, Italy and France for example and 0 to Sweden or Norway.
UMK is like an imbalanced national final in this contest. They really need to make vast improvements on how they select their winners and what songs and stagings they must give to their worthy ones. It gets sad that their entrants get underrated year by year because of these.
Frankly speaking I have very low expectations from them once again. I hope they prove me wrong.
In last 10 years I have only liked two entries from Finland; 2014 and 2017.
So sorry about that. Finnish music isn’t nearly as bad as our Eurovision entries. We just make the wrong choices and YLE hosts low quality national finals. Hopefully this year we can prove your expectations wrong.
I desperately want my country to do well at ESC… I mean, we have only 1 top 10 finish in the last 33 years, and only 1 top 5 finish in all of our history of participating (almost 60 years).
I want Finland yo succeed as well 🙂 Even with bad results, you send great songs!
Love from Israel <3 (and from me mostly)
I want to put big hopes on Finland, but kinda held it back at the same time. Most of their picks were interesting, but they often failed presenting them on the Eurovision stage.
I know right. With the expection of Softengine, their stage looked good with all the shades of red and flashy lights. Norma John was fine too I guess. Look Away was ruined when they couldn’t fit the box on Tel Aviv’s stage.
We Should Be Through, Mustelmat, On It Goes. I just hope they don’t throw their next gem away like they discarded those, every time for atrocious entries. The biggest problem to me seems to be the voting.
good enough, was amazing
UMK as a format has been quite repulsive here in Finland. Mostly joke acts (with some occasional gems) have participated in it and the whole show has a reputition of a “glitter clown” show. That’s why talented Finnish singers usually avoid UMK. Another reason is that the format is constantly changing so artists don’t know what to expect and don’t dare to participate. UMK needs to find a solid format to stand by and make the show more professional: improve the sound system and stop with the glitter-madness and focus on the acts more! Finland has so much potential but… Read more »
That’s why it’s so important to finally make one of those occasional gems win, or to not accept joke acts in the first place.
Yeah. YLE should be more professional and leave out the joke acts from the competition: even if they might seem fun, they have no chance of winning and they make the show look trashy. Maybe, with the inclusion of YLEX this year (a radio station that loves to bring young new Finnish artists to the public), the juries will pick acts with lots of potential to the competition. It is also true that juries and the people of Finland have been voting for very wrong acts in UMK, televoters voted for PKN to win in 2015 even when there was… Read more »
Krista Siegfrids should try again with a song like ”Let it burn”. Also Isac Elliot would be a great choice.
No and no. It’s ridiculous to think that Krista is the only singer Finland has to offer.. and Marry Me wasn’t that outstanding. Isac is boring and would probably make some generic pop song which would place pretty badly.
Lord have mercy. 2013 was unnerving enough.
I think Krista has more to show. Her voice is best in ballads with real emotions. Personally i think Marry me wasn’t good song.
And at the moment Isac is one the biggest names in Finland. He has many hit songs, like Tired of missing you, She and Waiting game. He is also great performer and i think it would be fresh choice for us. He also did a version of Soldi, with Mahmood.
Norma John was ROBBED. There are plenty of eliminated acts that I’ve been bummed to see eliminated (Tulia, The Humans, Conan Osiris, Sinéad Mulvey and Black Daisy) but the only acts that I personally thought were of grand final caliber that I thought were robbed blind of a spot in the final in favor of lesser acts were Molly Sterling and Norma John. Still not over those. Sorry, feel the need to bring that up every time Finland comes up. Glad they’re going back to what worked more or less. Darude was a big nothing in Tel Aviv, although my… Read more »
something in finnish maybe, given last 3 entries were disappointing overall
and own language can still be very diverse, either fun folk bop or a ballad, and i prefer the former, we need something fun from finland in rotterdam
Yes! I’ve been longing for something Finnish from Finland for ages (something else than Punk or Folk). Finnish is beautiful, it would work well in a ballad or a pop song.
Why Saara in the thumbnail, and not the most recent participants, from 2019, Darude and Sebastian?
Probably because they were dreadful skskskskakaksk
Saara was dreadful too, but always are posted pictures of the most recent participants.
Hoping we’ll find a winner amongst Finland’s competing acts! On a side note, can you stop using that photo of Saara you used in the thumbnail of the post. That show was a trainwreck :/ Don’t want to remember it.