Don’t look away! Things are heating up in Finland as UMK 2020 gets into full swing. Armed with a new format, the Finnish broadcaster YLE will be looking to unearth the song to take them to just their second final since 2015. Now, the first of the six potential tracks is upon us. Tika has released “I Let My Heart Break”.
Tika “I Let My Heart Break” (UMK 2020)
Tika was the winner of the 2018 series of the X Factor Finland, where she was mentored by Saara Aalto. Her speciality is power ballads and she says her biggest idols are Whitney Houston and Celine Dion. The UMK jury described her song as being “at home in the latest James Bond movie.”
Music and lyrics: Neea Jokinen, Timo Oiva, Oliver@i-One Music, Lotus Wang
UMK 2020
The final of Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu 2020 will take place on 7 March in Tampere. Hosted by Mikko Silvennoinen and Eurovision veteran Krista Siegfrids, the winner will be decided by televote and an expert jury.
In the past two years, Finland has internally selected its artist and utilised UMK to select their song. This yielded mixed results, with Saara Aalto ending a three year non-qualification streak in 2018 before Darude and Sebastian Rejman crashed out in Tel Aviv.
This year, YLE has abandoned the internal selection and UMK will feature six different artists vying for the right to represent Finland in Rotterdam.
This is very good! Surely should go to final. Very good singer and absolutely surprisingly good because its from Finland. Finland is known as bad music but this is internationally good song.
Love this. It has this “retro” feel which appeals to me. But I must say that the way she “says” the words “coffee” and “number” does not exist in the English vocabulary! Just pronounce them the right way, it will still fit the song (if you’re not deaf…). 🙂
Yesterday i was say to my friends “as the days pass as songs are released songs good but not good until in not top 10 for me at eurovision season” but i listened to Tika I told Waoow . current in my top 5
Its nice but i would be suprised if a song like this won in Finland. A litte to much average
Never! It’s too ‘decent’ for Finns to pick. They want something shocking, even it’s bad, because think it’s better to stand out no matter how bad it it’s like 2015.
As a native speaker I find the lyrics a bit jarring but the song has a good melody and she has a great voice so I think this could take Finland back to the final
Just meh. She knows how to sing but the voice nor the song are something special.
Non qualifier…next please
And you all the people would now that?! XD
It’s not awful, but not amazing either. It’s kind of average and her vocals are definitely the best element in the song.
But knowing the quality of UMK songs though, it might be the best one in the bunch.
desperately need a revamp to make it more epic
There is one thing to be mentioned?The song is produced together with some Chinese(Taiwanese) members, people feel not their style cos mainly they listen to western pop music, this song however, has a clear eastern rhythm. And asa I heard the chorus, it appears so familiar to me that I realized it’s a common chorus among eastern music culture. So I bet this song would be appealing to eastern viewers cos it fits their taste well.
TRUE… this could easily be a Mandopop/Cantopop hit
Aside from the line about coffee, I don’t have any problems with this.
Agreed, that definitely jars and she will have a caffeine problem very quickly if she carries on.
I just had no idea why so many people say this is not great. This is perfect and I already see Finland in the final this year. What a wonderful voice. This is exactly what world needs, to
save the lost, original sound. People nowadays are too restrained to feel emotion, to be sentimental that they were affected by the high tempo of the music culture nowadays. Anyway, Tika’s sound is wonderful and I’m backing Tika!
Strong vocally, but doesn’t seem very fresh to me . Still this could do well with juries , the public will tank this
It’s a decent start, though not my cup of tea. I like the verses, but when she gets loud during the chorus, it becomes uncomfortable to my ears and the key change makes it worst. She has a strong voice, that’s for sure.
she looks like a lovely girl but this song is one big vocal exercise over an uninspiring instrumental track… i hope finland is saving the best for last
If you wanna listen to the second UMK song “Cicciolina” that got leaked, it’s here 🙂 https://vimeo.com/386837152
Cicciolina sounds very dated 1970s disco. Stupid. She looks very bad on stage and almost robotic.
Tika can clearly sing. The lyrics are fairly good in terms of their specificity (the verses anyway) but they tell a confusing and contradictory story at points. The music moves between being sad and triumphant as well. It’s like two good songs were put together and the result is an uneven song whose separate parts are stronger than the whole. It will be elevated live though and often uneven production can be overshadowed by strong vocals and staging. It does sound a bit dated, although it has a vintage charm as well. It’s barely James Bond though.
Very good start, Finland!
This is already better than some of the songs that qualified for the Eurovision final last year. Her voice is strong and the song shows it off. I’m hoping this isn’t the best you’ve got but if it is, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.
The song is too shouty for me and I think it would get lost at Eurovision
I like her voice and think the verses are stronger than the chorus. Overall i dont find it a competitive song. This won’t be a good choice. I liked Erika’s song though! Bring back the schlager 😀
*Aiste Pilvelyte entered the chat* Somebody said schlager?
Excellent start from Finland! I’m a sucker for power ballads so this song is right up my alley, it’s wonderfully structured and magically fierce, I could not contain my excitement when the key change dropped! I’m hoping TIKA is amazing live, already seeing her score very well with juries.
Did you guys delete the article about cicciolina on yle’s request? 😉 It was a total bop nevertheless.
Cicciolina is very dated song and the singer very robotic on stage. I hated it. Please, Finland not Cicciolina keep that yourself.
The melody is too boring to have an impact. I’ll take both coffees, though. Hopefully, the X-Men rescued Finland this year and gave Zühlke her Eurovision world hit or whatever the description was cos this one here is just a NF filler.
Wow, what a voice! 🙂
I like this one. Crunchy chords and raised harmonies, wo-hoo.
I’m sure that someone will mention the dodgy English grammar in Verse 1, but, I like this song anyway.
I liked the song, but got downvoted. Please explain.
Evidently this no longer applies. Purple gone silly.