It may be the beginning of the darkest and gloomiest season in the North, but we’re getting great news from one of the Nordic countries, Finland.
UMK, the Contest for New Music in Finnish, is expanding in 2022! Producers are dreaming up a live show on the 26th of February in Turku, Logomo arena. Seven Finnish entries will compete for the chance to represent Finland at Eurovision 2022 in Turin.
From Tuesday — that’s today — tickets for the national final can be purchased at Lippupiste. Tickets vary from 19.90€ to 111,90€ and include several meal options. Tickets also include entrance to the after-party. If you’re a party animal who only wants to attend the after-party, you are very welcome to do so and can get a ticket for 11€.
Photo: Aino Suni
The success of Blind Channel last year seems to have had an impact on the Finnish music industry and the audience. According to Yle, the broadcast of UMK reached almost 2 million Finns in 2021, helping make “Dark Side” one of the most-streamed Finnish songs of all time.
Photo: Miikka Varila
This year’s number of submissions topped 300 — a slight jump compared with last year’s 278 submitted entries. Altogether, over one thousand people participated in the songwriting of the music submitted. Tapio Hakanen — YleX Head of Music and the show’s jury — shared that it was a challenging task to select seven songs and artists for the 2022 contest.
“The artist lineup chosen for this year’s UMK is the most versatile ever. The contestants include emerging pop stars who have been successful on streaming services, promising international export talent, an artist known by all Finns, including an artist who has appeared on a very well-known music programme, a long-standing favourite whose career stretches from the 80s to today, and new names who enjoy high praise from the music industry. There was a clear increase in the number of submissions by rock bands, and we will see explosive rock energy also in the final.”
The artists for Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu 2022 will be announced at a press conference on January 12th and the songs will be presented one each day, beginning on January 13th.
Recently Yle has been teasing us with photo clues pointing at the UMK 2022 participants.
Have you guessed any of the entries? Are there any Finnish artists you would really like to see competing in UMK 2022? Let us know in the comments box below!
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I hope we can get a little more info about the contestants before january. This happened last year too that they teased who the artists might be in november and then just forgot about it until it was time to reveal them. But anyway there has already been drama surrounding the artist speculation. The band Cyan Kicks was following a bunch of Yle and UMK related accounts on instagram and when people pointed that out they quickly unfollowed just those accounts. And when people noticed that they unfollowed everybody except the band members’ personal accounts. Yikes. An artist called BESS… Read more »
Hadn’t heard of Diandra since 2014, would be nice if she tried again, but I fear her song wouldn’t fit Finland’s mood or momentum
Yaay! I feel like our neighbours always has the most wild unpredictable selection and winner. You always get surprised by the songs and by what they choose. They always have fun..
On 26th of February 2022 we’ll wear pink!
Most versatile lineup ever? Finland usually has the most versatile line up of all national selections already, so this isn’t just words for nothing. Interesting to see if UMK can bring big viewing figures once again and if that one spanish broadcater showing UMK could help the songs gain some popularity abroad before Eurovision.
I wish they had changed it from 7 artists to at least 10, especially since they’re talking about how versatile the songs were.
I’m sorry but UMK is not any Melodifestivalen. I think we would select more entries to participate in the selection if there only were more quality entries among the submissions. No need for filler entries imo.
We’re aware of that, but they received like 300 submissions. It wouldn’t have been hard to choose another 3 more quality/worthy entries among them