Introduction

• Participant(s): Darude feat. Sebastian Rejman
• Song: "Look Away"
  
• Writer(s): Sebastian Rejman & Ville Virtanen
• Composer(s): Sebastian Rejman & Ville Virtanen
• Broadcaster: YLE
• Social media:         
  
• Team review: 

Like last year, Finland has made an internal choice to find the right representative for Tel Aviv. In a special show called UMK, three songs have been presented and the Finnish public and international juries were able to vote for the favourite song. One of the most popular Finnish DJ’s Darude has been chosen to represent Finland in the ESC 2019. Together with the singer Sebastian Rejman, Darude will fly the Finnish colours to Israel in May.

Darude’s real name is Ville Virtanen, born in 1975 in a small town called Eura, close to Rauma. Darude has become a very popular DJ, when he published “Sandstorm”  , an electronic masterpiece, which climbed up the charts worldwide, even in the USA. The second song “Feel The Beat” also become a huge hit. He has been touring around the world. By now he has released four studio albums. Now is living with his American wife and his daughter in Salo, Southwest Finland.

Sebastian Rejman was born in 1978 is a Finnish singer, actor and TV host. Sebastian is part of several bands such as Sebastian & The 4th Line Band. He appears in the Finnish soap opera Nurses and Sebastian has been backstage reporter in The Voice Finland.

The Finnish entry “Look Away” has the typical Darude sound. Due to the fact that Darude never sings, Sebastian is featuring the song. This combination is modern and appealing. The modern rhythm and the catchy chorus has a certain standard. Having such a dancefloor song in the ESC in Tel Aviv is quite suitable, as Tel Aviv is also known as party city with big celebrations and concerts. The stage performance in the Finnish UMK show was solid. To win the ESC it need a bit more creativity and atmosphere.

History

• Debut: 1961
• Participations: 53
• Victories: 1
• Finals: 45 (8 since 2004)
• Top 10: 12
• Chances for Top 10: 23%
• Chances for Final: 56%

For the 53rd time Finland is participating in the Eurovision Song Contest. Finland has joined quite late in 1961 and missed out some years between 1995 and 2003 because of new rules and bad placings countries had to pause for a year. Over all the years Finland’s reputation in regards of success has suffered. Even if Finland has send songs of outrageous quality quite often and many great evergreens, but the points did not flow as for other countries and therefore Finland was often found on the bottom of the scoreboard undeservedly. Three times Finland received not even a single point. Maybe this was due to the language issue or it has just been the wrong choice of the Finnish entries for Eurovision. Nowadays every country could chose the language of its choice and the Finnish entries are mostly sung in English.

After all the years of waiting the hard rock band  Lordi came with “Hard Rock Hallelujah” in 2006 and Finland had its first fulminate victory in history which was overdue for a long time. The entire country was in Lordi-fever and a long-cherished wish came true. A wonderful and unforgettable contest has been held in Helsinki a year later.

At least Finland is quite often passing the Semi Finals, eight times out of sixteen Finland has made it into the Grand Final with the utmost different styles from hard rock, ballads pop up to folkloristic songs. Last time Finland has been seen in the Grand Final was with Saara Aalto and “Monstes” in Lisbon last year, she only made the 25th place.

Biggest success

1x 1st place

• Lordi - "Hard Rock Hallelujah" (2006)

Video Nostalgia

• “Niin Kaunis On Taivas” | Jasmine , Rank 23, 1996, Oslo

• “Leave Me Alone“ | Hanna Pakarinen , Rank 17, 2007, Helsinki

• “Something Better“ | Softengine , Rank 11, 2004, Copenhagen