Lordi, Lordi, Lordi
May 22, 2006
I happened to be in Finland on business the past few days, which was also the finals of the famous Eurovision song contest. Finland has a rich history in this regard; having lost for 50 years. In fact, most years, Finland has never received any winning votes.
Now, the shock in Europe is that Finland's heavy metal monster bad, Lordi, has won the contest with their new song "Hard Rock Hallelujah" beating out Russia's Dima Bilan's more romantic "Never Let You Go" by a wide margin. In fact, "Hard Rock Hallejulah" won with more votes than has happened in the history of the contest. Forget past Eurovision winners like Abba and Celine Dion, this was a metal fest par excellence!
From what I can tell with the local radio scene, most Finns seem to prefer the more traditional middle of the road crooners and Finnish folk music to the hard rocking sounds of Lordi, so this may be a pyrhic victory. If Finland can't win with it's traditional approach, then they'll just scorch the earth with something so weird everyone will hate it. And in so doing, everyone will vote for Lordi.
That being said, Lordi's music is not as bad as it looks. It's fairly melodious, borrowing more from KISS and 1980's hair bands like Twisted Sister than from today's tuneless death / rap/ speed metal. Still, you wouldn't want to run into these guys on a darkened street in Helsinki looking for herring.
- Lordi: Official Site
- YouTube: Hard Rock Hallejulah live
- Rockpages: Lordi Interview
- Wikipedia: Lordi
- NY Times: Finland Squirms