A new breed of Finland fanatics

Music exports are attracting a small but dedicated bunch of Suomi enthusiasts on the Internet message boards

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By Miska Rantanen
     
      In the 1970s the few Suomi-fans in the world would arrive up here from Central Europe. The women had long Indian cotton dresses, the guys had full beards and velvet loons. On their backs were rucksacks, and in their eyes the keen glare of the nature zealot.
      What they sought from Finland was a closer proximity to nature. For many, this country represented the final frontier, the last totally unspoilt wilderness, whose simple lifestyle and equally simple - no, beg pardon, "exotic" was the word of choice - inhabitants appealed to these proto-Green saviours of the planet.
     
It has all changed now. These days, people become Finn-fans because of pop music that crosses national borders. The new boosters of Finland and things Finnish are to be found not here in the north but from the online forums of the websites erected by our export bands.
      And now it is our turn to be baffled at the exotic creatures.
     
Who, for instance, are all these Vardas and Regjes and Kiviis, who manage to write dozens of messages in a 9-page thread about the hairstyle and look of Perttu Kivilaakso, one of the three (formerly there were four) classically-trained cellists who make up Apocalyptica? Don't these young Dutch and French people have anything better to do?
      And what about Amber d, from New Orleans? She was all made up and *swooning* last month at the release at the end of November of an album of melancholic Finnish songs sung in Finnish, on which one of the vocalists will be - who else but? - Ville Valo of love-metal band HIM.
     
The greater part of the message-board users' astonishing interest in Finland can naturally be put down to the normal idol-worship.
      It could also be that Finnish rock attracts a rather special kind of fan. Our export magnets do not, after all, really represent the musical mainstream: Nightwish, melodic black/death metal act Children of Bodom, gothic metallers The 69 Eyes...
      The fan worship takes on some intriguing features as seen through Finnish eyes when the bands' devotees actually start to get seriously interested in the country, the culture, and the language of the musicians.
     
"Hi! I'd like to have lyrics of ‘Jäätelökesä', a Finnish song [by] Club For Five. Could you help me?" asks Andrea Italian Boy on the Värttinä forum in the section under Finno-Ugric Music and Culture.
      Some kind soul provides the Finnish lyrics, with the title presented in the partitive form, where it becomes "jäätelökesää". Andrea Italian Boy is confused, and asks: "But I thought Jäätelökesä was with an ä, and not Jäätelökesää...what is the correct form?"
      This is getting dangerously close to taking a beginner's course in Finnish.
      But there is more to come. The national epic had been discovered.
      "Yes! I have a copy of the Kalevala! It is so cool...The Kalevala is just too neat...The first poem really is just...dude...awesome. As far as literature goes, I'm workin' on The Unknown Soldier, but the Kalevala is what I'll finish first", gushes Sisu from Seattle on the Värttinä site.
     
Distance can be a pain. "I am so grrrrrrr ... I am 15 years old and I want to learn Finnish, but I can't find anywhere that can teach me. (I live in Sydney, Australia.). NOT HAPPY! It's not fair", grumbles someone down under called Nahkarouska.
      Picking out Finn-fans on a Värttinä message-board is not really such a big surprise. The threshold for fans of world music to shuttle between cultures has traditionally always been a low one.
     
The latest crop of fans of Suomi do not seem to be attracted by the tired old clichés of pines, lakes, and minor-key melancholy. International admirers of Mira Luoti and Paula Vesala, two girls who front pop-rock outfit PMMP, are drawn to the pair's female energy, and to the music, lyrics, and interpretation.
      New PMMP fans are located all over the world. And yet one of the band's strongest suits seems for many to be the completely incomprehensible language they work in. Unlike many of Finland's heavy or death-metal acts, PMMP do not sing in English.
      "I like that PMMP sing in Finnish, it gives their songs a 'unique' feel and creates a nice rhythm. Would love it if someone could translate some of their lyrics though, so I could understand what I was singing along to, especially Päiväkoti. My Finnish is not that advanced yet!" says RachelUK from Rochdale in England. She has been writing on the PMMP boards since March.
     
The most dedicated of non-Finnish-speaking fans have painstakingly translated lyrics into their own tongue a word at a time, with a dictionary at their side.
      Desperate appeals for "someone to translate this, PLEEZ" are found aplenty on the forums, whether it is the words to a song or a small clipping from a Finnish online newspaper.
     
Roxyta from Mexico runs a Spanish-language unofficial PMMP site back home, but following a Finnish band halfway across the world is not always easy.
      "I wanna buy the CDs and the singles but I live in Mexico and in this country [it] is almost impossible to get the PMMP CDs. Can somebody help me with this problem, please because I don't want to download illegal downloads", she cries from the heart, sending "Kisses to all PMMP fans".
     
In the best of cases, Suomirock has taken these people over body and soul. Many foreign fans confess to having started with The Rasmus (whose English-language songs have acquired a lot of airplay on international music channels) and graduated to the likes of PMMP.
      The most daring have even progressed to such names as TikTak, Apulanta, and Uniklubi, all of whom stubbornly sing in Finnish for the most part.
      It doesn't seem to matter much.
      "I searched a lot for Finnish rock bands that sang in Finnish (Tiktak, Apulanta...), and I can say that the rock sounds much better in Finnish", sums up Marta from Spain, again on the PMMP site.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 29.10.2006
     
The forum links below offer a few places to start. In some cases, even browsing as a guest requires registration.


Links:
  Värttinä
  HIM (requires registration for full access)
  Children of Bodom
  Apocalyptica
  Nightwish
  The 69 Eyes (a UK forum, as the official site was down)
  PMMP
  The Rasmus
  And, of course, Lordi
  What they are getting into: Finnish rock & pop music (Wikipedia)

MISKA RANTANEN / Helsingin Sanomat
miska.rantanen@hs.fi