IHT: Monster band inspires national identity crisis in Finland

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The Finnish heavy-metal band Lordi, which won the Finnish Eurovision qualifiers and was chosen to represent the country at this year's Eurovision Song Competition in Athens, is prompting interest across the world.
      On Tuesday, the monster band was grinning on the cover of The International Herald Tribune in an article with the headline: "Monster band has Finland fretting over face it shows".
      Journalist Dan Bilefsky paints Finland as a nation with an identity crisis. Sending Lordi to represent Finland abroad apparently just goes too far.
      Initially, Bilefsky came to Finland in order to write a story on two subjects: one about Lordi, and another on Timo Soini, the leader of the True Finns party.
     
A number of people were interviewed for the article, including Timo Soini, MEP Alexander Stubb, Managing Director Alex Nieminen, and Ilkka Mattila, the music editor of the weekly supplement NYT of Helsingin Sanomat.
      And naturally also Mr Lordi himself, Tomi Putaansuu who originally comes from the northern city of Rovaniemi.
      While Nieminen sees the success of Lordi as the coming of a new Finnish self-awareness, Stubb believes that it is all about the Finns' low self-esteem.
     
In Ilkka Mattila's more moderate view, Lordi was chosen because the voters thought that Finland has nothing to lose at the Eurovision Song Contest any more.
      On the other hand, Finns take the Eurovision competition seriously, according to Dan Bilefsky. He believes that the eight last positions at Eurovision are a humiliation that is comparable with the Finnish men's hockey team's loss to Sweden or the government's appeasement of the Soviet Union in the Cold War era. 
     
Lordi himself, a.k.a. Tomi Putaansuu, concludes happily that they have actually won their competition already, as the Finns decided to send them to Athens, and not something dull and acceptable.
      The International Herald Tribune is an international daily newspaper owned by The New York Times Company. It is distributed to 180 countries and has a circulation of around 250,000.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Lordi to carry Finnish Eurovision greetings to Athens (14.3.2006)
  Lordi to represent Finland in Athens (13.3.2006)

Links:
  International Herald Tribune
  International Herald Tribune Europe

Helsingin Sanomat