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Drag, metal, grunge, pop and schlager
Finland: Meet the participants
esctoday.com's partner website, escfinland.eu provides the following artist biographies. You can also see images of the artists by visiting www.escfinland.eu:
Cristal Snow
Cristal has been performing from a young age. At the age of 20 she moved to New York to study in the theatre program at City College of New York. In New York she added performing in drag as an extension to her acting. In 2003 she had to return to Finland and eventually entered and won the annual Miss Drag Queen competition in 2006. She has released two singles "Cristal Clear" and "Pump It Up" which have been hugely successful in clubs and online. Her musical style is Electro pop.
Official website
Official MySpace
Crumbland
Crumbland has existed as a band for several years. Band members are Jontte Genberg (vocals, guitar), Antti Pylkkänen (bass), Pexi Parviainen (drums) and Teemu Seppälä (guitar, b.vocals) In autumn 2005 Crumbland was signed to a small indie label called Terra Recordings, and their debut album was released in June 2007. The fourpiece make grungy indie rock.
Official site
Official MySpace
Hanna Marsh
Hanna Marsh is a 27-year old singer-songwriter from Helsinki. She has studied music extensively and in August 2006, Hanna Marsh released her debut album "Chameleon Girl - Sleeping Under The Rising Sun" on EMI Finland, which consists entirely of her own songs. She wants to tell stories with her Tori Amos-esque songs, and she also states Kate Bush as one of her influences.
Official site
Official MySpace
Jenna Bågeberg
Jenna Bågeberg was crowned the Tango Queen 2007 on the hugely popular annual televised Tango Festival in Seinäjoki. A year prior she had already been the tango princess. She was born in Kontiolahti in 1988. Her debut album "Aamukuuteen" is released by Edel Finland in November. Her style could be described as schlager pop.
More information on Jenna here (in Finnish)
Jippu
Jippu is a 21-year old singer from Helsinki. She has already won an Emma for her debut album. She was the first ever signing for the record company Helsinki Music Company. Her musical style is ethereal ballads.
Official site
Two of her music videos on the her record company website here.
Official MySpace
Kari Tapio
Kari is a veteran artist on the Finnish schlager scene. He was born in November 1945 in Suonenjoki. He started performing in the 1960s and joined the Finnish superstar Danny on his legendary tours in the 1970s. His breakthrough came with a few cover hits in the 1970s, beginning with "Laula kanssain" (Sing My Love Song by Jackpot) and "Viisitoista kesää" (Living Next Door To Alice by Smokie). His version of Italian Eurovision winner Toto Cutugno's "L'italiano vero" (Olen suomalainen) has almost become an unofficial national anthem. Kari won the Iskelmä Finlandia Award in 2003 and an Emma-award in 2005. His recent music is influenced by country music. He has previously taken part in the Finnish national final in 1988 with the song "Tää kaipuu". Kari has also recorded a few Finnish Eurovision covers during his career. He records for Edel Records Finland.
Polarartistit (in Finnish)
Video from Finnish national final 1988 YLE Elävä arkisto here.
Kristian Meurman
Kristian was born in 1979 in Espoo. He became fourth in the Finnish "Idols" in 2007. He is also a musician and songwriter. He released his debut album "Ensiaskeleet" on SonyBMG in 2007.
For audio samples click here.
Official site
Kristian also has a rock band called Agathon's Legacy, official MySpace
Mikael Konttinen
Mikael is 23 years old and was born in Stockholm, Sweden and lives now in Helsinki. He shot to fame by performing with the military big band in the annual president's Independence Day Ball in 2006, and was promptly signed for Universal Records Finland. His style is traditional Finnish schlager with 60s influence. He will release his first album in the spring.
Official site
Official MySpace
Movetron
Movetron was a hugely popular eurodance outfit in the 1990s and have only recently made a comeback. The band consists of lead singer Päivi Lepistö and Jukka Tanttari and Timo Löyvä. Their first smash hit "Romeo ja Julia" from 1995 was followed by a gold selling number one album by the same title and three follow-up albums. They released their comeback single Ei kenenkään maa in 2007 receiving respectable airplay.
Official site
Ninja Sarasalo
Ninja Sarasalo is a singer and a supermodel from Helsinki, born in 1983. She has worked for Jean-Paul Gaultier and Garnier and her photos have been published in magazines like ELLE, Vogue and GQ. Sarasalo has also modelled on catwalks in Milan, New York, Paris and Tokyo. She released her first single "Fashion" in 2006 on Warner Music Finland and first album "I Don't Play Guitar" in 2007. Her second single "Hush, hush" was also released in Sweden.
Official site
Warner Music
Teräsbetoni
Teräsbetoni is a heavy metal act and was signed to Warner Music Finland in 2004. The Viking rockers' 2005 debut album Metallitotuus was a sales success and was followed by Vaadimme betonia in 2006. The band also won an Emma Award in 2005.
Official site (for audio samples select "Kuuntele")
Vuokko Hovatta
Vuokko Hovatta was born in Espoo in 1972. She is a singer and actress and became famous as a member of the hugely popular band Ultra Bra. It is anticipated that her entry will be written by another former Ultra Bra member, Kerkko Koskinen who wrote the fan favourite "Shanghain valot" for Annika Eklund in the Finnish national final of 2006. Vuokko has recently starred in the Finnish adaptation of the musical Evita, watch on YouTube here.
Vuokko took part in the Finnish national finals with Ultra Bra in 1998 with Tyttöjen välisestä ystävyydestä and again in 2000 with Kaikki on hetken tässä".
Music video of Finnish national finals entry of 1998 here on YouTube
A photo gallery of the participants is available here .
Related polls
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- Azerbaijan: Vote for your favourite act in the final of Milli Seçim Turu
- Hungary: Vote for your favourite act in the final of A Dal
- Iceland: Vote for your favourite song in the final of Songvakeppni Sjonvarpsins
- Malta: Vote for your favourite act in the final of Malta Eurovision Song Contest 2012
- Hungary: Vote for your favourite act in the second semifinal of A Dal
- Norway: Vote for your favourite song in the third semifinal of Melodi Grand Prix
- Sweden: Vote for your favourite act in the first semifinal of Melodifestivalen
- Malta: Vote for your favourite act in the semifinal of Malta Eurovision Song Contest 2012
- Bulgaria: Vote for your favourite act in the Bulgarian national final 2012
- Latvia: Vote for your favourite act in the final of Eirodziesma 2012
- Belarus: Vote for your favourite act in the final of EuroFest 2012
Go directly to the reactions
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Well, no one sure can accuse you of being too kind, Marino... 
What does it matter if they are unknown or not? Most ESC winners have been unknown (at least outside their countries) before ESC...
the songs i heard on you tube by Teräsbetoni was pretty boring i think.... they would need a much better song than their previous ones to be able to do well in Eurovision. The gimmick is not everything - actually Hard Rock Halleluja was a very good song, with a good melody, with a great gimmick and it was powerful, dangerous and funny at the same time.
For me the ones that stand clearest out of the lot this year in Finland is Cristal Snow (her song Cristal Clear is GREAT), then Ninja, Movetron (the new singe is GREAT), Crumbland and Hannah Marsh.
the worst choice of these artists (based on the songs i've heard) i think would be Mikael Konttinen - the kind of songs he's done previously is very very out of date and at all not for ESC... but for all i know he will have a great song this year
I love Finland.
Karti Helena + Teräsbetoni with Laulavat linnut metsässä would be nice to send.
Wow, a positive comment from Jan 1964! Must be the first - this calls for celebrating! 
janna, cristal snow and ninja impress me! a great line up for Finland this year!!
I love Teräsbetoni.
@ Greg Dunn, it definitely weren't teenagers who voted for Hanna, that's for sure..! (And I very much doubt they'd be the group that's most interested in Eurovision, anyway... )
We'll just have to wait and see what the songs will be like (obviously), it's impossible to know before that, even though some are already predicting victory for Teräsbetoni... Well, I wouldn't really mind, but like I said below, I don't think they'd be very suitable for ESC...
Well, who out of that lot is most likely to get the teenage televote? If you can answer that one already, we have our winner, regardless of the song. It's what's happened for the past two years in Finland, so I don't see why 2008 should be any different.
@ Marino - I am not sure, there are some established acts. They are just not really known outside Finland but most of them aren`t really unexperienced newcomers. I think Finland will have one of the best VEs again. I like some of the up tempo stuff by Movetron & Cristal ...or some touching ballad. Then again I still think no one can beat Teräsbetoni this time.
cristal snow is really outstanding
But where are the NAMES? Where are the stars that are hip and happening NOW? Why does not a single star want to take part the year after Finland hosted?
Movetron? That's great! I loved their Romeo and Juliet album in the 90s. I hope they will have an entry like Ristinolla - what an earworm!
The artists that impressed me most (judging from the samples I listened)
Cristal Snow
Jippu
Teräsbetoni
Hanna Marsh
Crumbland
They sound promising, good luck!
HIND WILL GO FOR THE NETHERLANDS..THEY JUST SAID IT ON TV!
Cristal snow please plese !!!!
I thought there would be some Folk Metal.
Jippu yeah 
Teräsbetoni already won IMO .....this years " superfinal " was made of three more or less " rock " entries and this time the pure rock/heavy metal is without competition. Maybe the reason for the missing big names.
PS : Cristal snow looks scarry !!
YLE is trying to avoid to send a rock song to ESC three times in a row. Last year the finnish selection was the best one, perhaps this year too. there are 2 names that were popular when I was living there.
Ooh, Movetron! Gogo!
It really doesn't matter even though there were only one rock act.. it'd still have a very high possibility of winning, as "all other genres are inferior".
I love this song by Teräsbetoni, but not sure they're suitable to ESC... http://www.youtube.c(...)/watch?v=wZqpwVZqQFg
@ Peter Eriksson, I wouldn't be so sure about it, as only 2 of the participants are rock acts...
It will be rock for Finland in 2008 too!
It's "Cristal Snow", not "Cristal Ball"
I think this selection will be really great.
A lot of music genres, interesting artists......
Good Luck Finland!!!
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