Blind Channel, yes or no

 
 
POSTED: February 21, 2021
 
 
 
 
 

Six years ago, in February 2015, the Finnish Broadcasting Company, YLE, published this on their website:

Metal music, in diverse forms, has become one of Finland’s highest profile exports.

Toni-Matti Karjalainen is Research Director at the Department of Management Studies of Helsinki’s Aalto University and known as “Dr Heavy” for taking metal music into the realm of academia. He says the genre and the bands have become a major economic asset for the nation. With millions of fans worldwide, Finnish metal has raised awareness of and an interest in Finland.

Research has yet to be done into the significance of Finnish metal music as an export product, but Toni-Matti Karjalainen has personal experience of how it has spread Finland’s “brand” within fan communities.

“The majority abroad think of metal music when they think of Finland. Metal has put Finland on the map. Our culture interests these fans and they acquaint themselves with our country through the music. I’ve run into fans that have come to Finland,” says Karjalainen.

Last Saturday television viewers chose Blind Channel, “a post-hardcore band from Oulu”, to represent Finland in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest.

They won easily with 551 points. The act that came second, Teflon Brothers x Pandora, got 180 points. Lower down the list, Danny, the now-elderly legend of Finnish pop music, got 60 points and Laura, who we had never heard of, came last with 13 points.

So it goes.