WORTH A LOOK?: ****
OUT: now
The selection competitions for 2021’s Eurovision Song Contest are starting all over Europe and this synth gem from Finland’s Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu (UMK) is our pick of this week.
- Read on for reasons including to watch the lyric video of I Love You
I Love You seems so unpromising on paper – cliched English lyrics almost revelling in their banality and a hip hop and rap group from Helsinki do not immediately suggest a winning combination.
However, that would be to overlook the amazing 80s keyboard run here that is so good it evokes both a-Ha’s Take On Me and The Weeknd‘s big hit from last year which we shortlisted for a monsta as one of our songs of 2020.
The tune is a collaboration with Swedish singer Pandora who is no stranger to the country’s supreme selection show Melodifestivalen having competed there in 2003 with You and Runaway a year later.
The video revels in its 80s evocation and the all-male band even show a sense of humour with a spot of basic formation dancing.
Rather charmingly the Finnish lyrics appear to focus on the difficulty of expressing the simplest of emotions: sample translation: ‘The feelings of a Finnish hick are only a rumour, I eat sausage and I won’t speak of my emotions.’ And who are we to knock savouring sausage eating?
UMK takes place this year on 20/2 and I Love You is up against 6 other songs including 2020 winner Aksel with a track called Hurt that we think is better to the song he won previously with. Those entries are being unveiled 1 a week in the run up to the show and check out this site ahead of 20/2 to see if we think there’s anything better than this catchy slice of top pop.
If I Love You proves anywhere near as entertaining as Saara Aalto’s Monsters which won UMK 3 years ago, we will be very happy indeed.
monstagigz 
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