Sunday, July 29, 2007

Rave: I love Hanna Pakarinen, a.k.a YouTube rocks (part 2)

Now, I don't get exposed to a lot of new music here in Aussie, partly because I don't have a car and don't have any other radio either. It doesn't actually matter, because by the time I left New Zealand, I was thoroughly sick of the samey shit the radio was playing anyway; it seems you get a choice of hip-hop or emo whining and that's it.

This has changed my approach to checking out new music, though, and so with Hanna I did what I always do: I went straight to YouTube. There I found a number of covers from the idol show, and her original audition tape (for what it is worth, the Finnish Idol stuff seems less hip-hop heavy and crap than the American stuff, the Kiwi stuff, and the Aussie stuff). That stuff wasn't the real gold, though. The real gold was finding her original work, like Fearless, Stronger Without You, Go Go, and Kiss of Life. There was a lot of other stuff too, most of it softer and slower -- also good, but those are my favourites. From checking all this out, I know I like her, I know she has great stage presence, and I know she writes her own music.

Youtube let me get a glimpse to see that I definitely wanted to invest cash in this artist -- all for nothing but time and keystrokes. Because of that, I am going to follow up with a local music store, who can stock her work because there is demand from people like me who have gone on the internet and found they like Hanna -- often in ways the music companies would idiotically and quite cheerfully shut down.

Hanna is cool. And so is Youtube, for letting me learn enough about her that my next stop is the music store (right after I swing by Dilana's website to tell her to check Hanna out).

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