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).

Rave: I love Hanna Pakarinen, a.k.a YouTube rocks

Forgive me if this post sounds a little odd. Hanna Pakarinen is Finnish, and that means some my thoughts about her are in Finnish, which sounds a little strange translated.

Hanna Pakarinen, on paper, should be bloody awful. She is the winner of a Finnish Idol contest, and she was an entrant in the Eurovision song contest; these two things do not usually imply talent or credibility on their own, much less together!

Eurovision was shown on TV here, and we watched most of the acts (after Lordi winning last year, I was really curious to see what would be on offer this year). I can only remember four or five acts, and a number of those I remember because they were terrible (notably the English entry). I remember the Bulgarian entry because performance was cool, and the woman in it was hot, but Hanna grabbed me right away.

Her song Leave Me Alone is well in the vein of Finnish not-really-happy pop (I do not know of a single Finnish pop song that is entirely happy -- and when I discussed it with some Finnish workmates, and Finnish family a few years ago). Even better, she sounds uncannily like rockchick and superstar Dilana.

continued in next post