Through our Best of the Bunch series, we gave a recap on the Eurovision entries from 2006 to 2015 and gave you the opportunity to choose your Best of the Bunch. As you may remember, the current Best of the Bunch winners were put into our ‘Ultimate Eurovision’ but it’s time to see which of the latest three entries have remained as your favourites! In our Best of the Bunch: The Trials series, we are going to recap the entries from a certain nation starting with 2016 and continuing through to the latest Eurovision season of 2018. Your job is to simply enjoy the music, and vote for your Best of the Bunch winner!
Today we are heading north to revisit the last three entries from Finland! Throughout their history they have come last countless times, but finally found success back in 2006 where they won the contest with Lordi and the song Hard Rock Hallelujah. In recent years, the nation has struggled to escape the semi-finals, but without spoiling it too much, here’s the recap of the last three entries!
Finland 2016
After the unfortunate last place of PKN the year previous, it was time to improve the results, and it was up to the energetic artist Sandhja to bring Finland back to the Final. It was an intense national final to select Sandhja, as it featured Saara Aalto and also Mikael Saari who were strong favourites in the competition. Despite that, Sandhja managed to top both of those entries with only a few points difference! At Eurovision, Sandhja opened the show with her song Sing It Away, which proved to be an energetic way to open the show. Despite that, Finland failed to qualify to the final finishing in 15th place in the semi-final with 51 points.
Finland 2017
With two non-qualifications in a row, Finland needed to pull something special out of the bag. Once again a national final was used to select their entrant, and the nation decided on Norma John with their dark song titled Blackbird. It was unlike anything we had heard recently from Finland, and it was predominately a hit with the fans at the time. It was a simple but moving performance on the night, but once again Finland failed to qualify to the final, this time finishing in 12th place with 92 points.
Finland 2018
That brings us to Finland’s most recent entry, and with the non-qualifications building up, it was time to bring out the big guns. Fresh off her successful run on the X Factor UK, it seemed logical that Saara Aalto would finally get her chance on the Eurovision stage after numerous attempts at representing Finland. A national final was held to choose her entry and it was decided that Monsters would be the song that she takes to the Eurovision stage. Her performance was incredibly theatrical, featuring never before seen tricks such as singing upside down. It was a huge effort from Finland, and finally they broke the streak and qualified through the final – but only just. Even though Saara is a fan favourite, she qualified in at 10th place, and in the final finished in 25th place with just 46 points.
So now you’ve seen all three performances, it’s time to vote for your Best of the Bunch!
If you want more Best of the Bunch from Finland, check out our original series:
If you want to check out who made our Ultimate Eurovision, check it out here: