My review:
FINLAND 2020 - Aksel Kankaaranta - Looking Back: "kindly transparent"
No, I won't talk about the Finnish NF although I'm glad it came back after two years of uninteresting internal selection. What I liked about Finland back in the day is that you never knew what they could send to Eurovision and it rarely was something "safe" for better or worse. Too bad, this habit vanished imo.
So, the Finns decided to send "Looking Back" to Eurovision. Okay. I will not try to describe the song as it's a mere cookie-cutter pop mid-tempo track that doesn't really need to be put into words... which is the problem imo because there is literally nothing to say about it. It exists, and that's all. As I'm writing these lines, I play the song on repeat (please respect my dedication!) and still fail to remember anything from it. I think I wouldn't be able to hum the chorus even if my life depended on it. From the vibe I get overall, it's a decent song for what it is - it's not shameful is what I'm trying to say - but sober or stoned I wouldn't listen to it willingly.
It's strange because it's not even beige - like most Danish entries are - it's transparent. It's not bothering me when it plays, but I forget about it the second it ends and doesn't leave any kind of impression - good or bad - on me.
Prediction-wise, I dare to take a wild guess and say that would have been either top 3 or top 5 with the juries in the semi with a half-in-earnest-half-in-jest support for people. So qualification would have been quite plausible imo, however it would have sunk without a trace in the final because jokes can't last long. Yeah, a fate a la "We Got Love" pretty much. Yay. It would have been a shame to have an actually memorable song instead.
We'll see what UMK will have on offer next year, if Aksel is back, he's not out of the picture, so I hope he'll up his game because Finland deserves better than to go unnoticed while serving us lukewarm hamburgers. Come on! Bring the spice!