Lxandra - Blog Posts
UMK 2023 Song review - Lxandra
The hype is very real around Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu (UMK), the Finnish national selection for Eurovision and the race to Liverpool continues with a ballad this time!
Lxandra - Something To Lose
Lxandra is a talented and let’s say an established artist with several independant releases under her belt and some of them already appearing several tv series for example. Her international sound isn’t a coincidence as she’s lived in Berlin and US and her UMK23 entry also has American songwriters and producers. She is clearly someone who’s got her vision and sound figured out and she doesn’t need UMK or Eurovision to define her. She has fan base but not in Finland and she’s hoping participating UMK would at least change that.
Something to Lose is the only ballad in the selection of UMK this year. I’m hopeless lover of ballads so this was perhaps the entry I was anticipating the most even though I had never heard of Lxandra before. I wasn’t disappointed.
This is a well produced, striking ballad with modern approach. The lyrics go deep which Lxandra interprets beautifully and tenderly. There’s darkness here, almost death but also something that is very fragile, angelic. In the music video she only doesn’t put her voice to work but her entire body interprets the message of the song. The video is perhaps the most beautiful UMK music video to date!
This is not a power ballad and I’m hoping we’d get more volume vocally, instrumentally when on UMK stage - because the studio cut is somewhat lacking the peak. Someone might say this is forgettable and in some ways perhaps it is, I struggle also to remember the chorus or melody after but I remember the feeling that it gave me. It does make an impact clearly and the song is very gripping.
This is poetry, this is art - I can see juries reacting well to this but I’m nervous will the audience get it especially the ones who’re listening to it for the first time? This would be the question that was repeated if Lxandra advances to ESC. However this is a song that perhaps needs a visual performance and I hope YLE (TV broadcaster) gets it right and Lxandra can just focus on her own performance. I can definitely see myself voting for this but I doubt this would have the winner factor however.
What do you think of the fourth UMK23 track and would you vote for Lxandra’s Something to Lose to go all the way to Liverpool? UMK final takes place on February 25th!