It's been a while since I last wrote anything here – I've just had too many other things to do, plus I don't think anyone other than Jeff has missed me.
Something occurred to me a couple of months ago while listening to the Finnish pop group Ultra Bra, a sickly sweet band from the late 90s that made technically competent music with melodies that never fail to irritate ("Hei kuule Suomi" (www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPLGaerS12U) and "Tyttöjen välisestä ystävyydestä" (www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2FV1W0hlIg) are probably two of the band's least irritating songs).
This band were one of the biggest bands in Finland in the 90s, but, at least according to the little bit of research I could be bothered conducting into the subject, were on an independent record label (i.e. not one of the world's big four labels or their subsidiaries), which was bought over by Universal in 2010.
I'm not sure how this affects my understanding of Finnish independent music. Maybe a lot more Finnish music than I previously thought is independent, making me think that it's Finland's underground music rather than its independent music that I want to write about in this blog. Yet using the word "underground", often understood as a musical style rather than a holistic approach to making and distributing music, arguably de-emphasises the the non-corporate nature of the music I'm interested in. Perhaps I should rename this blog "Finnish Underground Independent Music Digest", then, but as a result the website address would be out of sync with the name. What's a boy to do?
Something occurred to me a couple of months ago while listening to the Finnish pop group Ultra Bra, a sickly sweet band from the late 90s that made technically competent music with melodies that never fail to irritate ("Hei kuule Suomi" (www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPLGaerS12U) and "Tyttöjen välisestä ystävyydestä" (www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2FV1W0hlIg) are probably two of the band's least irritating songs).
This band were one of the biggest bands in Finland in the 90s, but, at least according to the little bit of research I could be bothered conducting into the subject, were on an independent record label (i.e. not one of the world's big four labels or their subsidiaries), which was bought over by Universal in 2010.
I'm not sure how this affects my understanding of Finnish independent music. Maybe a lot more Finnish music than I previously thought is independent, making me think that it's Finland's underground music rather than its independent music that I want to write about in this blog. Yet using the word "underground", often understood as a musical style rather than a holistic approach to making and distributing music, arguably de-emphasises the the non-corporate nature of the music I'm interested in. Perhaps I should rename this blog "Finnish Underground Independent Music Digest", then, but as a result the website address would be out of sync with the name. What's a boy to do?
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