Tähdet, tähdet (S08E01)

Tähdet, tähdet is a Finnish reality tv show where a bunch of professional musicians and other celebrities compete by performing a song from a different genre/era/etc each week. They have one week's time to rehearse each song. From the 4th episode on, studio audience votes one competitor off each week.

(I noticed that at some point they're gonna do two episodes a week and I don't know how that's gonna work out, if they only have a few days to practise... Or maybe the episodes aren't shot live like they did in the earlier seasons.)

This year, the competitors are:

- musician Tidjân Ba (he's best known from the mid-2000s hiphop/poprock duo Kwan)

- singer Kake Randelin (iskelmä/schlager)

- singer Teemu Roivainen (tango)

- singer Jennika Vikman (genre unknown, as she just started; her sister Erika Vikman is also a singer)

- musician Paleface (an OG Finnish hiphop artist, he's a GOAT for sure)

- entertainer Helena Lindgren (I mainly know her for being married to Finnish dancer/choreographer Jorma Uotinen for a long time... don't know anything about her career)

- actress Hanna Kinnunen

- actor Riku Nieminen

- actress Malla Malmivaara (who apparently also does electronic music in several groups and solo, her newest project is a solo career project called Malla) 

- social media star Sara Chafak (also Miss Finland 2014) 

- magician, mentalist Noora Karma

In the first episode, their songs had to all be from the 1980s.

The episode is now free to watch on the channel's website, but you have to create an account to do that and the site only exists in Finnish 🙄

https://www.ruutu.fi/ohjelmat/tahdet-tahdet?t=26003%7Ekausi-3

Here's the song choices and my opinions on their performances:

- Hanna Karjalainen (performing I Wanna Dance With Somebody by Whitney Houston) was ok, she's got a pretty good voice, but the performance here was a bit meh. I'm most familiar with her as Salla in the drama series Salatut Elämät and my god that small woman has A LOT of energy in that role... Why she couldn't bring that energy in today is beyond me.

- Kake Randelin (performing Jano by Pave Maijanen, RIP) was like a good karaoke singer... I want to see him do genres he's less familiar with, more youthful genres, and really put himself out there... He was performing in his own genre here, very much in his comfort zone.

- Jennika Vikman (performing Holding Out For A Hero by Bonnie Tyler) had a dark voice, I want to hear her do metal ballads... This performance didn't really do much for me.

- Paleface (performing Money For Nothing by Dire Straits) was very entertaining! He nailed it, had a cool tongue in cheek humor in it.

- Malla Malmivaara (performing We Don't Need Another Hero by Tina Turner) actually made a freakin cover of the song she performed, my god! Very captivating. Makes me want to check out her music, which I think has become the idea behind this tv show - to introduce people to new artists they haven't heard before. I only know Malla as an actress, and in that she is amazing, aces every role she gets.

- Riku Nieminen (performing In the Ait Tonight by Phil Collins) is an actor and to me it felt like he was trying to be Phil Collins when he performed the song. But my god this man got some pipes on him! With that voice and that stage presence he will ace any genre on the competition!

- Helena Lindgren (performing Bette Davis Eyes by Kim Carnes, a song I had not heard before) was fine, not my thing.

- Tidjân Ba's (performing I Just Died in Your Arms by Cutting Crew) voice fit his song choice well.

- Sara Shafak (performing Papa Don't Preach by Madonna) may be the weakest singer in the competition, but I can tell she meant what she said in the lyrics. She's an introvert and holds herself to a high standard (demands a lot from herself), I identify with that. She's sympathetic to me.

- Noora Karma (performing Sweet Dreams Are Made of This by Eurythmics) was ok, she visibly and audibly relaxed when she got to hold a bow and got to do a little magic :D I think her voice didn't fit the song, though. The magic was also a little distracting, I wasn't listening to her sing during that.

- Teemu Roivainen (performing Livin' on a Prayer by Bon Jovi) was... not good. Way off key. Which is surprising, cause he's a professional singer. But he had a good stage presence. He looked like a rock star, and usually he does tango, so... Maybe it was just this performance, we'll see.