How many Finnish bands can you name? Give it a go, it won't hurt.
You can start with current racket-makers The Rasmus and HIM. There's 1980s hair-metalheads Hanoi Rocks, the legendary Leningrad Cowboys (more weird hairdos) and electronic lounge lizard Jimi Tenor. Add the Bomfunk MCs, Jori Hullkkonen, Rinneradio, Lackluster, Brothomstates and Pan Sonic to that list.
Fact is, though, like you, I'd be hard-pressed to think of more than a dozen Finnish acts making a melodic noise. Finland and music is not a match which instantly comes to mind, so I'm beginning to wonder just why I am hanging around in Helsinki airport on a Thursday night waiting for a flight to Tampere.
Tampere is where Finland's Music & Media festival is taking place, and the Finnish music industry has invited interested international parties to come north. Over the next few days, we will eat reindeer stew, have a look around the Lenin museum, marvel at the price of everything (it is a relief to find somewhere in Europe more expensive than Ireland) and hear what Finnish rock really has to offer the world.
What catches the ear, though, is not so much the bands but the talk from the people behind the scenes. Music Export Finland, for example, is a government-backed initiative to market and sell Finnish music abroad. It's a simple idea which involves supporting Finnish music at such international music fairs as South By Southwest, Popkomm, Eurosonic and In the City, as well as providing whatever other assistance is necessary to push Finnish music overseas.
It's also an effective idea. Statistics released at the festival show that Finnish music exports were worth €20.3 million in 2003, a 31 per cent increase from 1999. Given the disadvantages that Finnish music faces, from language to isolation from predominant Anglo-American pop culture, this is a fine performance.
At Music & Media, Finnish musicmakers and shakers are toasting each other with beer and vodka. Happiness is not only having bands other markets want to hear, but having the government backing to get out there and sell, sell, sell. This support is not just lip service and a body like Music Export Finland can talk up constructive links to the Finnish Ministry of Trade & Industry, Ministry of Education and Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Back home, we should also be happy because we have the bands everyone wants to hear, from The Frames to The Corrs. We can talk until the cows come home about our great music culture. We can even point to the fact that Irish artists pocketed a whopping €249.5 million from overseas earnings in 2001. That's over 10 times what the Finns are crowing about. Stick that in your vodka etc.
Yet the willingness on a government level to capitalise on this export revenue and make it a significant advantage for the national economy is just not there. There are no easy-to- understand and readily available supports for acts and music managers to avail of opportunities to push Irish music abroad.
Government ministers may acknowledge from time to time (usually when they're on standing on a platform in a US city on March 17th) the great cultural worth of music, but there has never been a cross-departmental initiative to promote Irish music. In fact, there's never even been an attempt to view music as anything other than a glorified pastime. The demise of the Music Board of Ireland is just the latest fiasco which the domestic music industry has had to put up with. The Football Association of Ireland is not the only place where you will find incompetent blazers in charge.
Maybe we don't need the same level of export support and assistance as the Finns. Maybe our new bands are better than Bitch Alert, Giant Robot, Office Building and Tigerbombs. Maybe we're happier succeeding in spite of government disinterest in the sector. But maybe, just maybe, there's something to be borrowed from the Finnish approach to selling rock 'n' roll.
