Lordi

[Kiiml]

Maybe you've heard of this band from Finland.

In Eurovision (europe's big music competition) finland has almost always come dead last. recently though, they won first place with Lordi, a heavy metal band that played a song called "Hard Rock Hallelujah."

Lordi is a wierd band, I'll admit. They dress up as monsters (combinations of several generic horror and classic movie monsters) and are never seen out-of costume. Once they were accused of being satanists, until they came out with one of their most famous (and my personal favorite) songs: "The Devil is a Loser, and he's my Bitch." This song, if you actually listen to the lyrics, provides a pretty positive anti-satan message.

I shouldn't call them a Chrisitan rock group, because there's really never been any mention of Jesus in any of the songs I've heard. But there are references to god, angels, and demons. In interviews they've said that while they are a Heavy metal band with sinister costumes, they'd always choose God over the devil. Essentially they declared that all their band wants to do is make hard rock songs that are fun to listen to and fun to sing along with. They just want to entertain. While their videos are scary like monster movies and their live shows feature spectacular pyrotechnics, they apparently insist before every performance that the fans keep the concert safe.

If you want to listen to some of their songs or watch some of their nice videos, you can search for them on youtube. I've never been much of a hard rock fan, but Lordi definitely has become one of my favorite bands. (I'll admit that Pantera got my interest when they did the music for a Spongebob episode: pre-hibernation week)

Just a word of warning, while a huge percentage of europe loves Lordi, just as many people in the US, (and this forum) will find them either bad or just plain goofy. I personally love the band and most of their songs, but if you read some of the contents of youtube, a lot of people are convinced that they suck. As far as profanity goes, the only bad word I've heard so far is when they refer to the devil "he's my bitch." Other than that, they seem to be alright.

Right now my favorite songs are "Devil is a loser" "Would you love a monsterman?" "Blood red sandman" and the song that won Eurovision: "Hard rock hallelujah"

[kodiakthejuggler]

Finland is home to some super-crazy metal bands, lemme tell 'ya!!

One of my favorite Finnish bands is Finntroll. They play polka or "hummpa" style metal, which is basically polka on steroids!!! Throw in some harsh, growly vocals and lots of beer and you've got fun!!

[MrTorso]

Lordi is OK and all but I prefer GWAR as my heavy metal "monster" band. Plus they were first by 11 some odd years:

[Teaflax]

Lordi's victory in the Eurovision Song Contest was seen by many as being some sort of victory for Rock over more commercial music, but what it really proved was that most Rock music - even most Metal - is just as formulaic and staid as most chart music; short, repetitive melodies with small intervals  (a.k.a "catchy") over static one-key chord sequences in 4/4 time.

It was kind of funny that they won, but when you strip their song down to its nuts and bolts it's really not that far different from the majority of the entries this year or any other.

[mrbasehart]

Lordi's victory in the Eurovision Song Contest was seen by many as being some sort of victory for Rock over more commercial music...

I think the real question is: Does anyone take the Eurovision song contest seriously as some kind of cultural beacon?