warnermusicfi via IG

1. How would you describe the album with one word?

-Strong!

2. Fav song from the album at the moment?

-My fav is Autiomaa, I've waited for a long time to get it released, and finally!

3. What song are you looking forward to performing live?

-Def Autiomaa, and of course all the others too. It's different from the others so that's why I'm looking forward to it with excitement

4. What was the easiest song to make for the album?

-Easiest...tough question! I'll say Bananas

5. The first and the last song finished?

-Technically we were making Autiomaa first. The latest one was..Härreguud...I think S=M?

6. Your dream feat to some song on the album?

-If I had to choose one song with a dream feat, I'd pick Autiomaa with Behm as the feat

7. If you had a duet with a fictional character, who would it be?

-Fictional character...like Goofy, or? I'd pick Goofy!

8. For next year, what are you expecting?

-From next year, I'm looking forward to my trip abroad, so that I'll have a vacation. Of course, great things are coming, that I know I cannot talk about yet. They're all here [in his head] , there are great things.

sorry did anyone order a guy

The man is so expressive

starting a thing where i'm gonna be sketching with marker to try to capture people's likeness and movement/posing well without erasing (i cheat and correct anyways). this is the mandatory hyperfix page but i'll be trying with some other people too

okay let's go bananas 🍌

talking about ready to go on this fine sunday evening

Mood Jere🥲

*All alone again

With my thoughts

I'm lost and can't find the way to go behind my thoughts

Been having all kinds of ailments for a while

You don't have to pet my head

As long as you listen

The translation is by @tmrwds thank you🫶

Autiomaa live in Laukaa, Peurunka Areena 1.11.2024

Ready to go gives me literal chills. What a furious opening. The lyrics are saying he knows he is expected to fail and to give up, and he (the little guy from vantaa) is just standing there like BRING IT ON.

He's singing about how he knows "you want me to fall in the muddy gutter". At the end of the song the verse changes into "you want to see me fail and take the milk train".

The infamous milk train... translation from wikipedia: "The milk train was a service train during the Second World War, which during the war took care of, among other things, foodstuffs for the Niinisalo garrison, where there was reserve officer training. Returning on the milk train meant, in military slang, that the cadet had had to interrupt his studies and return to his basic unit as a failed and unpromoted corporal."

Since the war ended, "returning home on the milk train" has been a popular phrase to humiliate anyone who has TRIED AND FAILED at anything at all. Since about the 1980's it has remarkably often been targeted at any and all Finnish artists aiming for an international career. This is very telling of the worldview that Finns (at least millennial and older) have grown up with. Dreaming too big will most likely end up in humiliation. And people most likely want to see you fail.

Words fail me. But what I'm trying to say is what Käärijä did in 2023 was truly historical as a Finn. Didn't take the milk train, returned home as the second best but still the champion.

Reblogging this because I wasnt sure it was showing in the tag and would love to hear thoughts on this 🙏 sorry for spamming

you are so bang on about everything you said about the mindset in finland. like. to any international fans, i think this is something to understand on a broader scale as well.

finland is for some reason just incredibly hostile towards especially musical artists who try to make it abroad. i was actually just talking about this with a friend, and how infuriating it is, that most finnish people are completely unaware of how fucking well several finnish bands and artists do abroad, but they absolutely know every single artist who has tried but failed.

especially in the genre of rock and metal, there are multiple finnish artists who are literally top of the top in their respective genres. finding out about their success is a surprise to finnish people. because they are not talked about here. not until they fucking die or something, then it's all about how they were the nations pride (spoiler alert: they were not treated as such). but everyone can name artists who tried an international career but failed, because their trials and errors have been well documented, ridiculed and mocked.

when jere basically says "you want to see me fail" he means it. finnish (tabloid) media in particular is often completely unnecessarily cruel and mean and there is definitely an air of them almost like secretly wishing artists would fail.

and so that's why it's also important to realise how incredible it is that jere has succeeded and that he continues to succeed, because this wasn't supposed to happen. it does not fit the cultural narrative that finnish artists could go on an international stage, be their bizarre finnish self and succeed. it didn't work out with lordi, their fall from the top after their eurovision victory was once again well documented and well mocked. and it wasn't supposed to work out with käärijä, or at least that is the cultural mindset.

so for him to not only succeed, and be so not afraid of being himself, but then also to call out the culture, out loud, and say listen, i'm ready to go, whatever that means.. that's powerful.

and i know, and most importantly he knows, that him saying all this is going to piss a lot of people off. because if there is one deadly sin in finnish culture, it's being openly proud of yourself and aware of your own skill and abilities.

he is being irritating on purpose and i love that for him.

After listening to the album for hours I just realized how cleverly the songs are ordered.

The album starts with Ready To Go, a song about pushing forward no matter the obstacles, followed by Cha Cha Cha, the song that got him to where he is now (which "coincidentally" is the second track, matching Jere's final ESC ranking). Right after that is Takavoltti, which talks about how, now that Jere's famous, everyone constantly asks him to do things—Jere do this, Jere do that—and he complies because he wants to make others smile, even though it can hurt him. And this pain transitions smoothly into Ruoska, a song that literally talks about how the pain, both of being controlled by what people expect of him and the hate he receives, excites him in some way.

Then we get into a more intense section. Kot Kot expresses his anxiety, loneliness, and the feeling of no one responding to him. This theme continues in Autiomaa, where he describes feeling empty despite everything he's achieved and struggling to be taken seriously as an artist. This feeling also comes through in the skit with the therapist, who interrupts Jere, downplays his concerns and treats him like he's just a celebrity who should "get a real job" instead of a person.

And maybe the next song marks one of the album's sharpest turns. As a single, Sex = Money could be seen as Jere selling sex out of desperation, not knowing what else to do, but when paired with the meaning behind Autiomaa it also reflects a bit of that hopelessness of being lost but still wanting to keep going, and so he turns to selling sex.

From there, we have some more upbeat tracks. Bananas talks about people going wild (going bananas) for him now that he's resurfaced, and the energy continues with Huhhahhei and It's Crazy, It's Party.

Finally, we have the perfect song to close the album, People's Champion. Here Jere finally acknowledges himself as a winner, a champion, more specifically, the people's champion. He reflects on his growth and evolution as an artist, from that scared kid to this man who isn't afraid of anything and who will keep standing strong no matter what. And of course, the lyrics "Thank you everybody I love you" as the cherry on top, a thanks to all his fans for everything they've given him and for helping him get to where he is today.

I'm so impressed by the story this album tells, and Jere has done an amazing job with it. I love him and everything he's achieved and I hope he can feel our love just as much as we feel his.

People’s Champion CD booklet scans by Me!

my only complaint about people's champion is that this album should be 700x longer and also have 300 new songs

People's Champion lyrics + English translation