Google currently has over 440,000 results for “Finnish Bieber”. Let’s review.
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Iain Mew: He was promoted at the age of 14 as an answer to a similarly-aged Justin Bieber, but, like, with skate-punk accents. Now he’s 19 and if anything the Bieber of now looms even larger as a model for the softly agonised EDM-R&B mix. Thing is it’s mixed with an unusually baroque take on the X Factor winner’s ballad sound. By the end of the clash between the two I’m still unclear which side was an un-needed intrusion on the other.
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Anjy Ou: Obscured somewhat by a fairly generic pop instrumental is a touching goodbye to a person, to a relationship, or to a home. Robin sings from the the point of separation, where he is changing and is looking for more in life, while his other half has settled in place and doesn’t hear the call of the outside as strongly as he does. Often times people think that wanting to leave and experience new things means that you’re not content with what you have. The opposite is in fact true. Contentment does not always lead to stillness. And movement does not always signal discontent. Sometimes it just means that your heart is large enough to encompass many experiences, many homes, and many loves, and you’re just trying to keep your heart full. “Me Tehtiin Taa” (Finnish for “We Did This”) is a song that honours what has been, and makes room for what is to come.
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Ryo Miyauchi: Boyish voices like this in pop haven’t been too willing to accept fault as of late, perhaps using the big-bang chorus of “Me Tehtiin Tää” as his last petty word in the conversation. So it surprises me to find Robin handle his break-up so amicably despite just how tragically he spins such a defining relationship.
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Patrick St. Michel: Well it has a nice hop to it, which helps it rise ever so slightly above its forced drama. But right, this is about the voice and what it can do, so only slightly above.
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Madeleine Lee: The chorus is an emotional rush, but one that doesn’t feel earned at first. The obvious strain in Robin’s voice as he pushes to reach that emotional peak doesn’t help.
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Edward Okulicz: Relying on a translation as I did, it was hard to reconcile the triumph/coronation feel of the song with the lyric regarding leaving a relationship that the narrator is growing out of even as he speaks/sings. Some break-ups are like this, but the chorus’s climax feels like forced passion for something that arouses none elsewhere. like at the end of it he’s going to shake hands, having agreed to divest shares in the girl’s company or something.
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Will Adams: In the way that “Love the Way You Lie” had its chorus spun-off into a whole Rihanna-led single, “Me Tehtiin Tää” is what would probably have sprung from Charlie Puth’s “See You Again” hook. The punch-up in the form of inspiro-radio pop isn’t exactly the adequate elevation.
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