In 2020, Finland chose Aksel Kankaanranta to represent the Nordic country in Rotterdam. With the Eurovision Song Contest being cancelled we’ll never know which result he would have gotten. Erika Vikman, who finished in second place at UMK, was arguably a more competitive act.

The 2020 Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu took place in March 7, 2020. 7 acts competed to represent Finland. YLE, the Finnish broadcaster, announced the acts well in advanced to the final. Erika Vikman’s Cicciolina was the first song that was made public. The song quickly became a fan favourite. It won the televote in the national final. However, Aksel won the jury vote with a larger margin and was due to represent Finland with the song Looking Back.

After more than 6 months since EBU announced the cancellation of the Eurovision Song Contest we can only speculate about the result of Aksel in the contest.  For the more hardcore fans of the UMK runner-up, Cicciolina was “the song” that would have got a better result.

Cicciolina – opinions from fans

In order to find out what Eurovision fans today think of this song from the 2020 Finnish national final, we asked our Eurovision Fan Panel. It includes team members as well as fans from all over the world.

🇩🇰 Alberte B. – A super fun and catchy song. Erika has such an amazing performance and energy. It would definitely have done well on the Eurovision stage. Personally, though, I still think Aksel deserved to win as Looking Back is more my type of music

🇨🇴 🇫🇮 Álvaro S. – Is this the YLE that sent Lordi to Eurovision? In 2020 the Finnish broadcaster wanted to play safe sending an average ballad. The problem with “playing safe” is that you can easily get ignored. Aksel would probably have not qualified. On the other hand, Erika Vikman and her song is provocative and funny to watch. I can imagine that the audience even if they don’t understand the lyrics would enjoy the show and vote for this song. Cicciolina is a catchy song and it has an unforgettable 80’s feeling and Erika has his dancing grizzly bears!

🇬🇷 Kostas C. – I like this song a lot. I like the fact that it is in Finnish and I cannot understand how this catchy song was beaten from the boring ballad that won the national selection. I have no idea how this could do in Eurovision, but it would be very popular among fans and definitely much better than their officially entry.

🇬🇧 Ashleigh K. – I didn’t have Finland anywhere near my top 10 this year. In fact, it was probably in my bottom 5. Erika Vikman had a much better entry, it was fun, catchy and the dancing bears were a nice surprise. It’s cheesy but not too much. I can’t tell if I like the song for the song or if I just like the performance but Erika would have placed much higher in my scoreboard than Aksel.

🇦🇺 Craig M. – I listened to this song, and it is not my thing. I usually love dance music, but this song is just not lighting my fire. The chorus is okay, but the bears on stage are the highlight for me. Having said that, I still feel it is better than the entry Finland choose for Eurovision 2020.

🇩🇰 Charlotte J. – Comparing Erika’s Cicciolina to Aksel’s Looking Back is really difficult as they are so different. Aksel has the better voice, but where his song has a tendency to really get boring, Cicciolina is fun and catchy. Although it’s a bit too repetitive, I would think this would have done better – in particular if she would have included English lyrics too. Personally, I think I would have preferred a dual language version of it.

🇬🇧 Steve P. – When I first heard all the songs in the Finnish selection this year, Cicciolina immediately stood out as being the most memorable. It has an instant sing-along quality that stayed with me long after I had heard it for the first time. However, while it’s one of my favourite songs of this year’s national final season, it should have been written for a contest in the 1990s. Fans will always love this type of easily accessible pop, but the general public – and in all likelihood, the juries too – don’t anymore!

🇫🇮 Martti I. – Fans around the globe wanted, this and luckily it didn’t. My favourite was Tika, when you kindly asked. Cicciolina was though a good topic, song, catchy enough to have the ear worm effect, but the show on stage was just weird, to put it as civilised as I can.

🇬🇧 Michael O. I actually said Aksel would win Finland and while this is a fun enough song, its greatness has been over estimated. Would have been fine if Finland had picked it, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if the jury placed it last in its semis, thus leaving in languishing even if the public fell head over heels to vote for it.

Enjoy Erika Vikman’s performance from the 2020 Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu in the embedded video. Below the video, you can read more about her.

Erika Vikman – a mini biography

Born in Tampere, Finland 1993, Erika Vikman is a tango and pop singer. In 2016 she competed in Tangomarkkinat, the world’s oldest tango festival where she became the “tango queen” of that year. In fact, she started her music career as a tango singer. She got some notoriety in 2008 when she won a girl’s tango junior competition. She participated in several televised music competitions in her country.

Erika Vikman released her first single in 2015. Later she got a record contract with Sony Music. In 2020 she participated in Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu with the song Cicciolina. She came second and was also chosen to represent Finland at the OGAE Second Chance competition. After her participation in UMK she released a new single, Syntisten pöytä. She plans to participate in Masked Singer Finland in November 2020.