The first competing song of this year’s Uuden musiikin kilpailu (UMK) has been released. You can listen to the song “Nightmeres” by Neea River here:
Neea Jokinen, better known as her artist name Neea River, is a singer-songwriter from Nurmijärvi. According to YLE, River’s passion for international singing career was born when the artist was a teenager. River got her big step towards her dream by accident during a vacation in Los Angeles. She told the following to the newspaper Nurmijärven Uutiset in February 2024:
Insta (Instagram) was quite a new thing back then. I posted there some vacation photos and my own singing videos to which I tagged LA, because we were there. All of a sudden a local producer contacted me, they had seen my videos and liked them. We became friends quickly.
After the vacation River returned to Finland, even though her new friend suggested that she’d stay in Los Angeles. A year later they said to River that a room in their apartment is becoming free, since one of their roommates is moving out. River packed two bags and left from Nurmijärvi to Los Angeles.
River told Nurmijärven Uutiset that she started to do music in Los Angeles and she got to know people from the music industry. One person River got to know was Henri Lanz, the CEO of Sony Music Finland.
He noticed some potential in me and encouraged me to the industry. During my time in Los Angeles I wrote songs with different people and got to know how to make songs. Third song I wrote got into an American movie. I thought that wow, is this that easy.
After River returned to Finland she made a publishing contract as a songwriter with Lanz. According to River, that was her ticket to the center of the music industry. She wrote songs and went to song writing camps all over the world. She was for example one of the writers in Blanka’s song ”Rodeo”. Blanka is familiar to Eurovision fans, since she represented Poland in Eurovision 2023.
According to YLE, after three years of writing songs for other artists River wanted to write songs for herself. She stopped writing songs for other artists and started to focus purely on her own career. Around the same time, she launched her own record label. Fan of artists such as Britney Spears, Rihanna and The Weekend, Neea River sums up her artistry in one term: ”pop machine”:
I have a powerful suit of pop armor. When I’m wearing it, nothing can stop me.
UMK is a natural continuation for the rising career of Neea River. This is also the first time River will perform one of her own songs in public. The UMK song ”Nightmares” was based on the ambitious idea of creating a winning song for the Eurovision Song Contest.
This is what the UMK expert jury said about Neea River and her song ”Nightmares”:
Neea’s voice is the first thing that catches your attention in the song Nightmares. Clearly, this is a top professional who controls her voice exceptionally well. The next thing you notice is the stellar composition that combines modern pop aesthetics with epic Eurovision vibes and cinematic glamour. The finishing touch is the uplifting dance production with its big drops. It is great to see a self-publishing independent artist like Neea River at UMK.
What do YOU think of the song “Nightmares” by Neea River? Do you think it has what it takes to win UMK and represent Finland in Eurovision 2025? Let us know in comments or our social media channels!
