Finland as often regarded as the most metal country in the world, likely with the most metal bands per capita, even receiving such an acknowledgement by Barack Obama while he served as President of the United States. If there was any country where metal was most accepted by the mainstream, it was Finland. It appears that has changed, however, at least according to Lordi's frontman, Mr. Lordi.

Lordi, the rock troupe dressed in vividly detailed monster costumes, won the pop-dominated Eurovision contest in 2006 with the song "Hard Rock Hellelujah" and The Age of Metal (video below) asked the frontman if this helped to thrust metal further into the mainstream spotlight in the band's home country of Finland. "Maybe for a short time, yeah," Mr. Lordi began, adding, "but it's been almost 11 years ago already. So maybe for a short period of time, maybe a year, a year and a half, it was a little bit more… metal and rock got a big boost in Finland, in Scandinavia, it definitely did that."

Unfortunately, this effect wore off and the frontman has reported that the musical climate in Finland has shifted. "But right now, at the moment… I'm an old-school rock guy and I'm sad to say that it's all hip-hop and rap now everywhere. It's, like, metal and rock has been pushed again to the marginal [areas]," he stated.

Discussing how metal permeated the country, Mr. Lordi explained, "Finland was known for years to be the country where you turned on the radio — any mainstream radio — and you could hear Madonna or Lady Gaga and then the next song could be, all of a sudden, Children of Bodom and the next song could be Nightwish and then the next song could be some classical music. That was the country."

Reiterating how this has changed, the frontman detailed, "Now it's not. It's just hip-hop and f--king R&B and rap all the time; that's what it is now. Well, it's the sign of the times. I mean, times change. It is just, for me, as an old-school fart, it's really difficult to accept the fact, but that's how it is."

Lordi most recently released Monstereophonic (Theaterror vs. Demonarchy), their eighth full length, last year. The album featured a fresh take on the writing as Mr. Lordi described, “There’s two kinds of Lordi material on the album. The first six songs are your classic Lordi kind of stuff — three- or four-minute songs with hooky choruses and stuff; ’80s-orientated hard rock, like the s–t that we’re doing. That’s our main stuff. But now, the last six songs of the album is gonna be a story.”

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