The Singles Jukebox

Today’s next Big Local European Hit comes from Finland…

[Video][Website]
[4.88]

Cassy Gress: Remember back in ’97, when “Barbie Girl” came out and everybody thought it set a new bar for obnoxious pop? This is essentially that same song twenty years later. I was already annoyed at the heavily Auto-Tuned cutesy chorus, but then it slows way the hell down just so it can throw in a final chorus that’s even faster than how it started, mangling Zedd’s crowd-singing effects.
[1]

Edward Okulicz: A bit of a twee slog until the tempo accelerates, at which point it splits the difference between Aqua and happy hardcore. Should have picked just one of the two, though.
[5]

Tim de Reuse: Honestly, you get points for the exaggerated tempo slide near the end. I laughed. How couldn’t I? It’s the perfect way to end a song that’s tonally split between painfully sweet, squeaky singalong sections and menacing, chromatic basslines. Need a climax? Just nightcore it! Great stuff. Not that I’d really want to listen to it again.
[4]

Alfred Soto: The sudden melodic shifts and chorus of burbles are delights in themselves; while asking Hank Solo to cool it with the pitch altering would disrupt the track’s hyper caffeinated whimsy, I think my nerves would appreciate it.
[4]

Ryo Miyauchi: The sweet synth fizz is welcome no matter who’s bringing it, but Hank Solo has trouble bottling Sophie’s oddball bounce for his own formula. He doesn’t really know what to do next after he has a convincing copy. It doesn’t blend well as his PC Music rendition plays too distinct. He toggles with it, messing with the speed, but this is a study at best.
[5]

Jonathan Bogart: Finnish pop aimed blatantly at the worldwide moe market sounds like it would be a car-crash of diabetic cutesiness, and indeed it is. There’s enough variety in the soundscape to escape the pure empty sugar-rush of much of the J-pop it’s emulating, but not enough.
[5]

Iain Mew: Hank Solo and his sadly unnamed collaborators are far from the only ones to realise the potential of pitched up voices and pinched synth sounds. “Söpö” is a delight becuase, like Dënver before them, they know not to be stop there, not to be constrained by that aesthetic. Yes, you can make something cute and alien with it, but if you also have it in you to do a banging dance track with “Bad Romance” revving noises and a rap break, why not do that too? Why not throw it all together? So “Söpö” collides the human and the artificial, then flips a switch and suddenly the walls are spinning and the two sides collapse over each other and into a brain-melting kaleidoscope of joy.
[9]

Juana Giaimo: Although “Söpo” may not be entirely a humorous song, there is a certain denial of taking themselves seriously — just listen to how both Hank Solo as well as Sanni finish some of their lines with a high exclamation. Everything is too absurd thanks to combination of eccentric situations — as if each was a different picture with a different story — that are hard to process in one listen. Its shallowness makes it a fun song, but I still hear a certain sadness in the chorus due to its lonely melody, which contrasts with the celebratory spirit of the end of the song. It makes me wonder what we should be celebrating — and if knowing the language may help me to understand it all, but maybe I’d rather not understand it because I’d have no idea how to rate this song apart from its absurdity. 
[6]