Hector – 72-74 (1978)

This is my first blog post in this blog about a Finnish album. It feels a bit strange to write about these albums in English, but at the same time, I want to keep the language in the blog consistent and give an opportunity for non-Finns to find something interesting. Every country has their own musical legends that people from other countries have never heard of. Hector is one of the biggest music legends of Finland. His music sounds today quite old dated and it's difficult to see from today's perspective, why a man who mostly made cover songs translated into Finnish became so popular. To understand this, you need to know that Finland in the 60's and 70's was a fairly boring place when it comes to popular culture. Most of the Finnish pop musicians started their careers copying international stars and translated songs were more of a norm than an exception.



I got this album on vinyl from my grandmother, who does not really listen to vinyls anymore. She was a big fan of hector and I got a few of his albums from her at the same time. This particular album is a compilation album of Hector's early songs. The first half of the album is just translated cover songs of various rock and pop songs. On the second half, there are also some original songs. I have to say that in most part, the original songs are better. The translations are not as good as the originals and they just sound kind of cheesy with this production.

Even though this album is a compilation, it doesn't have the best song by Hector. Mandoliinimies (Mandoline Man) is one of the best Finnish classic songs in my opinion. This album does have other mega hits, such as Lumi teki enkelin eteiseen (Snow formed an angel into the hall), Olen hautausmaa (I'm a cemetery) and Asfalttiprinssi (Asphalt Prince). Everyone in Finland knows these songs even if they have never intentionally listened to Hector.

Hector also covers some fantastic songs on this album. There's Suzanne (originally by Leonard Cohen) and Suomi-Neto (originally American Pie by Don McLean). It's interesting that these versions don't even really try to be too different from the originals. They just have the lyrics in Finnish. I guess people didn't understand English as well as they do now back then, so people were still interested in just hearing songs with lyrics translated.

I think Hector is at his best in melancholic folk songs, such as Yksinäinen tinasotamies (Lonely Tin Soldier) and Herra Mirandos (Mr. Mirandos). These songs give a better understanding of Hector's music. It's just a shame that these songs have not interested audiences in later years as much as the more cheesy songs that I mentioned earlier. These songs should be more well known.

Hector was famously a fan of David Bowie. He has even sung a translated version of Starman back in the day. If you look at the album cover here, he has a similar hairdo as Bowie had during his Ziggy Stardust era. It looks pretty strange though, because Hector actually looks quite masculine and is very far from that androgynous look of David Bowie.

Personally, I've never been a big Hector fan, but still these songs have had an impact in my life, because they were songs that were playing everywhere in my childhood. It's interesting how Finnish pop music has evolved in only few decades from simple translation covers to lively music scene full of different genres and styles. Hector is an important part of that Finnish musical history.

Listen to the album on Spotify.