when mentioning humppa recently, one band which appeared magically in my head was the finnish band eläkeläiset (the pensioners). somewhat very popular among openbsd developers and strange party folk, they cover pop, rock and metal songs in their unique humppa style.

first, let me start with a europe (hard rock) cover of their famous song the final countdown:

the second one is a two unlimited (eurodance) cover, if you remember their song no limits from my childhood:

the third is a children of bodom (melodic death metal) cover, of their song hate me!.

finally, here’s a recording of a live performance of a billy idol (punk rock) song, dancing with myself:

eläkeläiset is mostly a live band, and it’s funny to watch them on the stage, getting drunk, talking crap, making music, and having fun with everyone around.

the finnish band finntroll is a more popular choice than most bands i presented so far, except lacuna coil. finntroll‘s lyrics are troll-centered. not internet trolls or fantasy trolls though, but the skandinavian ones. for that reason, they also sing in swedish, because it sounds more trollish than finnish or english. they tell tales about trolls, including their wars against christian missionaries. the music comes from the melodic black metal genre, with some humppa (sometimes described as finnish polka) influcences. most of them feature fast melodic heavy music with screamed/growled lyrics. the band also makes use of orchestric parts and is well suited as party music or to dance to it (well, i guess it depends on what you mean by dancing). one good example is vindfärd/människopesten from their 2003 album nadfödd:

another example is from their newest album, nifelvind:

a third song i want to present is relatively calm, compared to the above two. it’s from their ur jordens djup album, and very danceable:

finally, here’s a rather different piece from their 2003 album visor om slutet, an album i already raved about on spielwiese (in fact, that was my first post there after the obligatory hello world post). the album is purely accoustic and often also instrumental. this is a nice piece with vocals:

in case you like something atmospheric, folkish, try that album. it’s not typical for finntroll, but nonetheless great!