Laura Voutilainen, performing professionally as Laura, first rose to wider attention by serving as Finland’s entrant at the 2002 Eurovision Song Contest. During the 1990s and the opening years of the following decade she ranked among the country’s most successful iskelmä artists. Born in Jyvaskyla in 1975, she received her earliest musical instruction while still in kindergarten and had assembled her own group, Kevytlinja, by the age of fifteen. Her debut single, “Muuttanut Oot Maailmain,” appeared in 1993 and was succeeded shortly afterward by “Kerran,” a track that quickly reached the summit of the Finnish charts and cleared the path for her self-titled first album, which earned an Emma Award the next year. Two years later her second long-player, Kaksi Karttaa, entered stores and attained gold status inside three days, bringing Laura a second Emma Award. After an intensive stretch of touring and recording she issued her first Christmas collection, Lumikuningatar, and supplied the Finnish voice of Meg in Disney’s Hercules. In 1999 she released her fourth album, Etelan Yossa, while also hosting her own television series, Laura Wou!!
Two further years of live work preceded the charting singles “Neonvalot” and “En Mielestain Sua Saa” together with the studio album Puolet Sun Auringosta. The subsequent year she prevailed in Finland’s Eurovision semifinals and represented the nation with the up-tempo disco number “Addicted to You,” which finished twentieth and thereby barred Finland from the following contest. She next delivered the 2003 album Paivakirja, whose single climbed to the national top five. Her sixth studio set, Tassa Hetkessa, arrived in 2005, and throughout the year that followed she appeared regularly at the Helsinki Grand Casino.
