Jenni Vartiainen

Jenni Mari Vartiainen (born March 20, 1983) is a Finnish pop singer. Before her professional musical endeavours, she was a figure skater in her teen-age years and attended the Kuopio Senior High of Music and Dance. Vartiainen rose to publicity by winning the Finnish talent show Popstars in October 2002 with Susanna Korvala, Ushma Karnani (currently Olava) and Jonna Pirinen. The four formed the band Gimmel that released three studio albums, sold over 160,000 records and received three Emma Awards, accolades for outstanding achievements in music, awarded by the Finnish music industry federation, Musiikkituottajat. The band broke up in October 2004. After Gimmel, Vartiainen launched her solo career, releasing her debut single "Tunnoton" in April 2007. In September of the same year, the single was followed by her debut album Ihmisten edessä, which peaked at number six on the Finnish Albums Chart, and its eponymous second single, both of which sold gold in Finland with over 65,000 and 16,000 copies, respectively. In late March 2010, Jenni Vartiainen released her second studio album Seili, after the arrival of its gold-selling debut single "En haluu kuolla tänä yönä". The second album debuted at number one on the Albums Chart, while charting non-consecutively for over a year, and went on to sell over 150,000 copies (septuple platinum), becoming the best-selling album of 2010 in Finland; and ranking 14th in the list of all-time best-sellers in Finland. A combination of pop and ballads, Seili spawned another gold-selling single in August 2010, "Missä muruseni on", which dominated the top-three spots of the Finnish Singles Chart all the way to early 2011, and the gold-selling promotional single "Duran Duran". Vartiainen's third studio album, Terra, released in October 2013, debuted at number one and sold triple platinum with over 62,000 copies. Jenni Vartiainen has sold over 330,000 certified records in Finland during her solo career, which places her among the 50 best-selling recording artists of all time in the country. She has also received nine Emma Awards.