From the outset of her career, Janita has commanded attention. As a multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, and songwriter, she has uniquely defied convention yet repeatedly enjoyed mainstream success.
Her new single, “Real Deal,” is out November 21st ahead of her tenth studio album, Mad Equation (out May 2025).
Prior to her two Top-40 U.S. Billboard hits, Janita was a sensation in her native Finland. She learned to sing before she could talk, began playing piano at age three, and started writing songs at age four before studying both classical piano and ballet. As a teenager, she became a fixture on radio and television and ahead of moving to New York City at seventeen, The Daily Telegraph proclaimed her as “Finland’s biggest pop star.” Her striking looks and the unsettling power of her musicianship helped put blue-eyed soul on the map in her home country, securing her place as a timeless persona in Finnish music history.
Her talent and accolades translated into an American record deal with Sony, where the cookie-cutter constraints of major-label thinking quickly became uncomfortable for the artist. “They actually had me work with a ‘trainer’ whose job it was to teach me how to walk, and how to sit ‘like a lady,’” says a laughing Janita. “I was like, look, I already know how to walk, man. I’m good.”
She would soon strike out on her own, releasing a string of independent hits and records that would win her not only a devoted American audience, but an international one on four continents.
With this new record, co-produced, recorded, and mixed by Blake Morgan (Lenny Kravitz, Lesley Gore, David Cloyd), Janita continues to demonstrate that much like contemporaries PJ Harvey and St. Vincent, the only formula she’s interested in following is her own. “The title Mad Equation is about trying to do the math to figure someone out. Trying to size someone up. There’s actually a mathematical formula called ‘the mad equation’ which physicists use to measure the unpredictability of something,” says Janita. “I think it’s fair to say that over the course of my career, people have been trying to figure me out too. Am I the long-haired blonde soul singer? Am I the Finnish teenage star? Am I the American alternative rock ’n’ roller? Gosh, I’m just such a problem. So, maybe I’m a mad equation for some. Well, with this new record, problem solved.”
The first single from the new record has special meaning for Janita. “‘Real Deal’ was inspired by two of my favorite films, The 400 Blows and Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid. I identify with the rebellious nature of the characters in both those movies—living life off the grid, doing something that doesn’t make a lot of ‘traditional’ sense to most. Being an artist in this world is a mad pursuit, yet it’s the work I’ve schooled myself in, and done, all my life. So I find myself living, symbolically, in a permanent shootout like Butch and Sundance and I’m alright with it. More than just ‘alright’ with it—it’s the life I’ve chosen.”
Billboard Magazine writes, “This woman’s got the goods. Janita has created a timeless, sensuous, musical mosaic that deserves to be heard.” The Telegraph UK proclaims, “She sings with such passion and conviction that it’s hard to take your eyes off her.” Downtown Magazine describes her work as “Anthem(s) of clarity and hope…. Janita’s striking gender-bending look and mesmerizing ice-blue eyes bring to mind Annie Lennox and Bowie’s Thin White Duke-era guise.”
“Real Deal,” the first single from Janita’s new record Mad Equation, is out November 21st on ECR Music Group.
