2002–2004: Gimmel In the autumn of 2002, Vartiainen entered
Popstars. When interviewed by the magazine
City in October 2007, she said she was not very seriously participating in the contest and that it was a "half accident", which led her to "finding herself". However, Jonna Pirinen left the band after two weeks. Gimmel's debut single "Etsit muijaa seuraavaa" sold gold with over 17,000 copies in 2002, placing in the top 70 of the best-selling singles of all time in Finland. The band's debut album
Lentoon (2002) debuted at number one on the Albums Chart, sold
multi-platinum with over 98,000 copies and was the best-selling album of 2002 in Finland. With
Lentoon, the band won three Emma Awards in 2003: for New Pop/Rock Artist of the Year, Debut Album of the Year and Best-Selling Album of the Year. The second album
Kaksi kertaa enemmän (2003) peaked at number two on the Albums Chart and managed to sell platinum with over 50,000 copies, but the third album
Pisaroita ja kyyneleitä (2004), debuting at number three on the chart, charted for only six weeks and did not exceed the gold limit. During the Gimmel era, Vartiainen studied psychology at an open university. Selling over 61,000 copies and peaking at number six on the Albums Chart, her debut album went on to reach the Finnish
double-platinum certification. Vartiainen was on the magazine cover for the December 2007 edition of the Finnish
Cosmopolitan and the March 2008 edition of the Mexican
Cosmopolitan. With
Ihmisten edessä and its title track, Vartiainen won the Award for Debut Album of the Year and Song of the Year at the 2008 Emma Awards and the album was nominated for Pop Album of the Year.
2010–2012: Seili Vartiainen's second album
Seili was released in March 2010 and it charted for 62 non-consecutive weeks on the Albums Chart—with 15 weeks at number one—and sold over 150,000 copies (
multi-platinum), becoming the best-selling album of 2010 in Finland with sales of 95,000 copies in that year and the 14th-best-selling of all time in the country. Three singles were released from
Seili, "
En haluu kuolla tänä yönä", "
Nettiin" and "
Missä muruseni on" along with two
promotional singles, "
Duran Duran" and "
Eikö kukaan voi meitä pelastaa?". "En haluu kuolla tänä yönä" and "Missä muruseni on" sold both platinum with over 11,000 copies and 18,000 copies, respectively, while "Duran Duran" sold gold with over 5,400 copies. "Missä muruseni on" was also the major chart hit from the album, topping the Singles Chart in its fourth week and staying atop for 11 weeks in
2010 and
2011. Met with mixed to positive critiques, on the one hand for its vocals and combination of pop and dark piano ballads, on the other hand for lack of peculiarity, the album and its singles earned Vartiainen a record-breaking seven Emma Awards in February 2011; the Awards for Female Soloist of the Year, Live Performer of the Year, Album of the Year, Pop/Rock Album of the Year, Best-Selling Album of the Year, Song of the Year ("En haluu kuolla tänä yönä") and Music Video of the Year ("Missä muruseni on"). In addition, her producer
Jukka Immonen won the Award for Producer of the Year. "Dumbfounded" by her success with
Seili, she said in an interview at the Emma Awards that "the way music starts to live its completely own life in the audience after being produced", makes her feel humble. Vartiainen was also nominated for
Best Finnish Act at the
2010 MTV Europe Music Awards. Amid her busy concert tour around Finland in the spring of 2011, she denied some tabloid rumors that she would have canceled interviews due to stress and exhaustion. In May 2011, she announced she would take a long break after her upcoming summer concerts, to relax and prepare for a new album. Vartiainen's last concert before the break took place on the Main Stage at the
Finnish National Theatre in Helsinki on August 28, with the specialty that the concert was broadcast live at
Finnkino film theaters in 11 other localities around Finland, for the first time in the history of the theater. The tickets to the concert were sold out within a couple of hours. Due to technical difficulties, the concert could not be broadcast in
Lahti and Kuopio. In an August 2011 interview with the radio station Iskelmä, Vartiainen said she was planning to spend her touring break by graduating as a singing teacher by August 2012—which she did in May 2013. In late January 2012, Vartiainen was about to perform briefly at a fundraising concert for the
presidential campaign of the
Green League's
Pekka Haavisto, but she was forced to cancel due to high fever and
gastroenteritis.
2013–present: Terra After a two-year break, Warner Music Finland announced in August 2013 that Vartiainen would release her third studio album,
Terra, on 4 October 2013, preceded by its lead single "
Junat ja naiset" on 16 August. The lead single peaked at number 15 and the album debuted at number one on
the Official Finnish Charts. Vartiainen embarked on her new concert tour promoting the album on November 1. ==Personal life==