Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

The new Artistic director for Sanremo Stefano De Martino * has really changed some things in the annual festival with his co-director Fabrizio Ferraguzzo, some same old like dropping the Newcomers category in the festival, some new like replacing the Cover night with Eurovision night. But let's go on order. No news about his co-hosts yet but the names Giulia Vecchio, Herbert Ballerina and Carlo Amleto , his current collaborators are considered very possible be in. Maria De Filippi might return as well.  The 77th Sanremo festival will take place in Teatro Ariston in Sanremo between February 16 and 20, 2027. Apparently there will be fewer songs this time around, 24 (instead of the 30 the past years). The Newcomers winner aka Sanremo Giovani winner will be added to the line up to compete among the Big  and thus will have a chance to win it all and/or the Eurovision night and go to Eurovision as well. Just like Mahmood in 2018-19. The Sanremo Giovani final will take place on De...

  Käärijä surprises us once again releasing an EP with Sanni out of the blue titled Vitun hyvää joulua or Fucking merry Christmas. It features three songs Booty call, Hei me pärjätään (We'll be alright) and Sinkkumies (Single man).  Not so keen on Booty call but the other two tracks are great! Let me throw this in now: Sanni will be in UMK 2027, been expecting that for years already but now it seems more real than ever. Enjoy!

Another week, another dose of #Finpop 2026. This time with already familiar names from this series as all have been featured before multiple times and one newcomer, namely Michael Anders who however sounds so much like Hugo that if I heard the song on radio I might think it's Hugo's new one! If that's a good sign for his artistic future remains to be seen. ELLIMEI / KAIKUA - VOIDAAKS RIKKOO HILJAISUUS FRANS HARJU - 110% MICHAEL ANDERS - KAIKKI AJALLAAN ANTTI KETONEN - MIKSI SÄ ITKET

Eurovision song contest 2027 will take place in Bulgaria after Dara's win in Vienna 2026. The most likely dates are May 11, 13 and 15, 2027 according the information we have so far but the dates will be most likely confirmed along with the chosen venue and city in the end of July. Four cities submitted proposals for hosting but Plovdiv and Varna were out on July 13 and Sofia and Burgas stay in competition. The other two really didn't have a chance to start with, did they? Sofia stays the front runner from the beginning with its Arena Sofia. Opened in 2011 it has a seating capacity of 12.373 and concerts up to over 17.000. It already hosted Junior Eurovision 2015. Sofia is of course the capital of Bulgaria. It has been continuously inhabited since 7000 Bc and today nearly 1,3 million call it home. With all its ancient history it surely has a lot to offer in that department. Burgas bids with Burgas arena with seating capacity of 4100-6100 and up to 15.000 for concerts. Opened in ...

  Before going into new faces and new sounds after last week's warm up let's have a quickie to see what the Eurovision veterans have been delivering the past few months including Hokka of Blind Channel fame as Joel Hokka left the band and formed a new one, simply called Hokka. JOOST, KÄÄRIJÄ, TOMMY CASH - I MISS US ERIKA VIKMAN - FATHER (I WILL NEVER CONFESS) WINDOWS95MAN - NEED YOUR HEART HOKKA -  HEART SAID NO

  Let's kick of this year's #FinPop2026 series with Kaj's answer to Tommy Cash's Espresso macchiato, you do need also an ice cream don't you? Then we have two new fresh names along with already seasoned Karim B who's still waiting for the Big one, maybe UMK 2027? KAJ - GELATERIA MIMI MENDINE - R.I.P. SAMUEL SHIPWAY - INFERNO KARIM B - ONGELMA

  After this exhausting and exciting Eurovision season it's time to take a break of it.  First off to my spiritual home,  Rome  and therefor here comes a series of songs celebrating Rome in its lyrics and/or videos.  After that at some point I'll relaunch the  #FinPop  series with all the goodies that have been released since January 2026. Have a good one !

  After this exhausting and exciting Eurovision season it's time to take a break of it.  First off to my spiritual home,  Rome  and therefor here comes a series of songs celebrating Rome in its lyrics and/or videos.  After that at some point I'll relaunch the  #FinPop  series with all the goodies that have been released since January 2026. Have a good one !

  After this exhausting and exciting Eurovision season it's time to take a break of it.  First off to my spiritual home,  Rome  and therefor here comes a series of songs celebrating Rome in its lyrics and/or videos.  After that at some point I'll relaunch the  #FinPop  series with all the goodies that have been released since January 2026. Have a good one !

  After this exhausting and exciting Eurovision season it's time to take a break of it.  First off to my spiritual home,  Rome  and therefor here comes a series of songs celebrating Rome in its lyrics and/or videos.  After that at some point I'll relaunch the  #FinPop  series with all the goodies that have been released since January 2026. Have a good one !

  After this exhausting and exciting Eurovision season it's time to take a break of it.  First off to my spiritual home,  Rome  and therefor here comes a series of songs celebrating Rome in its lyrics and/or videos.  After that at some point I'll relaunch the  #FinPop  series with all the goodies that have been released since January 2026. Have a good one !

  After this exhausting and exciting Eurovision season it's time to take a break of it.  First off to my spiritual home,  Rome  and therefor here comes a series of songs celebrating Rome in its lyrics and/or videos.  After that at some point I'll relaunch the  #FinPop  series with all the goodies that have been released since January 2026. Have a good one !

  After this exhausting and exciting Eurovision season it's time to take a break of it.  First off to my spiritual home,  Rome  and therefor here comes a series of songs celebrating Rome in its lyrics and/or videos.  After that at some point I'll relaunch the  #FinPop  series with all the goodies that have been released since January 2026. Have a good one !

After this exhausting and exciting Eurovision season it's time to take a break of it.  First off to my spiritual home, Rome and therefor here comes a series of songs celebrating Rome in its lyrics and/or videos.  After that at some point I'll relaunch the #FinPop series with all the goodies that have been released since January 2026. Have a good one !

It's been three years Käärijä cha cha chaed his way to Finnish people's heart and not only: sold out European tours where locations have been updated to larger ones, three years in a row performing at Eurovision song contest final in one form or another (plus Cha cha cha played this year making it four), hundreds of gigs and festivals, millions of streams and countless collaborations with local and foreign artists. Not bad for an unknown guy from Vantaa who didn't quite speak English. In Finland he has two Top-5 albums, one has sold triple platinum. Ten top-10 singles, 23 Top-50 singles. 17 singles with other artists. New album comes out in October 2026.  Sold out Veikkaus Arena (Eurovision 2007 arena) saw a show described by critics (and music lovers)  as one of the best Finnish productions ever. A bit messy as he delivered all his hits with guests and the genres go from TRAFIK! to I miss us.... Understandable. But enjoyable. Bojan and Joker Out were the warm up act.  Se...

A week after Eurovision 2026 final let's have a look at the viewing figures around Europe, those that have been published so far at least.... Bulgaria  588.591, peak up to 895.000, share of 45,7%. Second most watched ever after 2017 Austria   1.573.000, share of 78%. The highest since 2015 when Austria hosted. Greece   2.822.000, share of 70,5% peaking at 83%. Highest since 2011. Italy 5.098.000 and share of 36%, up 342.000 and continuing the  growth. Finland   2.600.000 on tv + 1,400.000 online platform. The most watched since 2007 when Finland hosted. The average was 1,800.000. Slightly up from last year.  Romania  339.000, share of 11% Czechia had the highest figures in a decade. Poland 2,500.000 with a peak of 3.300.000 when Alicja was performing.  Australia scored its second highest combined audience since its debut in 2015 with a total of 3.270.000 viewers for the three shows live or on demand.  Israel had 32,7% share peaki...

  The 2020's have been very good for Finland, the best era of the whole Eurovision history by far. Four out of six our best placements ever have been in the past six years.  1. Lordi - Hard rock hallelujah - 1/37   2006 2. Käärijä - Cha cha cha  2/37  2023 3. Blind Channel - Dark side  6/39    2021 4. Linda Lampenius x Pete Parkkonen -Liekinheitin  6/35    2026 5. Erika Vikman - ICH KOMME   11/37    2025 5. Softengine - Something better  11/37    2014

  There was a saying that hell will freeze over before Finland wins Eurovision but then came the monsters from hell and stormed to record breaking victory that night exactly 20 years ago in Athens.... And even cows did fly! (At least I saw a cow balloon the day after hanging in a three infront of my window anyways....) I remember being at home alone, as I always do watch Eurovision alone and as I was a lot more inside in the bubble back then I had had my spies in Athens telling me Finland had won the semi-final. So expectations were high and all along I had said since Lordi won the national final that they would either win or be a total flop. After the Swedish vote I remember my excitement turned into calmness: We will win. And oh boy did we win! The Finnish commentators Jaana Pelkonen and Heikki Paasonen with Asko Murtomäki lost it completely somewhere around the third 12 points. You can watch the voting here , starting around 2h10) 8 points from Slovenia..... (We got first point...

  Bulgarian odds There's been a lot of talk about odds being wrong and not seeing the bangaranga effect almost at all, and how last year KAJ was leading the odds all season and finished 4th just like Linda & Pete this year didn't win but finished 6th. On the other hand in the semi-final two odds predicted the ten qualifiers 100%. But how different it the odds vs. final results really were? The losers Sweden is the biggest loser dropping a total of 12 places from 8th to 20th. Malta dropped 7 places and favorites Finland and Greece both 5. UK and Cyprus dropped 4 places, another favorite Australia 2 as well as Czechia while France and Germany did pretty much as expected dropping only one place. The winners The biggest climber was Poland with 7 places higher than expected followed by Albania 5. Moldova , Ukraine and Belgium climbed 4 places while Romania 3 from 6th to 3rd, another surprise. Norway and Serbia also did 3. The winner Bulgaria climbed 2 from 3rd ...

I must say I pretty much nailed it with Estonia and Switzerland being the 11th ones in their semi-finals. Georgia and Azerbaijan finishing last were expected. Bulgaria scored highest already here among all semi-finalists but Poland and Norway scoring so high is a bit of a surprise after all. Judging the results this year next year's national finals will be filled with insane nonsense bangers, violins and rock.  Finland was second for the juries and fifth for the televoters and third in combined. Semi-final One 1. Israel   269 (jury 106 + tele 163) 2. Poland   247 (137 + 110) 3. Finland   227 (127 + 100)  4. Moldova  208 (62 + 146) 5. Serbia  187 (56 + 131)  6. Croatia 175 (85 + 90) 7. Greece  159 (88 + 71) 8. Lithuania   101 (46 + 55) 9. Sweden  96 (79 + 17) 10. Belgium   91 (81 + 10) 11. Estonia   79 (33 + 46) 12. Portugal  74 (39 + 35)  13. Montenegro   71 (26 + 45) 14. S...

Oh dear, that was a bit unexpected even if Bulgaria rose to the Top-3 in odds the day of final and had its momemtum rising after the rehearsals. Bangaranga everyone indeed. She was fuegoed. And it won both jury and tele , that didn't happen since 2017! Israel was beaten, maybe that's what matters in a way. Next thought is can they afford to host next year? Weren't they away for financial reasons mostly anyways until this sudden return just when other countries stayed home? Another returnee Romania finished third - who would have thought? Makes one wonder how come these two returnees did so well all of sudden and if they were too broke to participate before how they ended up in 2026? Just saying.  Australia and Finland and most of all Greece as well as Denmark bombed a bit. Is it the time of the odds being right is over? Last year the clear #1 favorite finished 4th, now 6th. But then again Finland 6th place is our 4th best placing ever (compared to number of participants) Th...

The moment is here. Three hours before the start odds are saying Finland (38) , Australia (24), a new entry on top Bulgaria (8), Greece (7) and Israel (6), Romania and Denmark have dropped, Italy, France and Malta hold their positions below.  Who is going to win? Will we have a compromise winner who doesn't win either jury or televote?  The televote will be probably won by Israel again as they have started their campaign en force today it seems. Bulgaria and Greece could be the next ones, or even Italy. And where that puts Finland? In the jury votes Australia, Finland, France and maybe Bulgaria should be on top. Where will Italy land?   I think we have three scenarios here: Or Finland wins Lordi style winning both , or as a compromise not winning neither but ending up on top in the end. Or we have a total chaos of voting and the Top-5 is all messed up by very different votes from the juries and the public. And we have a winner no one expected, like Italy :-) This sai...

Finland's Linda Lampenius x Pete Parkkonen and Liekinheitin stormed to the top of odds as soon as the song was released and has stayed there unbothered with a huge margin ever since. The runner ups have stayed at large in odds; France, Denmark and Greece mostly, only Greece having a tiny spurt just before rehearsals and then Australia climbing to second place after semi-final 2.. The news of Linda playing  her precious Gagliano violin from 1781 live only boosted the chances odds going from 30 to 36, and later the day before final up to 43.  Also the fan clubs back Finland, apparently with the second biggest margin ever. This poll has had its hits and misses but usually gets it somewhat right. Mostly, Not necessary the winner. EuroJury pretending to be the indicator for the jury vote has had it apparently pretty much right mostly, the winner placing in Top-2 in most occasions. Also INFE poll was won by Finland with a huge margin. The biggest fan site, more or less, also backs F...