Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

So here we have them, the 15 songs that will fight over the right to fly the Finnish flag in Oslo 2010. The first hearing left me a bit disappointed as there is very little "Eurovision friendly" songs there. Half the songs are in Finnish and propably will stay so if they win with the exception of Amadeus and Maria Lund I suspect. Most of the songs also seem to have not been written Eurovision in mind but are just radio friendly future hits to their performers and that in the end is not a bad thing! Here are the songs from the first semifinal: AMADEUS - Anastacia I think we will hear the winner first. If Jari Sillanpää managed to win with similar but much more mediocre Takes two 2 tango Amadeus shouldn't worry. He is also more popular than Sillanpää was back then so the televotes will be flying. The song falls though to the usual Finnish use of rather bland arrangements. Someone remix the song, please and we have a killer! He will bring his sisters along, one as backin...

SVT has announced the artists in the first two semifinals and there are no surprises, all the names have been circulating already. In the first semifinal we will have Erik Saade - Manboy, Frispråkarn - Singel, Jenny Silver - A place to stay, Jessica Andersson - I did it for love, Linda Prichard - You're making me hot hot hot, Pain of Salvation - Roadsalt, Ola - Unstoppable and joker Salem Al Fakir - Keep pn walking. In the second semifinal we have Andra Generationen + Dogge - Hippare hoppare, Andreas Johnsson - We can work it out, Anna-Maria Espinosa - Innan alla ljusen brunnit ut, Hanna Lindblad - Manipulated and Kalle Moraeus & Orsa Spälman - Underbart.. Wejoker winner MiSt - Come and get me know is also in the second semifinal but it not sure yet who's going to perform it. Besides these names we also know for sure joker Darin is in. Jessica Andersson, Andreas Johnsson and Ola make a come back to Melodifestivalen.

Mecano has released a fantastic 2CDs + 2DVDs + book about their career - and released also a "new" track Maria Luz and a couple of new remixes . Absolutely worth every 29,90 euros I paid in Las Palmas for it! The book features a discography with the Italian and French releases, biography of the band and individual ones of Ana, Jose and Nacho. The DVD features various concerts and all their videoclips. Check it out here . Oh, and there's also Mecano SingStar available now!

YLE has put the 15 Euroviisut 2010 songs online here . Seven songs in Finnish, seven in English and one in Italian as reported here before. I will review the songs later today.

Sweden's Ulrik won with maximum votes (3x times 12) the MGP Nordic 2009 in Stockholm. Denmark's Pelle B came second with 28 and Norway's Jörgen and Finland Amanda's shared the third place with 20 (so Finland finally wasn't left 4th!). This is Sweden's first win. In the first round all 8 songs were performed and televote picked one song from each country to the superfinal and new voting. The scores were given as 6, 8 and 12 points. The contest is back next year and the news concerning Finland is that songs can be sent in now also in Finnish (FSTV5, the Finnish Swedish speaking channels is in charge of this contest) and in Saami.

The original Junior Eurovision song contest, MGP Nordic is on tonight. Two songs from each Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland are taking part. Norway and Denmark have both won twice while Sweden has scored 3 second places, will they finally win in homeground? Or will Finland surprise us all? Worth mentioning Sister Twister and Linn who represanted Finland in 2007 are both taking part in Euroviisut 2010. You can follow the contest live for  example here and it starts at 8pm CET. This is the real thing: kids doing kiddy things in a programme made for kids!

And for the Netherlands? Well, Pierre Kartner (74) will write the song and he is also knows as Father Abraham and he wrote the Smurf song that has sold over 30 million worldwide making it the most sold Dutch composition in the history. He has  written a lot else besides that of course, including the Dutch entry back in 1973, De oude muzikant . Who is going to sing the song will be revealed later.... I just hope it isn't the Smurfs following Dustin the turkey's footsteps....

NRK has released the song titles and the writers, and it looks pretty much like the artists list I published before here is pretty much real. Maybe. The rumours about Take That's Gary Parlow writing the British entry are still well alive, with added bonus that Blue's Duncan James would perform it. I like the idea. Another possibility for the writer is still Elton John - both would follow nicely Andrew Lloyd Webber's footsteps. Albania apparently doesn't care much for Christmas, their selection will run from December 24 to 27, and previous Eurovision entrants Anjeza Shahini and Kejsi Tola are taking part. Also Belarus has kicked off its selection with 25 songs and the Polish four are online as well. Finland will announce its titles and writers next Monday, when they will be also online in YLE's website. News also from Croatia and Portugal amongst others. Looks like the national selection season is slowly getting to a full swing. More about all this next week when I...

It looks like Belgium took all by surprise by announcing Tom Dice, a 20-year-old X-Factor runner up will go for Belgium in Oslo 2010. He becomes the second artist known for Eurovisin 2010.

Fantastic news!!! Belgium and the Netherlands took the lead early on and Armenia was leading at some point, too and Russia was climbing but when the last jury from FYR Macedonia gave Armenia only 1 point (thank you!) it was clear Belgium or the Netherlands would win. Great!Watch Ralf here .

I will try to blog about the event webcast permitting... 1. SWEDEN Mimmi looks a bit to grown up and sexy for JUNIOR Eurovision. With this song and looks she might have done the real thing as well. But it's an interesting song but maybe in a wrong place? 2. RUSSIA looks more her age and so does the rest of the group. She sings well and the song is catchy and much more JUnior than the adult version even if songs like this regularly still are in the national selections here and there most every year. 3. ARMENIA is rather annoying mixture of Ricky Martin and Ruslana that I don't care to listen ever again. So, propably it will win then... 4. ROMANIA is like Sweden very adult and a bit too sexy for my liking for Junior Eurovision. I mean if it was anywhere else it would be just a normal girlband performance but this is Junior Eurovision and that reminds me why I can't make myself like this JESC more, the line between adult and kid performances is so shaky. Not helped t...

Portugal seems to be making a serious effor this year and Festival da Canção 2010 will be hosted in the biggest venue ever in Portugal, in Campo Pegueno in Lisbon that can host up to 10.000 (hey YLE, when will you bring Euroviisut final to Hartwall Areena?) and the format is copied from the Eurovision itself: two semifinal on Tuesday and Thursday leading to Saturday March 6th's grand final. making that Saturday  already a hot spot in ESC 2010 season calendar with finals in Portugal, Estonia and Croatia , and 2nd chance round in Sweden. This ex-bull fighting arena was built in 1890-1892 and was reopened in 2006 as a multi-event venue and shopping center. Now we can only hope Portugal will come up with some good songs like this , this, this or this and bring the Eurovision 2011 to Lisbon! After Greece and Finland won this is the one I am waiting for....

Malta has cleared up its mess with lawsuits and such, and finally can start its own selection. Out of 123 received songs - only by Maltese writers -  international jury will pick up in early December the 36 songs that will go on to the six semifinals, each with six songs. Twenty songs will make it to the final on February 20, 2010. Each singer was allowed to send in one song but when will they do the same for the composers?! Malta has reached the top-3 in Eurovision 4 times: in 1992 and 1998 3rd, and in 2002 and 2005 2nd. Last four years Malta has made the bottom of the final list or haven't reached the final at all.

Insisting rumours want that the dream of  San Marino sending Iezzi sisters Paola and Chiara is still in the books and could be happening. They have released six albums so far plus a greatest hits between 1997 and 2007 and both have also released solo material, Chiara Nothing at all and Paola Alone for example. Their biggest hits include European wide hit Vamos a bailar , Festival, A modo mio , Second life and Cambiare pagina . If they will eventually do Eurovision Oslo that is like an Eurovision wet dream to many. Or for me it is at least!

Yet another country visit s this blog and this time it's Cameroon, and get's the number 161. Welcome!

My new PC broke just after 3 months and I will be  more or less "out of order" while it's being fixed. I'm also off to holidays from  Sunday 22 to Sunday 29. Therefor there won't be many updates if any for the next week. Please do check in 3minutes for updates and the latest news. I'll be back asap!

Arja Koriseva releases a new album Minä taistelen (I fight) tomorrow. It's her 15th album. This year she is also celebrating her 20th anniversary in business being the Tango Queen 1989, and the most popular of them. She has been doing musicals and TV besides stage shows and recording albums ever since. She has taken part in Euroviisut four times (1991, 1992 , 1993 and 2004 ) and represanted Finland abroad twice: in Golden Kite 1990 in Kuala Lumpur and Golden Stag in Romania in 1992 with her Euroviisut song Huomiseen . Both times she has reached the runner up position.

Montenegro becomes yet another country to withdraw from Oslo 2010 for financial problems. They have participated three times as an independent state in 2007 , 2008 and 2009 , each time failing to reach the final. Also in 2005 the Serbia & Montenegro's entry was the Montenegrin one, plus the Yogoslavian entries back in 1983 when Daniel took Dzuli to 4th place, and in 1984 .

The 7th annual Junior Eurovision song contest rehearsals have started in Kyiv. 13 countries are taking part this year when Bulgaria, Greece and Lithuania decided to stay home but Sweden and Cyprus return. The contest has been struggling with withdrawals and failing to increase the number of countries taking part, unlike the good old Eurovision song contest itself. My favourites this year are Sweden, Romania, Netherlands and Belgium but none of them beats last year's entry from Belgium, Oliver's Shut up . Las year's winner was though Belarus with Bzikebi's Bzzz .... This year's final on next Saturday, November 21, 2009.

Not only Carola is making Christmas albums every other Christmas (5 albums and eps todate), so is Magnus Carlsson. He has collected together his two previous Christmas albums En ny Jul and Spår i snön together with an EP with six newly recorded tracks in a box. Amongst the new recordings  Ave Maria and Little drummer boy . The box is released today. Next week he will start a Christmas tour that go on until and over Christmas and New Year's and ends in Borås on January 4, 2010.

The voting is on and when I sat down to pick up my top-10 I just realized it is very difficult! My mind was filled with songs, dozens of them and each and every should be in. But can't. So how to pick and choose? Should I try to avoid the obvious? Spread songs from all decades and different countries? Favour the quality over fun? Hard task! In the end I decided to pick up songs that mean something to me, songs that move me still every time I hear them - for one reason or another. And that gives me a string of Italian entries from Non ho l'etá to Era , from I treni di Tozeur to Rapsodia and Questo amore . And some Israeli goodies like Hi , Hasheket shenish'ar , Shara barchovot and The fire in your eye s. How could I forget L'oiseau et l'enfant ? Love shine a light ? Hard rock hallelujah ? Molitva ? Or oldies like Disco tango , Katson sineen taivaan or Io senza te ? Samson ? Amsterdam ? Si tu aimes ma musique or Dschingis Khan that rocked my world back then? O...

Melodifestivalen plays with exotic again. After Darin, of Kurdish origin here comes 28-year-old Sirian-Swedish Salem Al Fakir. he has released two albums so far plus one EP, and his singles are Astronaut , This is who I am, Dream girl , It's true and Good song . His latest single is Roxy . To me he is completely unknow until now. His entry is called Keep on walking .

Some news from the 60th Festival di Sanremo coming up next 16-20 February. The names of the 14 Big and 8 artists in newcomers category, this time called Sanremo nuova generazione will be announced December 18. The revolution in the rules is that songs are accepted not in pure Italian but also in dialects (but still not in foreign languages), meaning songs in napoletan, sardinian, sicilian or friulian for example could be heard for the very first time! And the real scoop: songs by foreign writers are also accepted! Anyways, what strikes me the most that despite five long evenings less and less songs are heard. 14 + 8 makes 22 and there used to be more songs in one category alone before, and without many eliminations. Now there will be eliminations of some kind each and every evening so that Saturday night we have only three (3!!!) songs left. For a show that will last for hours.... Oh well, the endless bla bla bla of the hosts, advertising, foreign guests that come on stage for 5 min...

South Africans are real Eurovision fans and delivers covers after covers in steady rhythm. The latest one that comes to our attention is Priscilla Smith's cover Klein bietjie liefde of Nina Åström A little bit , the Finnish entry back in 2000. I'm a fan of the sound of Afrikaans, just love it!

Check out my photos from Eros Ramazzotti's concert last night here .

I have always been thinkin Laura Pausini is the best italian live artist but after seeing Eros Ramazzotti's Ali e radici world tour 2009/2010 in Hartwall Areena in Helsinki I'm in doubt... He was absolutely fantastic: great choice of songs - even if he is promoting his latest album the set was filled with all the goodies, even Sta passando Novembre plus all the hits from Terra promessa to Adesso tu, from Cose della vita to Piú bella cosa , and Fuoco nel fuoco and L'Ombra del gigante that really rocked the house. He was wonderful vocally, even surprisingly good. The stage was fantastic (well done Cirque du soleil) and it was all just fantastic! I will upload some photos asap both on Facebook and my photoblog, stay tuned!

Parla con me dance mix ! Terra promessa remix !

Tomorrow, finally the concert in Helsinki! And here is Parla con me , his latest number one hit and fantastic version of Sta passando Novembre in Spanish with Amaia Montero.

Reigning Tango king and Euroviisut 2010 participant Amadeus Lundberg is also caught in the Christmas mood and will perform at least in two Christmas concerts. Amadeus and friends will be in Jämsä's church on November 25 and in Seinäjoki's church on December 2.  In early December his debut album should also come out. His first single release was Matador earlier this fall.

No, not the Swedish one but one of the greatest Finnish singers ever, Carola Standertsköld-Liemola who died this day in 1997 at the age of 56 of Alzheimer's. She started singing in 1962 and soon was scoring big hits like Kielletyt leikit , Nuori tumma , Rakkauden jälkeen   and Mä lähden stadiin together with Lasse Mårtenson, who also penned her first Euroviisut song Ge mig en grabb in 1965. She was back in Euroviisut 1966 with Meren laulu and tried for the third and last time in 1971 with Ei koskaan (with Aarno Raninen). In 1970's she scored other hits like Herrojen kanssa pellonlaidassa , Penkki, puu ja puistotie (Un banc, un ambre, une rue) and Rakastan saavuthan (Aprés toi). She took then a break but returned in the 1980's with two more albums, including hits Sydämeen jäi soimaan blues and Maria, Maria . She had one of the finest voices ever, singing also jazz and blues, chancons like La mamma , and latin influenced material like Agua de beber and  Perfidia and ...

Zeljko is back with a new album titled Ljubavi and you can hear the title track and first single here . Sounds pretty fantastic as always! It's his 6th album since 1999 when self titled debut album was released. Besides that he has written many songs to other artists, soundtracks and various compilations. His songs for other artists include Cija si and Nesanika for Tose Proeski, Lane moje cover  Malah somer for Nava Medina, Lejla for Hari Mata Hari, Jutro and Oro for Jelena Tomasevic, To telos mas delos for Eleftheria Arvanitaki and Poso poso for Melina Aslanidou. We of course remember him best for Lane moje and hosting the 2008 Eurovision song contest in Belgrade.

Estonia is one of the European countries that has not bought any vaccination against swain flu for its people for economical crisis. The situation isn't very bad yet, about 200 infected people but it is spreading fast. Meanwhile the Estonian healthcare has launched a campaign how to prevent from it featuring Gerli Padar, who sung for Estonia in Helsinki 2007 . She dances throught the ad that tells how to prevent from getting it; washing your hands and so on. Besides the ad in TV a special swain flu dance group performs in nightclubs and gatherings.In Finland swain flu is in full swing in the north and 6 people have died as of yesterday. Update: 7th victim today.

And two more before the grand finale: Ci parliamo da grandi and Un angelo non é .

MiSt kept its first place in the voting and therefor will be next seen and heard in the Melodifestivlane 2010 semifinals. The couple behind the track lives in Thailand so they better start arranging future trips to Sweden. Now they will get help from professionals to turn the song presentable. Good luck!

Alice and Franco Battiato are performing thursday night in Teatro Ariston in Sanremo where Club Tenco will give away its annual awards. Club Tenco is the biggest organisation in Europe for songwriters, and Premio Tenco has reached its 34th edition and is very respected in Italy. Franco Battiato receives one of the awards. The three day event features about 20 artists from Italian ones to Argentinian and African ones like Angelique Kidjo, Horacio Ferrer and Daniel Melingo. Besides I treni di Tozeur they have also dueted in Chanson egocentrique , Alice has recorded dozens of Battiato's songs and even Battiato has covered Alice's Nomadi .

More rumours: Is this the list of semifinalist in the Norwegian semifinals? A1, Alexander Stenerud, Bazooka Boppers, Blackroom, Donkeyboy, Elisabeth Carew, New Violators, Frost, Gaute Ormåsen, Håken Njoten, Heine Totland, Julian Berntzen, Laila Samuelsen, Lene Alexandra, Marte Wulff, Maria Arredondo & Aleksander With, Maria Haukaas Storeng, Mira Craig, Surferosa, Tomine Harket and Venke Knutson. Time and NRK will tell in due time!

Natasha St-Pier releases her first greatest hits Tu Trouveras... 10 ans de success after ten years and 5 albums (or 14 years and 6 albums if you include Émergence ). The title track Tu trouveras is also my favourite track from her even if many might prefer her Eurovision entry Je n'ai que mon ame . She also recorded it in Spanish with Miguel Bosé . She has already released a new song from the album, L'Instant T . And that pretty much closes the speculations she would be making a come-back on Eurovision stage in Oslo 2010.

Oikotimes.com claims ERT has come to a final decision and Katerina Avgoustakis, Despina Ricci and either (or both) Kokkina Halia and Professional Sinnerz are the 3 or 4 chosen ones. The official announcement should come today. Maybe.

Finally the dreadful My kind of love dropped out and only three acts are left: MiSt's Come and get me now , Jessica Friberg's Break free and naked man Adam Sandahl with Kärleken vänder allt . Vote Adam, Swedes!

A big research of families conducted in Finland recently asked also the question who is the sexiest mother and father in Finland and Eurovision related stars won both categories. Eurovision 2007 host and actor/singer Mikko Leppilampi got 31% of the votes in the Hottest Father category beating actor Peter Franzen (21%) and actor/TV-host Niclas Lignell (9,8%). In the Hottest Mother category Janina Fry (previously Frostell) had no competition, she won with 30% and is known to win every similar voting the past 15 years or so. She's a model, TV-host, designer, singer and business woman and Miss World 1993 finalist and also lyricist for Laura's Addicted to you in 2002! Lola Wallinkoski (previously Odusoga), the first and only black Miss Finland 1996, Miss Scandinavia 1996 and Miss Universe's 2nd runner up, nowadays a media person came second (9,3%) and actress Pamela Tola third (8,9%).

A couple of more Eros hits while the date comes closer: Quanto amore sei and Ancora un minuto di sole .

A new Eurovision year is approaching, an old one will come to its end. Together with 4 other eurovision sites we are going to celebrate the end of 2009 with a new tradition: the Eurovision Top 250, which will be broadcast on 3minutes.me's TV on 31 December. Blogilkar is pround to be part of it ! Europe start voting now !

Voting Adam Sandahl 20 times costs as much as a lunch out. Eat home! That's what Adam Sandahl & co say amongst other things in the new song they have done to support Kärleken vänder allt . Watch it here . I'm always glad to see people don't take themselves too seriously without being annoying or ridiculous! Great stuff, Adam & co to Melodifestivalen!

Laura Pausini releases her 13th album and 3rd live album later this month. The CD has 18 tracks, each of them recorded in a different city during her tour and Helsinki gets the honor to open the show as the Intro - It's too late was recorded here on May 20, 2009 (and I was there). The Italian and Spanish version have different tracks recorded in different towns plus three new tracks including the latest single Con la musica alla radio , Non sono lei, Casomai, recorded live during the soundcheck in Sao Paolo and extra track E poi , a cover of Giorgia's megahit. The DVD has various video clips including Un fatto ovvio and extra tracks Napule é , cover di Pino Daniele, Sicilian folk song Vitti na grozza and Michael Jackson cover Heal the world . Oh and yes, she just won yet another Latin Grammy!

Finally Ingela Hemming is out and Jörgen Finell is on the way out next - about the time, too! Naked man Adam Sandahl is hanging in there and in third place now while MiSt is in the lead, Jessica Friberg second. Out of these I'm all for Adam now!

It takes F´Dolph Lundgren's muscles, Måns Zelmerlöv's cute smiles and Christine Meltzer's humour to fill in Petra Mede's shoes in conducting Meldodifestivalen 2010. Måns, who already conducted Lilla Melodifestivalen before, will be presenting with Christine all the shows while Dolph will be present only in the first semifinal and the final. (foto: Expressen)

Another megahit in came form of Per me per sempre , and Un attimo di pace and he also recorded A ti with Ricardo Arjona for the Latin market.

Bääbs and her team have been busy ever since they qualified for the Eurovision semifinals. Last two weekends have been filled with meetings with choreographer, backing singers, wardrobe designer, hair stylists, re-recording the track, video shoot planning..... Anne-Mari Pahkala will design the outfits and Bääbs promises the WOW factor is guaranteed! Burlesque artists Mimi de Froufrou is involved in the process and Henna the choreographer tried also make some sense to Bääbs and her backing singers Juho and Heidi. None of them is a dancer but as Bääbs put it her job is to "keep them on stage and self confident". Heidi has a soulful voice and Juho is classically trained singer so their voiced ad deepness to the new recording of the song. The video will be shot in the beginning of December and it won't be the usual Eurovision video, they promise. They hope it will be ready to release on December 7, 2009 when the songs can be freely promoted. The video will be on this blog as...

And the hits keep coming, Dove c'é musica , Un'emozione é per sempre and Stella gemella that was also reworked with Gemelli DiVersi .