Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

As we are hitting April already several Eurovision 2010 CD-singles have been released in a form or another. Some have already peaked as number one in their home charts like Sweden, Netherlands, Belgium and Finland.

France has asked to broadcast and vote in the first semifinal instead of the second one as decided earlier. They will however also broadcast the second one now but not live. EBU is happy for France's "commitment" but the Swiss may disagree while the Portuguese might be jumping with joy.... Anyways, here's Jessy's video pour la France.

Euroviisut fan favourite Johanna Kurkela (Euroviisut 2007 Olet uneni kaunein ) will release her fourth album Hyvästi, Dolores Haze on April 7. It's first promo single Rakkauslaulu is already #1 in RadioSuomi's most played songs chart. It is written by Lauri Ylönen (of The Rasmus ) and Paula Vesala ( PMMP ) and Eicca Toppinen ( Apocalyptica ) plays cello in it.

You didn't expect this did you? But here it is!

As expected Iceland has revamped, remixed, recharged their entry Je ne sais quoi - just like they did with This is my life, from this to this - and you can listen to it here .

Ex-Czechoslovakia was broadcasting Eurovision already back in the 1960´s and 1970´s but when the country was divided Slovakia went for Eurovision already in 1994 but it took until Helsinki 2007 that we had an entry for Czech Republic. They were already ment to debut in 2005 but withdraw for financial reasons, and again in 2006 but 2007 they did finally enter - and came last or 28th in the semifinal with one point. Next year they did a bit better, second to last or 18th and their third attempt in 2009 brought them nul points, last and 18th place. No wonder they lost their will to participate.... Indeed they announced already in early summer 2009 that they would not take part in Oslo 2010. It looks rather unlikely they will ever return. Shame. They tried a bit of everything and here are their three very different entries: 2007 , 2008, 2009 . I liked especially 2007, very underrated song!

The Italian talent show that has taken over Sanremo the couple of past years has concluded its season 9 last night with Emma Marrone as a winner . Most likely she also won a ticket to Sanremo 2011, just like Valerio Scanu did, who won Sanremo 2010. Also in 2009 the Sanremo winner Marco Carta came from Amici. Emma (24) comes from Florence and to me who listened her for the very first time this morning she looks and sounds like Irene Grandi - yet another husky rusty voiced female singer from Italy! Judge yourself here . Loredana Errore came second , and the author of the Sanremo 2010 winning song Pierdavide Carone third .

If you have been watching the Finnish preview video on EBU's official eurovisioin.tv site you may have got a bit wrong idea of the song, and if familiar with the song may have been wondering why it sounds so weird. Well, EBU has downloaded it wrongly, instead of 48 megaherz the sound comes out in 44,1 and indeed sounds weird to say the least. EBU has promised to correct the mistake but when writing this it's still wrong.... after 6 days. I have no idea about megaherzes and stuff but those who do, say this is a very amateurish mistake and inexcusable.

Jenni Vartiainen, the Finnish OGAESC 2008 entrant with Ihmisten edessä has scored a new #2 hit En haluu kuolla tänä yönä (I don't wanna die tonight) from her second album Seili released tomorrow. Her debut sold platinum and gave her two Emma awards (best album and best song). Here is her MySpace .En haluu kuolla tänä yönä made also history in the Music Control radio play charts debuting at #7, highest debut ever. In the third week it went to #1 and still is. In the same list her debut album celebrates another record: already 132 weeks in the charts! Jenni if off to intensive tour around Finland until August.

Austria has been now away since Helsinki 2007 blaming the unfair disapora and neighbouring voting but sour grapes, say most non Austrians. They have had an on-off relationship with Eurovision by dropping out in several occasions: 1969-1971, 1973-1975 plus 1998 and 2001 for bad average score relegation system. In 2006 they stayed home as well stating "they would not enter a performer in protest at their poor results in previous years, arguing that the musical talent of the performers was no longer the determining factor in Eurovision succes". Their two last entries failed to make the final and their last entry in the final made it only 21st. Austria has however won in 1966 and has also five other top-5 placings, last one from 1989 but in 2003 they came 6th (so much for the musical talent and success, I say!) At the moment there seems to be no interest to return. Let's see. My favourite Austrian entries include besides 1989  2007 , 2002 , 1999 , 1993 , 1992 , 1981 , 19...

Andorra is one of the countries who decided not to go to Oslo 2010 due to economical reasons or the local broadcaster RTVA non finding a sponsor even if last year's entrant Susanne Georgi was leading her own personal campaign to keep Andorra in. They were also flashing the idea they would take part every two years in the future so let's see if we get them back in 2011.  The tiny country made its debut in 2004 but Eurovision was well known as people used to watch it on Spanish and French TV. The debut didn't go that well (18th in semifinal) and the future years didn't change that as with its six entries Andorra never managed to qualify for the final. The songs haven't been that bad but the staging has been often rather catastrophic if you believe the critic. In Helsinki 2007 the place in final was given as a certain thing for Anonymous but they reached only 12th place in the semifinal and thus no final. I have personally liked most their entries and at least the past...

Here is Alice singing I treni di Tozeur last Saturday in Magazzini Generali di Milano.

Rafael De Alba once again shares his thoughts and comments with you and judges this year's entries. He is also going to oslo 2010 so maybe you will have a chance to have a chat with him! He treid his luck in the Spanish selection this year with Chelsea Boy , last year with One more chance and even covered one of the songs in the Finnish final, De tu lado .  I look forward to this year’s contest. For starters, there is a great variety of genres:  musical theatre style from Spain, Poland, Norway, Belarus; folk entries from Finland, Serbia or Greece; contemporary numbers from Sweden, Germany or Estonia; good old-fashioned pop from Cyprus, Denmark or Armenia, plus a couple of decent dance numbers. Some complain about the proliferation of ballads this year, but it is likely that the voting in the semi finals will filter some of them out and will deliver a well-balanced final. However, I do think we saw better quality songs in Moscow overall. I have done my best to sum up ...

Iskelmä-Finlandia (or Schlager-Finlandia) is an annual lifetime award for an artist who has achieved a lot in a career in music. Previous winners include Marion Rung, Kari Tapio, Jari Sillanpää, Paula Koivuniemi,  and many others connected to Euroviisut or Eurovision have been nominated from Anna Eriksson to Annika Eklund. This year the nominees include Laura Voutilainen. She has to battle it against Mikko Alatalo, Jussi Raittinen, Juha Tapio and Jean S. The award will be given out July 22, 2010.

The überpopular The Baseballs have covered Nylon Beat 's Viimeinen   for the special edition of their album.and it is also featured in a TV-ad for a cider.  Listen it here .  The girls also recorded it in English as Last in line . Viimeinen was a number one hit for Nylon Beat in 1999. Seven of their albums sold platinum making them the most succesful duo in the Finnish music history. They also have two Euroviisut participations in their CV ( 1998 and 2000 ) and Jonna the blond one solo in 2004.

Kuunkuiskaajat or Susan and Johanna have been so busy since they won the Finnish ticket to Oslo 2010 they haven't had time to get excited about the actual event. "So we got number 5. Ok, no time to get too excited then!" they comment with their usual humour and laugh about it. "Besides we don't think the number counts that much. A good song and memorable performance is what matters, not the number you sing at. We have a wonderful sponsor for our stagewear, Noolan , who will besides doing our stage wear provide us with a full wardrobe for Oslo! Also thanks to Eurovision our calendar is filled with gigs, photo shoots , TV , promotion , rehearsals and other related stuff. We are also going to the Netherlands for the big Eurovision in concert event, the first ever Finnish act in it, it'll be great! Besides promotion we get to know some of our competitors before Oslo 2010 which is always good! We haven't had time to check them yet, just occasionally some v...

Everybody knows HIM , The Rasmus , Nightwish and Lordi but how about Husky Rescue , Turisas , Tracedown , Murmansk , Manna , Joensuu 1685 , Jori Hulkkonen, Finntroll , Disco Ensemble , Free Spirit , Le corps mince de Francois ( LCMDF ), Lapko , Stalingrad Cowgrils , 22-pistepirkko , Swallow the sun , Villa Nah , TV Off   or Shogun Kunitoki ? Ok, I don't know them either but they are the biggest Finnish bands abroad claiming praise from the critics - Husky Rescue's laters album got 5 stars from Daily Telegraph and Times featured it as the album of the week in Britain where almost 2.000 new albums are released weekly - and are doing the clubs and festivals. The Finnish music export was in 2008 over 23 million euros when in 2007 it was around 19 million. Very indie rock and heavy metal oriented. Let the Swedes do the pop! :-)

Gipsy.cz, the band that represanted Czech Republic in Moscow 2009 with Aven Romale will be performing in Helsinki in Savoy Theatre on April 9 in "Forgotten Genocide: Barvalo Drom - International Roma Music Concert" along with Finnish Drom orchetra. Tickets 23/21 euros. More info here . Gypsy.cz managed to score the famous null points in its semifinal.

Anna Bergendahl from Sweden and Lena Meyer-Landrut from Germany are enjoying great success with their entries in homesoil. Anna is still number one in the singles chart with This is my life and has just certified gold. Her debut album Sincerely yours... will be released April 14. Meanwhile the Swedish charts are dominated by the Melodifestivalen entries as usual, they took home 14 places in top-20. In Germany Lena's Satellite has hit the number one in the official charts after topping the download charts, and has also sold gold with sales of 150.000 singles. Her other entries Bee and Love me have also reached places 3 and 4 and therefor Lena becomes the first ever artist to have 3 songs in top-5. Although we must remember with digital downloading this is much easier than with physical singles. How times change!

The songs have been presented to EBU and eurovision.tv has already most of the preview videos on line. Check out for example Turkey, Albania, Ireland and France here .

Here it is, the third Ukrainian entry this year. After Vasyl Lazarevich's I love you , Alyosha's To be free here is Alyosha's Sweet people. And in my opinion they have been downhill all the time, each new entry worse than the other. Listen here . Let's see if this time it's for real....

I wrote about the Swedish songwriters in Eurovision 2010 here and in the back of my mind I was thinking I must be missing something and indeed, I was. Two more have emerged. Georgia's Shine is co-written by Harry Sommerdahl and Ireland's It's for you by Jonas Gladnikoff amongst other Swedes (Sorry Jonas! How could I have forgotten you?). Jonas already co-wrote the Irish entry Et cetera last year and the Danish runner up Someday . Thank you all for corrections and comments and ... are there more?? We already have six....

Alice will be giving a concert in famous Magazzini Generali in Milan on March 27 with Alberto Tafuri who plays piano, keyboards and programs the computers. Alice will also play piano and keyboards.The repertoire is mainly from her latest album Lungo la strada undertitled Music and Poems . On March 12 she performed in Auditorium Parco della musica in Rome and you can see and hear a bit here . She has also collaborated again with German singer Stefan Waggershausen, with whom she had a big hit Zu nah am Feue r in 1984. This time the song is called Was soll ich dir sagen from his recently released So ist das Spiel album.

Here's the new trailer of the Norwegian movie Yohan - The child wanderer featuring Alexander Rybak and Carola. You can hear her singing a bit in the end of the trailer with Kris Kristofferson.

We all know Sweden is big on exporting music and their effect in Eurovision is increasing year by year it seems. Songs written or co-written by Swedes in various national finals are no exception and this year besides Sweden itself Azerbaijan, Norway and Denmark have a song co-written by Swedes.  The Swedish entry This is my life is written by Bobby Ljunggren, a real veteran with 37 Melodifestivalen entries under his belt, including four previous winners: Se på mig (1995), Kärleken är (1998), Evighet (2006) and Hero (2008) and also four runner ups: Om igen (1988), Ett liv med dig (1991), Min kärlek (2004) and Empty room (2008) - actually he took home the whole top-3 in 2008 as Lay your love on me came 3rd and was also co-written by him! Fredrik Kempe has co-written the Norwegian entry My heart is yours . He has written 13 songs for the Melodifestivalen the past few years and even two winners, Hero (2008) and La voix (2009). Cara mia was the runner up in 2007 and Manboy ...

Semifinal 1 on May 25, 2010 1. MOLDOVA 2. RUSSIA 3. ESTONIA 4. SLOVAKIA 5. FINLAND 6. LATVIA 7. SERBIA 8. BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA 9. POLAND 10. BELGIUM 11. MALTA 12. ALBANIA 13. GREECE 14. PORTUGAL 15. FYR MACEDONIA 16. BELARUS 17. ICELAND Semifinal 1 on May 27, 2010 1. LITHUANIA 2. ARMENIA 3. ISRAEL 4. DENMARK 5. SWITZERLAND 6. SWEDEN 7. AZERBAIJAN 8. UKRAINE 9. NETHERLANDS 10. ROMANIA 11. SLOVENIA 12. IRELAND 13. BULGARIA 14. CYPRUS 15. CROATIA 16. GEORGIA 17. TURKEY Final on May 29, 2010: 2. SPAIN 3. NORWAY 12. UNITED KINGDOM 18. FRANCE 22. GERMANY The voting order has been drawn as well despite the rumours NRK would use a help of a computer to determinate the order to create a thriller. Well, in a year like 2009 or 2006 with a runaway winner even that would not have made it exciting.... VOTING ORDER 1 Romania 2 Ireland 3 Germany 4 Serbia 5 Albania 6 Turkey 7 Croatia 8 Poland 9 Bosnia & Herzegovina 10 Finland 11 Slovenia 12 Estonia 13 Ru...

The draw of the running order for the Eurovision Song Contest 2010 in Oslo will take place today at 15:00 CET. The event will be streamed live through eurovision.tv.  It has been previously decided in which semifinal and in which part of it a country will be, like Finland that will be in the first semifinal and in its first half, lots from 1 to 8. 

Preview videos that is. The past few days there have been already many from Spain to Estonia, from Bulgaria to Switzerland, from Moldova to Cyprus, Greece, Georgia.... I'm adding and updating them as they come to my semifinals posts here and here , and you can also access them by clicking the icons on the right hand side of this front page.

EBU has granted NTU 5 days to find a new song for Alyosha in the Ukrainian soap opera called "A song for Oslo 2010". By Friday 26 they must have a song, video and all the rest ready - and preferably one that fills the rules in its every sense. Well, it's not the first time a song has been changed but never this late I believe. This has most commonly happened in the past few years and usually in the Eastern parts of Europe. This year Belarus had a similar drama: first they had a selection already in December which was ment to give them the artists and song for Oslo 2010 but it was then changed midway. Then they chose the group 3+2 who just last week changed their already announced song to another. But back in 1983 Italy changed its song in the last minute, too. Sanremo winner Tiziana Rivale with Sará quel che sará was ment to go to Eurovision and was already shortlisted for the previews etc but then in the last minute Riccardo Fogli replaced her with Per Lucia . La Rivale...

The 39 heads of delegations or familiarly known as HoDs are in Oslo for a couple of days discussing the main event that will take place in 7 weeks. Last night a welcome drink, and this morning they are handing out officially their entries - I wonder what Ukraine puts on the table? - before heading to Telenor Arena to check out the venue. NRK will also present all the info needed from stage design to rehearsal schedules to the HoDs. Tomorrow it's EBU's turn to inform the participants about all sort of things, and for the first time a special effort is made to inform the Heads of Press. Finally at 13.30 CET the live broadcast from Oslo City hall will take place and the running order will be drawn. It will be live on Eurovision.tv.

The monsters are ready to hit the road and have already announced participation in two major heavyrock festivals next summer: Gods of Metal in Italy June 26 and Masters of Rock in Czech Republic on July 18. Those two gigs might be the last ones to see the band wearing their current masks as a new album is in the making and as usual when a new album comes, a new image comes. Meanwhile here's an oldie but a goodie, Would you love a monsterman ?

Hanna Pakarinen, who represented Finland in Eurovision 2007 at home in Helsinki, the mascot of this blog has given an interview recently where she talked about Idols, Eurovision, her future plans and life in general. "Idols and Eurovision are very different. But without Idols I wouldn't be here today and there wouldn't have been Eurovision either. Idols kickstarted it all for me. Eurovision was huge, very confusing. I didn't quite know where I was going. Unique opportunity, Eurovision in Finland! When will that happen again? Represanting Finland in Finland, those three minutes on stage in Hartwall Areena were maybe the finest three minutes of my life!" she tells. For her future plans she tells: "Well, of course I hope I can fo this work for the next 20-30 years. Paula Koivuniemi is my idol and rolemodel, if I can stay in business as long she has it would be really cool. That would be a huge accomplishment. This music is so unpredictable you never know! Sin...

The Ukrainian joke is going on after all. It is now discovered the song they chose last night has been available for purchase online already since April 2008! Also he runner up Masha Sobko who tied with her in the first round. breaks the October 1, 2009 rule. Can we get Vasyl back? When will they learn to read the rules and stop mixing Eurovision with politics? The Heads of delegations are travelling to Oslo 2010 today and will meet on Monday and Tuesday and the entry must be ready by then. Unless EBU bends its own rules. Once again. Update 1. Now it has come clear the song doesn't only break the October 1 rule it also is pretty clear copy of Linda Perry's Knock me out. There you go... . Update 2: The song's been disqualified and no one seems to know what the HoD of Ukraine will present to organizers and EBU in Oslo 2010 tomorrow...   Update 3: EBU has decided to give Ukraine 5 days to sort things out in the HoD meeting in Oslo 2010 on Monday. To be continued....

And here are the song in the second semifinal. The draw will take place in Oslo on Monday 22nd. This seems to be the better semifinal and I like in no particular order Armenia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Gerogia, Ireland, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey! Armenia (video), Azerbaijan (video), Bulgaria (video), Croatia (video), Cyprus (video), Denmark (video), Georgia (video), Ireland (video) , Israel , Lithuania (video), Netherlands , Romania (video) Slovenia , Sweden (video), Switzerland, (video) Turkey (video), Ukraine (video) + France (video), Norway , United Kingdom (video)

Now that we have also heard France we have all the 39 entries for the Eurovision song contest 2010 in Oslo ready. I don't think it is such a bad year after all. What do you think? My favourites are in no particular order Belgium, Iceland, Malta, Slovakia and Spain! Albania (video), Belarus (video), Belgium (video), Bosnia-Herzegovina (video), Estonia (video), Finland (video), Greece (video), Iceland , Latvia (video). FYR Macedonia (video), Malta (video), Moldova (video), Poland (video), Portugal (video), Russia , Serbia , Slovakia + Spain (video), Germany (video)

The ridiculous Ukrainian game has been completed and Alyosha with To be free is the winner. Annoying little number with a singer with a questionable fashion sense who is a challange in itself to listen and twatch. IIonly wish we would have been free from seeing this happen. I still stand with Vasyl. He came apparently 7th in this simil-final.

The French entry by Jessy Matador will be officially presented only tomorrow but here it is already. I'd like to say isn't this 13 in a dozen kind of song of this genre? Nice in the summer with a drink in hand and mind on holidays? Da-ba-dam-da-ba-dam! They couldn't get any longer from La Kaas, could they?

Share the moment? Yes indeed. The interval act in Oslo 2010 will feature one of the latest trends, Flash mob event! Sounds good on paper at least. Here's the video for the moves , so start learning! One of the most famous Flash mob events took place in Stockholm to honor Michael Jackson last year, and in Finland Signmark did one for their video, too. One of the best ever is the Frozen Grand Central in New York, happening when all this was still so new no one knew what is was all about!

The new Ukrainian final will be held tomorrow night and here are the songs. I don't know why they bother.... The songs are mainly really bad, the singers worse. Vasyl in this group shines like a real professional with a voice and the song isn't bad either. There's no Verka, Ani or Svetlana, no no no.....

The ex-Sovjet countries are known to have their own rules and now also belarus besides Ukraine has changed its song. 3+2 will perform in Oslo 2010 Butterflies instead of Far away . A strange twist in the year of ballads as Belarus had one of the very few uptempo songs with its pop-rock entry. Oh well... whatever makes them happy!

NTU has announced today the 20 names in the Saturdays national final, act 2. Vasyl Lazarevich is included in the line up but with which song? Wouldn't it be funny if it was I love you and he won again? :-) A total of 67 hopefuls turned up for the audition. The names are: Zaklyopki, Iris, Alesha, Zlata Ognevich, Vitaliy Kozlovskyi, Brats, Natalia Valevska, Vasyl Lazarovich, Dazzle Dreams, Maria Sopho, EL Kravchuk, Matias, Mia, Ivan, STEREO, Yulia Voice, Vladislav Levchenko, Iryna Rosenfeld, Maks Barskih & Mira Gogol'.

It has been confirmed today Safura will perform Drip drop in Oslo 2010 for Azerbaijan, one of the three songs she presented in the pre-selection. It was in my opinion the best of the lot and I like it, even if I would hope Azeris would wring in something more exotic....

As speculated before Vukasin Brajic will sing Munja i grom in English in Oslo 2010, Thunder and lightning . That is a shame in a trend that various countries have decided to use their own languages again, even if English beats the others clearly 23-14 (+ two mixed English/Polish/Ukrainian). At the moment it sounds like we will hear Bulgarian, Croatian, Dutch, Finnish, French, Greek, Hebrew, Macedonian, Portuguese, Serbian, Slovenian, Slovakian, Spanish, Ukrainian and some Polish and Ukrainian in Oslo.