Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

After several false starts the first semifinal in Ukraine was aired and three acts qualified: Kristina Kim , Elena Korneeva and Dariya Medovaya while Yakov Smyrnov , Zaklyopli , El Kravchuk and Inna Vornova didn't make it.

As expected there was a rush to send in the entries for the Swiss selection and in the end there are over 300 songs. Many previous Eurovision stars have entered from DQ (Denmark 2007) to Miodio (San Marino 2008), from local stars Mariella Farré (1983 and 1985) to Piero Esteriore (2004) and Todomondo (Romania 2007). Also names from the various national selections like Rosman Pace (Malta) and Ville Laaksonen (Finland, as composer), and names from Idols here and there like Sarah Burgess (USA) and Vittoria Hyde (Italy). Many (too many if you ask me) foreign artists from all over the world have entered with many from countries like Italy, Malta, Poland, Finland, Ireland, South Africa and so on singing in various languages. And far too many "artists" lacking any self critic and totally without singing voice with totally forgettable songs. But that's what you get when you want to have a totally open internet selection. Swiss TV has apparently learned nothing from Spain ...

Namely, the duo Fredrik & Magnus will be featuring Adam Sandahl group on stage with them if and when their Get out gets to the final five. Jolly little happy number. You know what to do: Vote! Vote! Vote! The other songs still in the game here .

BlogIlkar wishes happy Halloween to all readers with this fabulous new video from Darin, Lovekiller ! Be scared!

Pino Mango (54) is one of my favourite singers and I have followed him since Australia in 1985 and liked each album since (and I later discovered the earlier ones, too) but Sirtaki from 1990 is the first one that I think is a great album . Previously he did wrote great songs but there were always fillers on albums. And the albums that followed Come l'acqua (1992) and Mango (1994) are equally fantastic creating the Mango sound I love and continue to like even with his newer productions. He's got a unique voice and very mediterranean melodies and sound. This Sirtaki album is the prime example of all that. Album kicks off with fantastic Nella mia cittá , a daydream put to music, follows with I giochi del vento sul lago salato ,  Ma com'é rossa la ciliegia , Tu...si. .., Sirtaki , Come Monna Lisa , with less remembered songs Terra bianca , Preludio incantevole , Cosi viaggando , L'io , and Ma che musica c'é plus alternative version of Nella mia cittá . All songs a...

Silvia Mezzanotte returns to Matia Bazar with a new album and a tour in 2011. She was Matia's third lead singer (after Antonella Ruggiero and Laura Valente) and replaces again Roberta Faccani who stayed with the band from 2005 to 2010. "We met casually in TV and realized she's what we need for the songs we have been prepairing" told the guys of the band. "We never had a break-up in personal level, just professionally" comments Silvia. This is the formation that won Sanremo 2002 with Messaggio d'amore and scored other hits like Questa nostra grande storia d'amore and Brivido caldo . My guess they are aiming for Sanremo 2011....

After rather disappointing chart action with her previous album Love in a million shades (#32 and only one week in top-40) her new Paperimiehen tytär debutes in the charts at #9! And not only, two of the songs have entered the Radio Suomi's most played songs chart: Maailman ihanin mies debuts at #6 and Miehet at #26 following the success of the title track Paperimiehen tytär. Switch of language and style seems to be working well for her! Listen a sampler of the album here .

Pave Maijanen has released this fall a greatest hits 2-cd Kaikki nämä vuodet 1969-2010 and despite it including 32 tracks his Eurovision 1992 winner Yamma yamma is not included. How about the 4-cd+dvd box? Yep, not there either. Looks like Mr Maijanen wants us forget that unlucky incident....  Instead we get hits like Lähtisitkö, Ikävä and Jano.

She was just selected by Elle Finland readers the Female dresser of the year and her album Seili has sold already triple platinum outselling the second most sold album (Anna Puu's Sahara ) by half. Three hit singles En haluu kuolla tänä yönä #1 and  21 weeks in top-20, Nettiin #12 and 11 weeks in top-20 and now Missä muruseni on #1 and 8 weeks in top-20 so far. The album Seili has been in top-40 already 27 weeks, all of them in top-10, debuting at #1, then returning to #1 last week! 2010 has been really dominated by ladies in the Finnish music scene: Jenni, Chisu, Anna Puu, Johanna Kurkela and Maija Vilkkumaa with Kaija Koo have showed chicks rock! Shame none of them is in Euroviisut 2011. (I know I'm repeating myself, sorry!)

The countdown has started for Melodifestivalen webjokers. Only 20 entries are left and on Friday five more will leave the race. Unfortunately Adam Sandahl group didn't make this time but SVT is saying it has been very close at places 11 to 50 while apparently the top-10 seems to be pretty clear.... Listen the entries here .

Velvety voiced Marco Olivieri is trying his luck in the Swiss selection for the Eurovision 2011 with soulful Losing you . In this exclusive BlogIlkar interview he tells a bit more about himself. First of all: Who is Marco Olivieri? Mark Oliver is a songwriter born in a small and quiet Italian town near Milano called Vigevano, where I found the ideal conditions to inspire my music Why Eurovision. Are you a Eurovision fan? Do you follow it every year? Do you have some favourite songs or performances? To participate in the Eurovision song contest would be a dream for me. I followed it ever since I was little. My favourite songs are Vuelve Conmigo (Spain 1995 )and Keelatud Maa (Estonia 1997.) I recently enjoyed the Urban Symphony’s Rändajad (Estonia) in 2009 Eurovision What don you think of Italy’s absence and do you think Italy will return in 2011 as RaiDue has let us believe? I hope so. A country rich in musical culture like Italy can not miss an appointment like that. It would...

X Factor Italia is hitting the bottom. Both by the viewing figures (share drops to under 10%, all time low) and if you believe critics the quality of singers, especially when Nevruz and Stefano Filipponi stay in while the better singers drop put week after week. This week the duel was between Damiano Sardi and Davide Mogevero and Damiano lost and is out. Enters Marika Lermani.

Armenia will choose internally its represant for Dusseldorf 2011. The council of arts in ARMTV will pick up the artist and then a song. Whoever it is will have a though job to keep up the excellent Armenian record in Eurovision since their debut in 2006 when André took Without your love to 8th place, Hayko followed suit with Anytime you need , Sirusho did better with Qele qele reaching 4th. Inga and Anush stayed in top-10 with Jan Jan and Eva Rivas scored 7th place with Apricot stone in Oslo 2010. Nothing less would be good enough and the last two years their rival Azerbaijan has beaten them in the scoreboard.... In beforementioned Azerbaijan things are going to the opposite direction. A lenghty selection process has already kicked off and out of 120 hopefuls 90 have been picked up for the televised weekly heats - 12 artists in each - and the winners will move on to the next stage. Eliminations and heat go on until February 2 when we should know the Azeri artists for Dusseldorf 20...

Peter Jöback did Melodifestivalen earlier this year with Hollow , got married and has been touring Sweden and Norway this fall. Now the tour is about to reach Finland. En kväll med Peter Jöback will be in Stockholm tonight, then Mariehamn in Åland islands on November 2, the day after in Turku, then Helsinki and Pietarsaari before ending the tour in Oslo on November 13. He is touring with a trio only and the concert will be released on CD shortly. The first digital single is Inte redo än .

Lordi is about to hit the road in Europe and they have a new drummer, Otus (translates to something like Animal/Creature) who replaces Kita who left Lordi after his own band Stala & So got invited to take part in Euroviisut 2010. The tour kicks of November 5 from St.Petersburg in Russia and continues to Estonia, Lithuania, Finland, Slovakia, Hungary, Czech Republic, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Netherlands, France, Spain, Austria and back to Germany. Total of 32 gigs until December 19.

Laila Kinnunen died ten years ago today. A true legend with a tragic life. Her career started in 1955 when she participated in a singing contest in secret to her parents and won. The year after she got a contract to tour with Lasse Pihlajamaa's ochestra, she was only 16. The year after her first single Lazzarella was released and became a huge hit followed by other hits like Illalla, illalla (1958), Marina (1959) and Romantica (1960). In 1961 she became the first Finnish entrant in Eurovision with Valoa ikkunassa . Hits followed with Pojat (1962), Lauantai (1962) and Rinnakkain (1963) - all performed with her sister Ritva. She also starred in several movies, did a lot of television until mid-1970's when she was already stuggling with alcohol and personal life.  Also her love life was very dramatic and closely followed by the Finnish press. Her first engagement was in 1959 with a medical student but soon she met and fell in love with an Italian  musician Armando Fugazza....

Yet another new flag to add: Djibouti! Welcome! The total is now 188 and 62 to go.... :-)

Lena Philipsson's new album will be released "sometime next year" instead of earlier mentioned December 2010. She promises not a synth album as speculated somewhere but it's music you can dance to anyways. At the moment the newlywed Lena is busy prepairing her concerts in Berwaldhallen on October 28,29 and 30. "It's very exciting to perform with a symphony orchestra" she says. "I will perform some covers and my own songs, some of them that I have not performed for a very long time. It's very exciting. It's going to be very naked and intim in a way, much more than in my usual shows. Next to the symphonic orchestra we will have a lot of synths. Techno meet philharmonics. It's going to be a full chaos propably! We have only 2,5 days to rehearse!"   A couple of days ago she was on TV talk show and they speculated her possible Melodifestivalen 2011 participation. She didn't say no but answered the question whether she will be or no...

It is a magical year for Jenni Vartiainen. She's topping both the single and album charts, her album is the most sold album of 2010 so far and now readers of Elle Finland have chosen her as the Female Dresser of the year. She has been a fashion icon ever since she came to public eye so it comes as no surprise. A bit more surprising the choice of the Male Dresser of the year, Mikko Leppilampi. Eurovision 2007 host, actor, singer and at the moment the presenter of the Finnish Strickly come dancing must have convinced the voters with his casual style.

This is old (2008) but part of the Laura Voutilainen's recently released greatest hits CD+DVD. She performs some Eurovision classics  Katson sineen taivaan, Lapponia, Eläköön elämä and Sata salamaa here . In the interview on same DVD she admits being a real Eurovision fan and that she had been asked to take part several times before 2002's Addicted to you but she wasn't either ready or the song wasn't right until then.

Euroviisut 2011 participant and Tango King 2010 Marko Maunuksela has released a new single Maailman loppu (End of the world). Sounds very typical Finnish schlagerpop aimed for tango folks. Let's see if this is what he will offer in Euroviisut or is that going to be poppier? His debut album Uuteen valoon will be released on November 11 so it also must include his Euroviisut entry! Track list is here .

A few weeks ago the news that Kita was kicked out of Lordi because his other band Stala & So were to take part in Euroviisut 2011 made headlines. Now for the first time Kita or Sampsa Astala tells what it was really about in today's Iltalehti: "It all happened very fast. I knew I should leave Lordi if I accepted the invitation for Euroviisut. I spent some sleepless nights.It wasn't easy. After the decision I was sad and a bit down. Over ten years in that band were over. But it wasn't any angry breakup. I have been helping Lordi to get organized for their European tour and we rehearse in the same place with Stala & So. There are no hard feelings " he concludes. Lordi is starting their 30 gig European tour in early November and apparently they have a new drummer already. "Winning Eurovision 2007 was a real newsbomb in Finland but it didn't effect us as persons. We were no teenagers at the time anymore " he says. "We didn't become mill...

Céline Dion has not only been pregnant of her twins to be born in a month or so but she has also had time to write a song to a popular Canadian singer Marc Dupré, her long time collaborator. Entre deux mondes is already a hit in Canada. This is though not the first time Céline writes for him. Already back in 2005 she wrote  for his debut album Tout prés de bonheur . And Marc wrote On s'est aimé à cause for Céline's D'Elles album. And guess what? Céline is Marc's step-mother-in-law. Keep it in the family.

The girls keep dropping out of X Factor Italia, the possible selection for the possible return of Italy in Eurovision. This time Cassandra Raffaele end in duel with Ruggero Pasquarelli and loses. Four guys under 25, two Over 25s and one group stay in competition....

Apparently Düsseldorf promised 23.000 hotel beds but now it looks like the huge packaging fair with 180.000 visitors will be held at the same time as Eurovision in town. Most hotels are full already and if you find a room it may cost you 1.000 euros per night. What's the solution offered? Fans can still sleep in one of the neighbouring cities of Düsseldorf: Mönchengladbach, Duisburg, Oberhausen, Krefeld, Dormagen, Leverkusen, Köln or Mönchengladbach all reacable by train (25-45 minutes). But how much fun is that?? The Düsseldorf camping site is though open. It might be a bit chilly still in mid-May.... :-)

A Finn enters the Swiss selection, too. He's no stranger to Eurovision and Jurmala Festival Ville Laaksonen with Hunt for love . He has penned for example Riikka's Meren for Euroviisut previously....  You can read more about him here .

Two more acts have collected the necessary 20.000 euros in Belgium. Steve Linden's lovely C'est la musique and Hélène with Our home . We have now four songs cleared for the next step.

Hanna Pakarinen's 4th album Paperimiehen tytär and her first in Finnish is out today and you can listen it all here for free until October 26. In the same place you can also order it.

The Swedish selection will feature a mixed group of artists from veterans, A*Teens, Idols and Fame factory participants, totally new names and even reigning Mr Gay Sweden 2010. And Like in Finland with Lordi/Stala & So also in Sweden a band member leaves the badn because they take part in Melodifestivalen, namely Melody Club's drummer Andy A. Danny - In the club Loreen - My heart is refusing me Sanna Nielsen - I'm in love Rasmus Viberg - Social butterfly Melody Club - The hunter Simon Forsberg - Tid att andas Dilda - Try again Sara Lumholt - Enemy .

People keep voting and Melodifestivalen webjokers have had their first cut. Only 100 songs remain in the race, amongst them Adam Sandahl. I quickly listened the songs previouslym and picked up 39 songs that I liked for a reason or another and 26 of them are still in the race.... Here .

Cyndi Lauper really rocked my world back in 1984 and she was the first of some crazy Italo-American female stars to shake up the charts (Madonna and Lady Gaga would follow). Later she accused Madonna stealing her trashy image and indeed there's something similar about both early Cindy and early Madonna. Anyways, this album sold 16 million copies around the world and Cyndi became the first female artist to score four consecutive Billboard top-5 hits  one album: Girls just want to have fun (#), Time after time (#1), She bop (#3) and All through the night (#5). Also Money changes everything or When you were mine were released as single in various markets. The album stayed in the US Top-200 65 weeks and earned her four Grammy nominations and she won one of them: Best new artist. Cyndi continued her success with the next album True colors and is still releasing albums and performing both on stage, in films and TV but for me this is the Album . Time after time has been covered by...

Well, that's just my opinion as the two favourites of mine both are Italians! Namely ADZ from Sanremo with Tornerai , a very intense rock ballad and Marco Olivieri from Vigevano with r'n'b Losing you . Then we also have Davide Buzzi & Alex Cambis i from L'Aquila and Devil Chic Riot from Campobasso (also very good, btw). In all there are now seven songs in Italian but artists from various countries have sent in songs (mostly unfortunately very forgettable ones): Belarus, Romania, Belgium, Austria, Germany, Israel, Malta, Poland, Russia, Ireland and Northern Ireland. Some singers have sent up to eight songs (when zero was enough). My guess is the serious contenders will send in their songs just before the voting starts but those previously mentioned Italians are very good, so is this . And then there's of course Mariella Farré and Todomondo..... here .  And in the radio selection (or something, I'm a bit lost with this Swiss selection I admit) there are more,...

So we did get some heavymetal in Euroviisut once again when Cardiant qualified. Some pop with Father McKenzie and a ballad by Saara Aalto. Fair enough. Another rather secret internet selection is over. I don't understand why YLE doesn't promote this in any way. If I wasn't fan I wouldn't even know it was on. Again. I never saw any promo on TV, the papers were not writing about it one word as far as I have seen and tonight's "Results show" tops it all: full five minutes at odd hour 6.45 PM where they played maybe 20 secs of each selected song. Even Jaana didn't bother to come by.... 

What do you get if you breed Britney Spears and Alexander Rybak? This! And there's this classic Charlotte Perrelli meets Lady Gaga I have already posted previously. Sometimes it works and these two are good examples of it...  Here are the originals: Circus , Fairytale , Poker face , Hero

I got the Laura's double greatest hits and she's really great. Or rather she's become great. One can skip her early songs (and style) and concentrate on the 2000's stuff and she's fab. One real jewel is still her Euroviisut 2007 song Kosketa mua that didn't even make the final :-( What a waste! Fantastic track indeed!

October 20 sees the release of a new Hanna Pakarinen album, Paperimiehen tytär . It's her first in Finnish and she describes it as a sort of a debut album, being so personal and result of a hard work. She has written most of the lyrics herself. The reviews and critic has been very favourable for the album so far and the title track was the first single and now comes Se yksi ainoa . The same day Jonna "ex-Nylon Beat" Geagea releases her first debut album Katso mua and its debut single was Taasko se alkaa while the title track is the new single and video. A week later is a real rush for the charts as several propably top selling albums are released. Antti Tuisku releases his Kaunis kaaos . The first single was Atlantti . And now comes Hyökyaalto . 1990's stars Ressu Redford and Jussi Rainio of Neon2 have re-recorded their hits they have been performing live with success recently in tour. Klassikot includes songs like Prinsessa . Tomi Metsäketo releases a Chr...

The voting has started for the 2010 edition of OGAE song contest. As always there are some familiar names from Eurovision from David Bustamante to Serebro and Flor de Lis, from Glennis Grace to Miro, Elena Risteska, Marija Serifovic and Laura Voutilainen and so on. You can find all the Youtubes here . Clubs are now voting and we should know the winner in early December.

The voting has ended and tomorrow 6.45PM local time we will know the three qualifiers for the Euroviisut 2011 semifinals from the open internet selection. There is no favourite this year and the various polls give very different restuls. YLE announced a couple of days ago the Top-5 is (in no particular order) Chorale, Father McKenzie, Joel Främling, Sara Sayed and Saara Aalto. In my blog Tony Green won with 12 votes, followed by Chorale, Cardiant and Blackbird 8 each, and Saara Aalto completes the Top-5 with six votes. But if we look at the results of viisukuppila.fi and escstats.fi things get tricky.  Tony Green wins by the Finnish voters (78 voters) and comes... last by the foreigners (16 voters). Chorale comes 2nd by Finns, 6th by foreigners. Father McKenzie is quite agreed on coming 3rd by Finns and winning by foreigners. Paul Oxley comes 4th by Finns but only third last by foreigners. Blackbird is 5th by Finns, second by foreigners so they're doing fine. Saara Aalto is only 9t...

Syla K and Léa Clément have collected the necessary 20.000 euros with their songs Simple love and Où s'en vont nos rêves and have qualified for the next step in the Belgian selection. In total there are already 98 songs listed and Steve Linden is propably the next one to reach that amount. He has almost 15.000 collected by now. Both qualified songs are nice enough. You can see the current situation here .

Now that we finally have the host city for the Eurovision song contest 2011 let's see what to expect.   "We want to beat Moscow and Oslo!" say the organizers. They also promise to showcase the legendary German precision. And show that Germans like to be entertained and know how to party. "The arena is big but the audience can sit in comfortable chairs and relatively close to the stage and singers while enjoying a real stadium like feeling. People will feel closeness to the stage at the same time being totally involved in the show ." Hmm, sounds a bit Copenhagen to me, expect it was far from feeling the stadium feeling. Or indeed, in a negative way. What else? "We are in north of Germany, close to Belgium and the Netherlands where we have a lot of enthuastic fans coming over. We are close to city center with 24.000 hotel rooms. We want the whole city to feel the show's in town and get the city heavily involved. And also Hamburg and Hannover with megas...

It looks like the Italian X Factor is not going well this year. Televote kicks out the real singers while those who might be likable for other reasons, or simply strange personalities instead of having creditable vocal capacities. This time in duel Dorina loses to duo Kymera. Also with the exit of Dorina there's no singers left in Female under 24 category! Also Kymera is the last group in the race.  Some fans are worried that if Italy really will return to Eurovision and with the X Factor winner they will end up sending something "horrible" that will score very badly in Europe and Italy will be out again for a decade or two...

Just when I said YLE's keeping it quiet what's going on in Euroviisut 2011 webjokers voting here come the current top-5: Sara Sayed "Shallow Waters" Joel Främling "Man in Squalor" Chorale "Share Your Life" Saara Aalto "Blessed with Love" Father McKenzie "Good Enough I would say once again the artists with the strongest Facebook/Twitter activity are at it. Which makes me ask what's the point?  Three will make it to the Euroviisut 2011 semifinals.