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Showing posts from March, 2013

THE ESCLUSIVE UMK INTERVIEWS

Elina Orkoneva Lucy Was Driving Diandra Flores Krista Siegfrids Iina Salin Last Panda

WklVids: Luka Nizetic, Gracias, Eros Ramazzotti, Eva & Manu ft Felix Zenger

This week's weekly videos start with an older one, Luka Nizetic 's Jugo that shows that once lusty Luka still has it and yes, I still want to see him in Eurovision, too. Fun track full of the spring that you don't see outside your window as you should.... (When will the spring come this year??!!... and why is he shouting in Italian: Io voglio una donna ?!) Ever wonderful Eva & Manu join beatboxer Felix Zenger in Zero 7 cover Home . Wonderful things one can do with a talented mouth! Eros Ramazzotti has a second released off his new album called Questa nostra stagione . A classic Ramazzotti song and views of Rio... Gracias is a Finnish rapper who did this tribute to Helsinki already some years ago, but it's still good, HKI . And nice homely views of Helsinki all through....

BLOGILKAR EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: VALENTINA MONETTA!

Valentina Monetta is doing another Blogilkar exclusive interview! Here is the English one (check out the original Italian here ) . If last year her song was the laughing stock of the season, this year she's among the hot fan favorites! How things change! Read here how she feels this time around, who her favorites are, what she thinks of Mengoni, how her stage presentation will be.... and all the rest! Enjoy! And listen Crisalide here . Valentina, back to Eurovision ! From Baku to Malmö it seems to most it's been a lifetime in between looking at you now but it's been only a year. How would you describe the change and did you ever think you made a mistake by accepting to sing The social network song? Yes, in fact last year was like jumping from a plane without a parachute. But it was on opportunity to grow and live the knowledge that I have now after after all. Honestly, how frustrating all the negative comments and bad words were last year? It was quite deva

BLOGILKAR EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: VALENTINA MONETTA!

Valentina Monetta is doing another Blogilkar exclusive interview! Here is the original Italian one (check out the English one here ) . If last year her song was the laughing stock of the season, this year she's among the hot fan favorites! How things change! Read here how she feels this time around, who her favorites are, what she thinks of Mengoni, how her stage presentation will be.... and all the rest! Enjoy! And listen Crisalide here .  Valentina, di nuovo al Eurovision! Da Baku a Malmö,  sembra che è stata una vita in mezzo guardando a te ora, ma è passato solo un anno. Come descriveresti i cambiamento e hai mai pensato che hai fatto un errore accettando di cantare The social network song? In effetti l'anno scorso è stato come buttarsi da un aereo senza paracadute …ma è stata un opportunità per crescere e vivere la consapevolezza che ho ora dopo tutto. Onestamente, quanto sei stata stufa di tutte le parole negative e commenti cattivi  l'anno scorso?

READY FOR AN EASTER SURPRISE?

Come back tomorrow morning. The egg will be cracked open.  Right here....  Who will it be? What will it be?  This

HAPPY EASTER! BUONA PASQUA! ILOISTA PÄÄSIÄISTÄ!

MARCO MENGONI AND HANNAH MANCINI JOIN EUROVISION IN CONCERT LINE UP

Two more acts joins the (nearly) sold out Eurovision in Concert in Amsterdam: Italian Marco Mengoni and Slovenian Hannah Mancini . That brings the amount to 22 out of 39, or well over the half of them :-) The concert takes place in Amsterdam's Melkweg on April 13, 2013 and will be presented by two Eurovision veterans Marlayne and Linda Wagenmakers and the line up will also feature as a supermega guest star Carola ! And PeR, Cezar, Valentina Monetta, Nodi & Sophie, Elitsa & Stoyan, Klapa s Mora, Koza Mostra & Agathonas Iakovidis, Dina Garipova, Ryan Dolan, Zlata Ognevich, Natália Kelly, Gianluca Bezzina, Andrius Pojavis, Roberto Bellarosa, Krista Siegfrids, Adraijan & Bledar, Amandine Bourgeois, Takasa, Esma & Vlatk o and Alyona Lanskaya . More info here .

RAI AND SMTV GIVE US NAMES

Italian RAI has confirmed that it will broadcast the first semifinal on Rai5 channel just like last year, and the final itself stays on Rai2 where it will be broadcasted on HD this time. Fan favorite Federica Gentile will again comment the semifinal and in the final we have the duo Marco Ardemagni and Filippo Solibello again. This time they have time to prepaire themselves unlike last year when they replaced the kicked out commentators only a week before the event.  SMTV will broadcast as always both semifinals and the grand final with the commentary of Lia Fiorio and Gigi Restivo again. Both broadcasters don't send their commentators on the spot but will comment from the studios in San Marino and in Rome instead of Malmö Arena's tiny little boxes... Now only one question remains about both teams: Who will the spokespersons beand follow the foorsteps of Raffaella Carrá, Ivan Bacchi, Roberto Moretti, Nico Della Valle and Monica Fabbri?

FINNHITS TOUR CANCELLED

If Diggiloo is going strong in Sweden, in Finland the second leg of popular Finnhits tour has been cancelled, apparently because of money (the exact fate of Vain elämää further gigs....) The artists counted that their cut was less than 12% of the turnover divided by the five of them! The tour was a success last fall and was ment to continue this spring but was first postboned to autumn, and now cancelled altogether. The cast was Vicky Rosti, Eini, Frederik, Danny and Tapani Kansa, all of them Euroviisut veterans and having countless hits of the 70's to their catalogue. Finnhits was a hugely popular compilation LP series that originally had 14 albums released in the 1970's and early 1980's packed with hits of the moment, most of them covers. With the nostalgy and retro schlager being popular again even the younger generation of today are listening classics like Menolippu , Kun Chicago kuoli , Yes sir, alkaa polttaa , Volga , R-A-K-A-S , Seikkailija ....again. Nothing

CHARLOTTE GIVING BIRTH WHILE TOURING

Charlotte Perrelli ex-Nilsson ex-Ingrosso is taking part again in the Swedish summer institution, the Diggiloo tour . The problem is she's pregnant and due to have the baby in early August, while the tour end on August 17. What to do? Nothing. She plans to go on and hopes the delivery should happen on a day off and she'd be back on stage the after or maybe two. No subsitution for her.  Maybe the other starts like Lotta Engberg and David LIngdren will have to act as midwives for her this summer? "It's a popular show. I don't need to wear tank tops and shorts anyways " she comments, "I will take time in the fall and rest!" She's The Girl! Currently she is also working on a pregnancy training book....

ROBIN STJERNBERG: CHANGES AND CHEST HAIR

Swedish Robin Stjernberg has to do changes to his performance of You to fit the Eurovision rules. No surprise as in Melodifestivalen he had five dancers plus two backing singers hidden backstage. He was also himself actively involved in the choreography. All will change for Malmö 2013. He will be standing in a special podium concentrating on singing separated from the rest and wearing also new clothing, something light. His singing dancers will be wearing darker colors instead. And did you know he has a natural Batman shaped chest hair ?! And there's a remix of the song? And the acoustic version?

WHAT DOES MICHAEL JACKSON GOT TO DO WITH EUROVISION 2013 STAGE?

"We want to make the wildest Eurovision Song Contest ever" , says Ola Melzig. One of the things that separates this year's scene from previous years is that production is done deliberately to create depth. The scene is built up in several layers and is also located further out in the arena than before. "Scene edge is approximately at the blue line. It would have never worked if we were not at an early stage have chosen to have standing audiences." Another important difference is the video screens in the background. They are both set very far back and also the techincal quality is far superior to be able to also show details in better quality on screen. The stage will be built in five days. In Moscow that took three weeks to cobble together. The stage will be assembled in the stadium's far end and then rolled into place. It is extremely short time for such a sophisticated stage set building. The Tait Technologies, responsable for construction have been

MARCO MENGONI HITS DOUBLE #1

Italy will have a real local success representing it in Eurovision 2013 as Marco Mengoni's new album #prontoacorrere hits straight the #1 spot in the official charts, while his single L'Essenziale still remains as #1 and has sold already over 50.000 downloads. The single also made it #1 in iTunes while the video has been viewed almost 10 million times! Besides that his tour is selling out fast, and the first date (May 8 in Milan) is already sold out.  On top of that he's (again) in the cover of Italian Vanity Fair... Will the success continue in Malmö 2013?

ESC 2013 SEMIFINALS RUNNING ORDER DECIDED

No lottery this time as always before but the producers of the show in Sweden and the EBU's Reference group have sealed the running orders for the two semifinals. Finland and Krista Siegfrids gets number five slot sandwiched between Azerbaijan and Malta where it should stand out nicely. San Marino gets the feared number two, after Latvia and Macedonia. Now it's time to listen the songs in right order and see if it makes any difference in likes and dislikes ... :-) Semifinal one Austria Estonia Slovenia Croatia Denmark Russia Ukraine The Netherlands Montenegro Lithuania Belarus Moldova Ireland Cyprus Belgium Serbia Semifinal two Latvia San Marino F.Y.R. Macedonia Azerbaijan Finland Malta Bulgaria Iceland Greece Israel Armenia Hungary Norway Albania Georgia Switzerland Romania

KRISTA SIEGFRIDS RELEASES DING DONG ON MAY 10 (AND WANTS TO BECOME A GAY ICON!)

Krista Siegfrids was on live chat with Ilta-Sanomat's Poppipoliisit today and some facts were revealed along the chat with the hosts and questions by the followers. She's very un-Finnish artists as she started with a bang with her More os more theme and wasn't asking apologies from anyone for breaking through, and she has managed to avoid being labeled both Voice-Krista or UMK-Krista - maybe because she's so different and has been around for such a long time working her butt off.... She will on stage in Malmö in all female company; five girls and herself (three dancers, two backing singers) She will be doing promo in Amsterdam's Eurovision in Concert as well as London Eurovision, and Stockholm, too Her album will be released on May 10, 2013 and is called Ding Dong! She describes it as a mix between the styles of Kesha and Joan Jett! She told that she feels completely confortable alterning from rock to pop. With a hint of dance thrown in! She also told

ESC 2013: THE ITALIAN CONNECTION

Over the past years we have been talking about the Swedish influence in the Eurovision but another one has been floating around maybe a bit unnoticed, Italy! We have had songs sung in Italian, songs produced in Italy, sung by artists like Paolo Meneguzzi who is associated as Italian despite having a Swiss passport, or Roberto Meloni... not to mention all the song in Italian in various national finals! All this when Italy itself was absent. And this 2013 is no exception with Italian touch. The Croatian song was recorded in Italy by Italians, the Lithuanian artist lives in Italy,  the Romanian one has done his vocals studies in Italy, the Belgian singer has clear Italian roots (once again), as has the Slovenian one. The Spanish lead singer's claim to international fame is she was singing in Sanremo a couple of years ago... On top of that both Italy and San Marino will sing their songs in Italian this year (finally!) and both are in top-10 in most every poll. And we can't f

CRITICS LIKE LORDI AGAIN

Lordi seems to be getting finally some good words from critics with their new album To beast or not to beast ( listen a sampler ). For example Sue magazine gives it 9/10 and also features a long interview with Mr Lordi.  It's more metal than the previous ones and makes a clear difference to the precedent partyheavy album Babez for breakfast in 2010. The band may finally be able to brush off the Eurovision clowns image they have been suffering ever since 2006 by some critics and fans. But they seem to have made a peace with that, too, as they performed in the Irish antional selection 2013 and di Hard rock hallelujah instead of the new The riff . I kinda like Candy for the cannibal and  The year 2012 was ment to be band's jubilee year but it all changed when the drummer Otus died in February. ”The news reached me before I was told about it ” he recalls. ”it wasn't surprising, the timing was. It was a fact he wouldn't live to 60, but that he didn't even m

REBORN VALENTINA MONETTA

Have you already checked Valentina Monetta's new website ? There you'll see the video to Crisalide , learn how to buy the song from iTunes or Amazon.de among others, and also watch again the presentation show earlier this month. Valentina will bring San Marino to the Eurovision final for the first time from the second semifinal on May 16, 2013 (most likely!). Certe volte dentro me, Ho sentito un vuoto che, Mi chiamava dentro di sé Vieni ora a vedere la verità, C’è un ponte sull’immensità,  Cosa sono, in fondo io? Sogno fragile di Dio, Con un corpo fatto così,  Grandi occhi, colore, vivendo si muore Rinnovati per l’eternità Vola, vola, che la forza arriverà, Sempre sola verso un’altra libertà La farfalla nuova lascia sempre giù, La crisalide che eri tu,  Vuota senza me, Dalle nuvole si sa, Poi la pioggia scenderà,  D’improvviso succederà, Le ali bagnate di lacrime che non si asciugano,  Poi vento verrà  E tu vola, vola, vola via da te Sempre sola fino che un r

WklVids: Arash ft Sean Paul, Regina, Agnetha Fältskog, Saara Aalto

Regina has released a very beautiful song Na balkanu . From the category "I don't understand a word but believe it all"....  Saara Aalto (Talent, Euroviisut and The Voice runner up) has released her new single and video You had my heart . She's really aiming for the Asian market and both Japanese and Chinese versions will follow in due time. Arash features Sean Paul in his new She makes me go that could have been released some 20 years ago really. Finns must feel nostalgic as it has hit the charts here...  Ramdadamdamdigidigi! ABBA's Agnetha Fältskog has made a comeback and the first single When you really loved someone is really a nice tune..... relaxing, sad and wonderfully old fashioned at the same time. And on top of that oh so familiar voice of Agnetha :-)

THE VOICES AND IDOLS OF EUROVISION, DO THEY HAVE X FACTOR?

The various reality shows are a way to make it into music business but it doesn't mean you can stay on top after the winning exposure fades away. Some make it a bit further and this year's Eurovision isn't immune to that either. We have the winners of The Voice of Russia, Belgium and Serbia among us, and even Finland's Krista Siegfrids may have to thank The Voice for her being here now even if she didn't reach the final in it last year. Very unfairly, as most Finns agreed and awarded her an UMK victory instead. We have also a French Idol, a Swedish Idols runner up (with the smallest winning margin in the history as Robin, the runner up got 48% of the votes, one might add), and a Norwegian Idols finalist. Then we have also an Italian X Factor winner. We have even a Junior Eurovision participant, Serbia's Nevana Bozovic! Other artists that have started their career that had lead them to Malmö 2013 in various reality shows are at least Vlatko Lozanovsk

MARCO MENGONI DOES ESSENTIAL ACOUSTIC VERSION

Marco mengoni visited popular Italian talk show Che tempo che fa and presented a rather fabulous acoustic arrangement of his Sanremo winner and Eurovision entry, multiplatinum Italian number one, L'essenziale .

READY FOR THE ESC 2013 PARTY SEASON?

The national final season is over and this weekend we are orphans of various Eurovision related happenings.... are you finding yourself wondering what to do and surf the net for some exciting news in vain like I do? Anyways, out with that season, in with another: the parties! The biggest and best and most important is no doubt Eurovision in concert , getting bigger every year. This year once again in Amsterdam on April 13, read all about it here . This event has also great pre and after parties organized by 12points.tv, that this blog is proundly collaborating since forever. Read more about those parties here and here . And if that's not enough, 12points.tv is also organizing on April 26 in Leuven, Belgium another fabulus Eurovision party, Colours of Eurovision . Read more about that here .   But before that there's also the London Eurovision party on April 21, organized by escXtra.com. More information here .  And all this fun before Malmö 2013 itself and

FROM KRISSE TO LYNDA

The Princess of the Republic, Krisse amused and annoyed the European audiences in Helsinki 2007 Eurovision, and Malmö 2013 is going the same route with Lynda Woodruff. Where as Krisse was unknown to other than Finns and played by... err, Krisse, who was "a nobody and is now everybody!", Lynda is already a wellknown creature for the fans of Eurovision, played by Sarah Dawn Finer. It's going to be a fun ride all through Sweden in May!

CAROLA JOINS EUROVISION IN CONCERT CAST

Eurovision in concert is proving to be a huge success also this year. The latest addition to the line up is none other than Carola ! She will be celebrating 30 years of Främling with international fans and the artists of the 2013 Eurovision song contest. Good news for Krista Siegfrids who as a little girl sung Fångad av en stormvind in front of a mirror dreaming she could do Eurovision one day... And now she's there! Dreams do come true at times! The list of artists so far includes Nodi & Sophie (Georgia), Elitsa & Stoyan (Bulgaria), Klapa s Mora (Croatia), Koza Mostra & Agathonas Iakovidis (Greece), Dina Garipova (Russia), Ryan Dolan (Ireland), Zlata Ognevich (Ukraine), Natália Kelly (Austria), Gianluca Bezzina (Malta), Andrius Pojavis (Lithuania), Roberto Bellarosa (Belgium), Krista Siegfrids (Finland), Adraijan & Bledar (Albania), Amandine Bourgeois (France), Takasa (Switzerland), Esma & Vlatko (Macedonia), Alyona Lanskaya (Belarus).

EUROVISION 2013 PRODUCTS!

The new series of Eurovision products are available at eurovisionshop.tv here . Get your scarf and bag, covers for your iProducts, mousepad, layard... And of course the Program Book and CD. And that's not all, of course you need to have your morning coffee in the butterfly mug and rest your head on a We are one-pillow! Under the ESC 2013 poster of course!

ESC 2013: THE STAGE!

The first impressions of the stage have been revelaed by SVT for the Malmö 2013 Eurovision. This blogger's first thought was Oslo 2010 but that's not a bad thing. The scene designers are Viktor Brattström and Frida Arvidsson : " We work with no moving parts linking stage and arena , but a solid traditional set design " says Frida . Scene elements have been inspired by the form of everything from style studies of butterfly wings and images of moths photographed with a slow shutter speed , the architecturally and technologically advanced modern haute couture . The idea is to bring the audience closer to the performers , while leaving space for modern projection technology . The duo has been working on the stage design since the beginning of November and knew early on what they were after .   To unite audience and artists has been the goal of the team behind the Eurovision in Malmö. As early as last fall the project&#