Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

Not only Sweden but also Belarus revealed their cards today. Or even more so as their songs are already out for all of us to listen and judge (click the titles). A total of 61 artists were invited for live auditions today in Minsk and later tonight the chosen ones were announced - a lucky 13. Some familiar names among the qualifiers from Naviband to Nuteki and NAPOLI.  01. Lexy Weaver (Aleksandra Tkach) – Be stronger 02. Kattie – Wild Wind 03. Vladislav Kurasov – Follow the Play 04. Navi band – Historyja majho žyccia 05. Anastasiya Sheverenko –   We'll be together 06. PROvokatsiya (Группа PROвокация) – #MYLOVE 07. Nuteki – Take My Heart 08. Nikita Hodas – Voice in my Head 09. Isaac Nightingale – Vadim Kapustin – On The Red Line 10. July – Children of the World 11. NAPOLI – Let's come together 12. LERMONT n JULIC – Heartbeat 13. Angelica Pushnova (Анжелика Пушнова) – We Should Be Together

The biggest and best by some, the rather annoying and plastic filled musically often not-so-great national final has revealed its cards for the next season. These Melodifestivalen 2017 entries made the cut amongst the 2.478 submitted entries along with the ones the producitoon team invited and encouraged to send a bit.  Clara Henry, David Lindgren and Hasse Andersson will be hosting the shows this time. Among the songwriters we have Thomas G:son (four songs), Tim Schou, Dr Alban, Ola Salo and Robin Stjernberg,  and among singers 87-year debutant Ove, Finnish Krista Siegfrids and Juha Mulari, ten songs in Swedish (curiously by the veterans Charlotte, Roger and Krista among others). It seems Charlotte decided to jump in about two weeks ago only but Loreen beats her by doing so only this Monday.... Charlotte also says Melodifestivalen and her self penned song is like therapy.... Both previous Eurovision winners are not thinking about winning this time but just having an exp...

Fans have spoken. Helsinki born Lill Lindfors was chosen as the best Eurovision host of the 1980's, Swedish Ulrika Johnsson and Irish born Terry Wogan the best ones of the 1990's, Finns Jaana Pelkonen and Mikko Leppilampi were the favorites of the 2000's and finally Swedish Måns Zelmerlöw and Petra Mede the best of the 2010's. Four Swedes (one born in Finland), two Finns and one Terry Wogan. The Nordics know how to host! (And Terry)

Just 17-year.old Isaiah Firebrace won the latest X Factor Australia mentored by Adam Lambert and in the post-victory interviews comes out as a huge Eurovision fan and telling his dream is to do it. “When Jess (Mauboy) performed, I thought ‘Oh my God, Australian can do it, we’re allowed to be there now’,” he said. “And then seeing what Guy and Dami did was incredible. It would definitely be something I would love to do, that would be the dream. And what if I won?” He cites Mauboy as his greatest role model because of what she has achieved as an indigenous artist and performing Wake Me Up with her during the finale was the highlight of his nascent music career. “I’ve always looked up to her, she’s come so far and I was inspired by someone who is indigenous doing such great things,” he said. “I really want to be a role model, not just to young indigenous people but the non-indigenous community, to encourage young people to never give up on their dreams. I am really passionate abou...

Deborah Iurato won Amici two years ago but her career was maybe shadowed by the success of Dear Jack from the same edition. She debuted in Sanremo in duet with Giovanni Caccamo and they finished third earlier this year. This season the Sicilian won the most watched entertainment series in Italy, Tale e Quale show where she won the episodes imitating Adele and Aretha Franklin and generally finished always in top places proving her incredible singing talent and flexible voice. The other artists she imitated were Noemi, Anastacia , Katy Perry, Laura Pausini , Whitney Houston, Antonella Ruggiero, Lara Fabian and Beyoncé . It's been a good year 2016 for Deborah - how about making 2017 even better by winning Sanremo and going to Kyiv?

Two weeks to go for the announcements of the Sanremo artists, and finding out who are the Newcomers finalists. The rumour mill is running wild as always and some new names have entered the speculation in the past days.  Ermal Meta could finally move among the Big ones after ebing in Newcomers last year (and twice before with various bands), Sanremo winner and Eurovision veteran Enrico Ruggeri is named again as a possible one, Al Bano really wants to celebrate his 50th anniversary of his first big success in Sanremo, Francesco Renga and  Renzo Rubino could be back, too. Some names that have been missing for some time could reappear invited by Carlo Conti: Syria, Paolo Vallesi, Mietta, Mariella Nava, Marco Masini, Jalisse, Ricchi e Poveri, Zarrillo, Ron, New Trolls, Paola Turci, Annalisa Mnetti, Dirotta su Cuba, Nomadi .... The duo that comes up every year is back this year, too: Anna Tatangelo & Gigi D'Alessio . Another possible duos might be Elodie & Fabr...

Arisa, a fan favorite and self proclaimed Eurovision fan and wannabe, closes a chapter in her career that started by winning the Sanremo newcomers 2009, continued with other Sanremo successes (2nd in 2012, winner in 2014) and many other projects, musical and not, like being one of the X Factor judges. Five albums plus one live album so far. The story continues. Her latest is Una cantante di musica leggere or A singer of light music , with Tricarico.  Besides being an awesome singer she's known to be a bit cuccoo at times in things she says and does, like doing X Factor when a bit tipsy (Mrs Osborne anyone?), or telling everyone in Sanremo to pop in some pills to feel good....  And of course infamous tweet "Oh fuck! Wrong year!" when she won Sanremo and that was the only time RAI chose internally outside the festival... 1 – Una cantante di musica leggera feat Tricarico 2 – Abbi cura di te 3 – Sincerità 4 – La Notte 5 – Quante parole che non dici 6 – Con...

UMK seems to be changing every year and this year a lot of questions has risen why there are no semifinals, why only ten songs, why so many singers are from talent shows, and most of all: why there are the international juries and will tv audience understand something about the voting this time around? UMK producer Anssi Autio sat down with Sanna Vilkman from   YLE News to clarify ten facts and gives us insight to UMK's future plans.  1. Why there are no more semifinals? We dropped the semifinals as we want to concentrte on one amazing show. The final show in Metro Arena in Espoo January 28, 2017 will be massive compared to the previous ones. The atmosphere will be something else in the fully backed arena and professionals like Live Nation taking care of the show with UMK team. The entries will be presented in bigger stagings and shows, planned for the big stage. They will be more like they would be at the Eurovision, on that scale of stage. (in another interview it ...

No doubt Carola is one of the finest voices to belt out Christmas songs - and to prove it she has released a new Christmas album Drömmen om julen ( read more here ) but this Christmas she has more gifts to us: a cooking book! It comes with her thoughts about humanity and compassion. She wants to courage us to do good, not only at Christmas time but always and teaches us the art of finding harmony and peace in stressful times. She has created a book fo 60 recipes along with food expert Malin Landqvist. All of them are linked to her life from the recipes her mom used to cook around Christmas, the food she had in the northern mountains when spending Christmases there, the food of the refugees she took into her home and gave them shelter and also goodies from South Africa, the homeland of her adopted daughter Zoe.  Included are also suggestions for Christmas breakfast, New year eve's dinner and for all the advent Sundays. The result is comprehensive, unique and altogether a...

Viktor Klimenko turns 74 today. Congratulations! A refugee born in a Finnish concentration camp in Carelia, singing Cossack, musician, actor, today a gospel singer and preacher. He sneaked in to Naples with his Alien passport in 1965 to sing Aurinko laskee läntee n for Finland. He scored zero points and was joint last. But that didn't stop him having a career in Europe with Russian/Cossack songs in the 1970's.

The #UMK2017 songs have been out in the internet for less than three hours now so let's have a look what the media and fans are saying when it's still hot. In a popular fans chatroom poll the most popular ones right now are Emma, Norma John, Zühlke and My First Band . A total knock out for Club La Persé and Knucklebone Oscar & The Shangri-La Rubies. The entries by Alva and Günther & D'Sanz and Lauri Yrjölä seem to leave fans rather indifferent or get varied response from rather good to rather bad, and Anni does get some positive comments and no one seems to hate her song. On the other hand no one seems to love it either.... Günther gets the most media exposure as expected and his photo is the lead photo in most every article. In Ilta-Sanomat most comments are by the usual Eurovision haters who call for the ending this altogether and knowing beforehand Finland will score null points. Some also complain about the UMK in general and by doing so most make clear ...

Finland becomes the first country in this season to reveal its cards. YLE has made public today the ten #UMK2017 hopefuls who will fight for the ticket to Kyiv in the final on January 28. Krista Siegfrids will be hosting the show from Metro Arena in Espoo. On December 31, 2016 their music videos will be revealed and there will be a preview programme on tv. I will be presenting the entries and artists one by one in the near future so stay tuned. And yes, there will be international juries as well in the final..... 1. Alva - Arrows (Arto Ruotsala, Milos Rosas, Aatu Mällinen) 2. Anni Saikku - Reach out for the sun (Mia Kemppainen, Perttu Kurttila) 3. Club La Perse - My little world (Princess Julia, Luke Hammond, Jaakko Salovaara) 4. Emma - Circle of light (Jonas Olsson, Heidi Maria Paalanen, Aku Rannila, Saara Törmä) 5. Günther & D'Sanz -  Love Yourself (Mats Söderlund, Amir Aly, Tomas Cederholm, Robin Abrahamsson, Niklas Nylund) ...

In a week the first phase in Belarus comes to an end. BTRC has an audition round in Minsk on November 30, and a maximum of 15 songs will be selected for the Belarusian final to be held at latest on January 25, 2017. The auditions will be also streamed live on tvr.by from 10am. The qualifiers will be announced later on the same day by the selecting jury. In the final there will be then 50-50 televote-jury. Many names have already made public their intentions to take part: Navi Band, Toy Boy, Pauline, July, AleksandrSukharev, The Superbullz, Angelica Pushnova, PIotr Klujeu, Kattie, Irina Parfyonova, Propaganda and Symphorine among others.....

YLE will reveal the artists and their songs today 1pm local time in a webstream here . Your truly will be on spot (probably) at YLE's studios and will bring you all the news and gossip and information needed as soon as possible this afternoon! Stay tuned! #letsmakeSuomifabagain

Remember Jemini, the only UK act ever to score null points at the Eurovision song contest? Like if that humiliation wasn't enough for the female part of the duo, Gemma Abbey, she decided it's cool to trick subsidies and tax relief for over 72.000 euros over five years. That gave her 30 weeks in prison and on top of that one year probation plus she has to pay that money back. Cry... She claimed she was a single mother, and that she needs higher subsidies and tax breaks because of her daughter's health. Instead she had married in 2013 and lived with the husband since 2010. All this posted in Facebook, and neighbours witnessing the events. She was arrested in 2014 and now the judgements was read,  Now she's got a reason to cry. cry cry baby.... for the next 30 weeks.

Also Belgium has internally selected its artist, it's Ellie Delvaux aka Blanche. She is known from The Voice where she came reached semifinals and thus follows the footsteps of Roberto Bellarosa and Loic Nottet - only that those two came 1st and 2nd. No news about he song but apparently it's a song from her forthcoming EP.... 

Excitement rises in Finland when there's barely 24 hrs before YLE publish the #UMK2017 entries and this time around there seems to be no leaks whatsover and no one literally has a clue what's in store. Today they have released a teaser with Krista Siegfrids hearing the songs for the first time and her spontaneous and direct reactions and comments......  Song 1: Oh, wonderful voice.... I like pop chicks. Modern, fresh, beautiful pop-r'n'b Song 2: What?! In English and in Finnish?! Oh wow! This is like... pop folk (she's really excited!) Song 3:Whoa, this started right away, BANG! OMG IS THIS WHO I THINK IT IS???  Help... I need to pause now. This so WTF moment! Song 4: This sounds so good, such a great groove hey! Gals getting crazy on the dance floor. Ear worm! Ear worm! Song 5: Now it's sensitive... is this a bit sad? I'm not sure (she's really low key and silent) I think this song could stand out from the rest a lot. This is so differen...

Jana Burčeska has been selected internally to represent Macedonia at the Eurovision song contest 2017 in Kyiv. She started her career in the Macedonian Idol back in 2011, and has participated in the Skopje Fest a few times since. Since 2014 she has also been singing in a local cult rock band Mizar. Her internally selected song will be presented later.

While the guessing and gossiping continues and same names are making it loud and clear they are aiming for Sanremo - from Jalisse to Gerardina Trovato and Al Bano - and some surprise names like Fiorella Mannoia seem to materialize, some other artists are making it known they won't be there in 2017.  Those include fan favorites Annalisa  and Nek , Eurovision veteran Nina Zilli, teenage heartdrops Benji & Fede , previous Newcomers winner and last year's third placed Giovanni Caccamo (but this blogger bets his duet partner Deborah Iurato will be there!), and further Malika Ayane (too busy playing Evita ) and Giorgia (she's probably going to be a guest star instead), Noemi , Tiromancino, Fred De Palma , Valerio Scanu , Urban Strangers and TheGiornalisti . The mystery will be solved in 3 weeks, on December 12. Stay tuned...

Georgia wins the 14th Junior Eurovision song contest with Mariam Mamadashvili's Mzeo . It's their third win already. She took a strong lead with the adult jury and despite placing only 6th with the kids jury she kept her lead and eventually won. Armenia was second and Italy third.  This is the result fo the grown up jury. A very convincing lead for Georgia....  Christer gave Georgia 5 and his 12 to Belarus....  ... Jedward gave their 12 to Russia and Georgia 6..... ... Mads gave Georgia only 1 and his 12 to Italy.... ... but Georgia kept its lead and wins by 17 points over Armenia, the kids favorite. You can rewatch the whole show below:

Mediterranean Conference Center in Valletta hosts tonight the 14th Junior Eurovision song contest. Ben Camille and Valeria Vella will be leading the show with last year's hostess Poli Genova and last year's winner Destiny Chukunyere performing as interval acts. This is the one show I just can't myself to excited or so much interested in. So many things are wrong with in my opinion (I pretty much prefer the Nordic original version of it where kids are kids and singing kiddy songs instead), This said I did have a listen, and watched the first rehearsal video recap and the ones I kinda liked in no particular order are Macedonia, Ukraine, Serbia, Italy, Israel enad Belarus... I won't even try to guess who will win.... This year the voting system has been changed. Instead of a televote there will be 50-50 professiona-kids juries in each country, and all this topped ny three professional jurors Christer Björkman, Mads Grimstad and Jedward.  Ireland - Zena Donnelly - ...

Krista Siegfrids releases the video for her latest. The album is coming soon.... :-) And maybe she'll be in Melodifestivalen again? This year it won't clash with her #UMK2017 hosting duties....

Spain opened its selection and 135 songs have been sent already for Objetivo Eurovisión. Some keep quiet, some like Brequette shout to every direction she's there (check her submitted entries below). While Ruth Lorenzo seems to have dropped the idea once she was not selected internally the other regular wannabes are at it: Jorge Gonzalez and Mirela . Azucar Moreno who provided the legendary 1990 performance seems to be game as well, as are Lorena Gomez and Maria Villalon . Same old, same old also among the songwriters from Ovi Jacobsen to Tony Sanchez Olsson and Barei. Yawn. The submission window closes in the end of this month and then 30 songs will be selected for the RTVE webste for people to vote. Three songs will be selected from that top-10 by a jury for another public vote in the final in February.

San Marino wasn't really pleased - and with all the reasons in the world! - when EBU just made up their televote in the 2016 Eurovision song contest randomly by combining five other countries' televotes and thus overruling the people of the tiny state altogether and royally. Angry SMRTV told they were not even heard in the matter beforehand and told they have an alternative proposal and it's now made public and it all makes sense. In short: demoscopic jury, a bit like in the Sanremo festival. A certain number of Sammarinese doc who will watch at least two of the shows and vote during the televoting windows. This "panel" vote would then form the Sammarinese televote as the first choice. Only in the case of problems and failed results the EBU's alternative would be used as a back up.  SMRTV has studied the proposal in detail and it seems all water proof. Should EBU not accept it it's only because they want to be nasty as there really is no reason why ...

Sergey Lazarev's new video is  ИДЕАЛЬНЫЙ МИР (Ideal world) The song is another rather catchy yet not so terribly original pop song while the video's concept is rather interesting.... Sergey is God. Watch yourself below..... 

The biggest and best and most accurate Eurovision song contest poll is here again!  Once again 12points .tv and partners, including yours truly, will collaborate to gather the thousends andt housends of votes to find out the best songs of the Eurovision song contest from 1956 to 2016. Escradio will broadcast the whole countdown from 11 CET on December 31, 2016  and just before midnight they have played each and every song that made the top-250 this year.  Is there a better way to wait for the New Year? No! Do join in and start voting now! HERE The voting ends December 13!

Videos have been released for the 12 Sanremo Newcomers aka Giovani entries. Six of these will make it through the elimination show Sarà Sanremo on December 12. They will be joined by two artists from the AreaSanremo selection (see below) Aprile & Mangiaracina - Il cielo di Napoli Carola Campagna - Prima che arrivi il giorno Chiara Grispo - Niente è impossibile Francesco Guasti - Universo La Rua - Tutta la vita questa vita Lele - Ora mai Leonardo Lamacchia (Leo Stain) - Ció che resta Maldestro - Canzone per Federica Marianne Mirage - Le canzoni fanno male The Shalalalas - Difficile Tommaso Pini - Cose che danno ansia Valeria - La vita è un'illusione AreaSanremo entries: Carmen Alessandrello - Quell'attimo di noi Carlo Bolacchi - Paolo Fox Braschi - Nel mare ci sono i coccodrilli Andrea Corona - Scappare da qui Marika Adele - Giovane Diego Esposito - Come fosse primavera Valeria Farinacci - Insieme Ylenia Lucisano - Riverbero...

By the readers of the official Eurovision website . And without being patriotic, deversedly so. I have always thought they did a marvellous job and way better than many other couples in other years. Excellent job and a great compliment for their credit by fans. This blogger thanks all voters for good taste and congratulates Jaana, Mikko and YLE!