ITALY: SANREMO 2018 STARTS TONIGHT WITH LAURA PAUSINI

The 68th Festival della canzone Italiana aka Sanremo kicks off tonight with the first of its five evenings. There are several changes to the format this year and one of them is no Big artists will be eliminated this year so any of them could end up in Lisbon 2018 Eurovision.
Claudio Baglioni is the new Artistic Director and the Dictator and he will be hosting the show with Michele Hunziker and actor Pieerfrancesco Favino. As always the evenings will be also filled with countless guests from all areas of life: music, movies, comedy, ... even if Baglioni promises it's all about music and less media fuss and television friendly choices.
And guess what? Sanremo gets spider cam!!! Yes, and other technologies like pre-programmed cameras and video effects etc used in Eurovision already for years so expect a bit familiar and not so stiff camera work in Sanremo this time :-) Then we will have living Sanremo legend Pippo Baudo making an appearance (unless he got too angry on Monday night rehearsals where none of the three hosts were there to greet him but went for dinner instead....)
And continuing #metoo Sanremo launches #iosonoqui. Look out for the flowers in the jackets and outfits! (Remember the rainbow ribbons a couple of years ago for LGBT rights?)

Laura Pausini is the super guest of the first night. Her career started in Sanremo 25 years ago and she has went on to sell over 70 million albums worldwide, won Grammys and countless other awards. She has also a very succesful career going on in Spanish in Latin America. She will apparently do a medley of her hits, then her latest hit Non é detto, and then a duet with Baglioni. The same should go for the other superguests Gianna Nannini, Il Volo, Gianni Morandi, Biagio Antonacci and others.

Other guest is showman Fiorello (who many would like to host the show sometime soon), and film director Gabriele Muccini and the cast of his latest movie A casa tutti bene.

Two awards have already been announced. Premio Lunezia for the best lyrics go to Luca Barbarossa among the Big, and Ultimo among the Newcomers.

Milva will be awarded the lifetime award. 15 participations with 17 songs between 1960-2007: once second (1962), four times third. International career, especially in Germany, and many collaborations with Franco Battiato.

As always I will be following and blogging live so please do join me tonight!

Roby Facchinetti e Riccardo Fogli - Il segreto del tempo

Pacifico, R. Facchinetti

Nina Zilli - Senza appartenere

G. Angi, N. Zilli, A. Iammarino

The Kolors - Frida (mai, mai, mai)

D. Petrella, D. Faini, A. Raina, A. Fiordispino

Diodato e Roy Paci - Adesso

A. Diodato

Mario Biondi - Rivederti

M. Biondi, G. Furnari, D. Fisicaro

Luca Barbarossa - Passame er sale

L. Barbarossa

Lo Stato Sociale - Una vita in vacanza

L. Guenzi, A. Cazzola, F. Draicchio, M. Romagnoli, A. Guidetti, E. Roberto

Annalisa - Il mondo prima di te

A. Scarrone, D. Simonetta, A. Raina

Giovanni Caccamo - Eterno

Cheope, G. Caccamo

Enzo Avitabile con Peppe Servillo - Il coraggio di ogni giorno

Pacifico, E. Avitabile, P. Servillo

Ornella Vanoni con Bungaro e Pacifico- Imparare ad amarsi

Bungaro, Pacifico, C. Chiodo, A. Fresa

Renzo Rubino - Custodire

R. Rubino

Noemi - Non smettere mai di cercarmi

D. Calvetti, M. Pelan, V. Scopelliti, F. De Martino

Ermal Meta e Fabrizio Moro - Non mi avete fatto niente

E. Meta, F. Moro, A. Febo

Le Vibrazioni - Così sbagliato

F. Sarcina, A. Bonomo, L. Chiaravalli, D. Simonetta

Ron - Almeno pensami

L. Dalla

Max Gazzè - La leggenda di Cristalda e Pizzomunno

F. Gazzè, M. Gazzè, F. De Benedettis

Decibel - Lettera dal Duca

S. Capeccia, E. Ruggeri, F. Muzio

Red Canzian - Ognuno ha il suo racconto

R. Canzian, M. Porru

Elio e le Storie Tese - Arrivedorci

S. Conforti, S. Belisari, D.L. Civaschi, N. Fasani

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SONGS OF THE YEAR 2015: #5 KRISTA SIEGFRIDS - ON & OFF

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ESC 2016 WISH LIST: MARGARET FOR POLAND

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TIM SCHOU AND HIS NAKED GRAVITY

Tim Schou has a pretty good solo career going since he left his friends in London. He's travelling the world and relesing songs and videos. The latest one is a great track and comes with a steamy video that kinda takes away from the song really. But who's complaining. If you got it, flaunt it. Enjoy the video below. This post coming after the other Dane, Rasmus Seebach as wishlist for Eurovision. To think about it, Tim would do nicely, too. Maybe he should give it another go?

ESC 2016 ARMENIA: IT'S IVETA MUKUCHYAN!

Armenian tv has revealed tonight the name of their artist for the 2016 Eurovision song contest in Stockholm. It's 29-year-old Iveta Mukuchyan. Born in Yerevan she moved with her family to Germany when she was 6. At 23 she moved back to Armenia and continued her music studies. She has taken part in the Armenian Pop Idol finishing 5th in 2010 and she also did The Voice of Germany . In 2012 she was voted the Sexiest Armenian. Armenian tv has made a call for songwriters all over the world to submit a song for her by November 13, 2015. Let's see which direction the final choice will go, Freak or her latest release that you can hear below.... Whatever it is it will be an improvement from last year's fiasco.....

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Serbian Bojana Stamenov hasn't been having beauty sleeps while prepairing for Vienna. She has just released a new proper video replacing the previous fans featuring beauty video , right after she has given us Spanish ( El mundo bajo mis pies ) and French ( Le monde est à moi ) versions of the song! And an Autobahn remix that is kinda fabulous! Busy girl! PS. I still think the original Ceo svet je moj takes the prize! Oh WAIT! There's yet another version: Die ganze Welt is mein ! And that's something else ....

EUROVISION 2025: THOSE WHO DIDN'T MAKE IT ALL THE WAY TO BASEL: BRUNORI SAS - L'ALBERO DELLE NOCI

This is my maybe favourite song from Sanremo 2025. Brunori was a familiar name to be beforehand but I wasn't so familiar with his music but L'albero delle noci hit home with the first hearing. Great artist, beautiful melody and lyrics, no gimmicks. But I never believed he'd end up 3rd overall and I was even more surprised when he told he would do Eurovision without a moment of hesitation and actually wanted to win because of that! And along with Lucio Corsi a great new artist for me to discover and like! The video btw stars his family, wife and daughter.....

EUROVISION 2025 REVIEWS: ALBANIA, ICELAND, SAN MARINO AND AZERBAIJAN

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Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

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