ITALY AT THE EUROVISION: OXA / LEALI

ITALY AT THE EUROVISION: OXA / LEALI - AVREI VOLUTO (1989)

Italy took its well deserved third victory - finally! - at the Eurovision song contest 2021. Over the years several other Italian entries would have been worthy winners. In this series I will go through all of them from the worst ranking to the winners.

Fausto Leali (77) and Anna Oxa (60) joined forces for Sanremo 1989 and I recall them stating somewhere they did it so they could go to Eurovision. Or at least Anna did. And indeed they won with Ti lascerò. For Eurovision they instead brought re-write of that titled Avrei voluto. After a very slow start at the voting they finished rather disappointing 9th out of 22.

Fausto Leali has been around since 1960 in the music business first in various bands and then solo. Big success came in 1967 and has lasted with ups and downs until these days as he's still around, for example in Big Brother VIP 2020 where he's disqualified for using the N word......

Thirteen Sanremos to his credit, with eight of them with a Top-5 finish between 1968 and 2009, 19 studio albums and 58 singles his raspy voice is familiar to every Italian.

Anna Oxa, born in Albania, shot to the fame in Sanremo when she was only 17 with her aggressive punk look and an evergreen song Un'emozione da poco finishing second. She becomes soon one of the icons and delivered hits in regular pace. She wins Sanremo again in 1999, and is runner up also in 1997. She's done a total of 14 festivals between 1978-2011. In 2013 she took part in Dancing with Stars but had to retire after an injury, that apparently has caused troubles with Rai and some say she's persona non grata in Rai now. Who knows? In anyways in recent years she's been considered a bit cuckoo and lost in her spiritual and artistic search and not understood. One day maybe we will find truth of all these things people say about her.... Her back catalogue is still packing fantastic tracks in her 17 studio albums and 39 singles.

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ESC 2016 WISH LIST: MARGARET FOR POLAND

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Krista Siegfrids is delivering nice pop tunes one after another and this one is particularly catchy and soon you will be singing along..... Hopefully her Melodifestivalen entry will be equally good!

ESC 2016 BELARUS: NAKED WITH WOLVES?

Today's funniest Eurovision related story comes from Belarus. Some sources claim Ivan wants to perform on stage naked and with live wolf or wolves. It surely would be a first on Eurovision stage! We have seen some forgotten underwear over the years, and some cardbox animals though..... Is it time to take things a bit further? No, according the rules live animals are not allowed, and Eurovision being a family show nudity won't do either. (It seems to be ok to be half naked if you are a dancer though..... )

CAROLA'S BOOBS STEAL THE SHOW, SVT APOLOGIES

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Russia recycles the video

Here is the video for Alexey's previous hit Бам Бам! and here is the video for his Eurovision 2011 entry Get you as Alex Sparrow as he likes to be called now abraod. Looks like he potreys the new rich Russia well.... The only problem is that he can't play the bad part convincingly not even a second. And did I say the song is crap? And of course as he is a Russian star he must have nude fotos of him flotaing around internet trying to be sexy and he fails there, too, big time. If you are not bad nor sexy you shouldn't push it. Maybe he should stick to singing jolly little numbers like the Kalinka rip off instead....

Regina Lund - naked and censored

Regina Lund's new video Jag är osynlig was censored by Youtube only minutes after it had been uploaded. In the video she was playing a female Jesus who gets crusified in the end. "I was shocked!" she says. "There's nothing more naked in it as in every church! It's ok to have naked man hanging on the wall but my nakedness is too much on internet? ". Oh well, no comment. She's prepairing a new album Dare Regina Lund and we of course remember her from her Melodifestivalen 2007 adventure with Rainbow star .

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Eurovision song contest 2005 winner Helena Paparizou has been enjoying Top-5 hits every year since 2003 with the exception of 2010 and 2014, this latest one being already her 27th! And Haide is charting also in Bulgaria and Finland, of all places. The catchiness of her hits has changed less over the years than her face.... Here's the English version , below the Greek version.

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?

MÅNS ZELMERLÖW GETS NAKED FOR THE GOOD CAUSE

Reigning Eurovision song contest champion and the host of the next contest in May 2016 in Stockholm Mäns Zelmerlöw bares it almost all in GT following some other Eurovision stars like Blue and Jedward ( see more here ) All for the good cause of course, prostate cancer - something this blogger can also relate having experienced it in my closest circle. Nothing to laugh about. The annual Naked issue of GT or Gay Times features also several other celebrity men out of their designer fashion and stage or sports outfits. I guess Christmas came early to some fans when they can unwrap their most wished gift already now.... Maybe. But it's not the first time he gets naked.... he did so when hosting the annual QX Gala some years ago. Who knows what he and Petra have in store for us in May?!

Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

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