Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

Mr Lordi and his band have been a bit bored during the pandemic and after the fun idea of their fictional greatest hits compilation Killection last year they have now extended it to fictional seven albums of different decades and genres those songs could've been from. Clever, no?   Skelectric Dinosaur, Superflytrap, The Masterbeast from the Moon, Abusement Park, Humanimals, Abracadaver and Spooky Sextravaganza Spectacular are the album titles including influences and sounds inspired from likes of Bee Gees, Alice Cooper, Kiss, Boney M, Earth Wind and Fire, Pink Floyd, Bon Jovi and more... This blogger has enjoyed with amusement the disco one, Superflytrap wherefrom single Believe me is taken from. The latest single Borderline is from Humanimals. 

 What a relief! I was a bit worried Rai would fall to the usual Eurovision standards and choose the usual suspects for staging etc. But no!  Atelier Francesca Montinaro will create the scenography for the Eurovision Song Contest Torino 2022 stage! Hopefully that means they will do also the rest the Italian way. In a good Italian way I mean!  "It was a very demanding race in which we participated with enthusiasm and strong emotions. A race against time that kept us awake until the small hours. But it was worth it, because in the end  Rai chose us. We receive this assignment with honor and we will work to deliver to the whole of Italy a stage that shows the soul of the Italians to Europe and to the world. We would like to say a lot, tell more, but we cannot reveal any details. From now on, months of intense but beautiful work begin for us to reach the opening of this third Italian edition of Eurovision. See you in May!" Atelier Francesca Montinaro has previously desig...

A special epilogy to this series for Diodato , Sanremo 2020 winner with his Fai rumore . A song that became a symbol for hope during Covid-19 pandemic and served us the most touching performance during the cancelled Eurovision song contest 2020 celebration show. One can only wonder how well it would have done in Rotterdam...... In my books one of the very best entries from Italy. Period.  Fai rumore, or Make noise is exacrly what Italy did at Eurovision the year after and.... well, you all know how it ended!

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 winner s. Måneskin or four young kids from the streets of Rome. What can I say? If they thought they had arrived when being the runner ups in X Factor and having a few local hits, touring small clubs in Europe and being cool and credible, they were so wrong. Things were slowing down a little so Sanremo was the logical next step. Zitti e buoni was however all but Sanremo entry in minds of most, including this blogger, and against all odds did win. Things looked good again for the band and the same happened at Eurovision; liked by many but probably too rock, too different to win..... How wrong we were! In less than a year they have won Sanremo, Eurovision, MTV Europe Music award, been nominated to American music award, went viral in Tiktok,...

The third act for Euroviison song contest 2022 in Turin is out. And it's not a surprise at all as band's name was leaked already weeks ago but today it is confirmed: Intelligent Music project will represent Bulgaria but there's a surprise. Ronnie Romero, lead vocalist of Rainbow will join the combo for Eurovision! The other members are X Factor Bulgaria winner Slavin Slavchev, Stoyan Yankoulov, already an Eurovision veteran having done it twice already with Elitsa: Helsinki 2007 and Malmö 2013. Add Bisser Ivanov, Ivo Stefanov and Dimiter Sirakov. Their entry is titled Intention . It will be revealed next month. Inspired by Måneskin it starts to look indeed rock'n roll is finally making it big in Eurovision. Then again, hardly never a same genre wins two years in a row.....  Enjoy below their previous track Every time: Update 5.12.2021 - Intention is out:

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 winner s. Italian 1990 Eurovision participation is a good example how Rai really didn't care so much. Sanremo winner I Pooh with Uomini soli didn't care to take part but they didn't really have a plan B or plan whatsoever when the deadline to submit the song was approaching. The legend tells the one in charge was walking down the corridors of Rai thinking how to resolve the problem rather soon than late as Ebu had reminded him once again and Toto Cutugno walks by as he was working in Raiuno as presenter (besides being Sanremo's runner up once again!)  and he just asks: Toto, would you like to do Eurovision? We need a song by next week or so. He said Ok, sure, why not. The Italian preview video of Insieme: 1992 was then a demo...

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 winner s. Italy did a triuphant and somewhat unexpected return to Eurovision in 2011 after 14 years pause. Rai timidly chose Sanremo Newcomers winner Raphael Gualazzi with his Follia d'amore that became mixed language version Madness of love for Eurovision. The points were rolling in and Italy took a surprise second place out of 43, heavily packed by the juries.  Raphael Gualazzi (40)  already releasd his debut album in 2005 and slowly made a name in the jazz and blues circuit mostly abroad before trying the Sanremo card. After winning Newcomers 2011 he returned in 2013 and 2014 placing fifth and second, and again in 2020 (11th). Five studio albums so far with many singles and most of live appearances in various jazz festivals his...

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 winner s. Alessandro Mahmoud aka Mahmood caused quite an outcry in Italy after winning Sanremo, mostly a very racistic one. Nut Europe loved his clap clap Soldi and he missed the Eurovision victory only by 26 points, that's just a bit over 5% Duncan Laurence's winning points. This said he placed 2nd out of 41. This Egyptian-Sardinian Milan based tried his luck first at X Factor 2012 and made it all the way to the judge's houses but didn't make it until he made a comeback as a wildcard and lasted three episodes. In 2013 he released first song Falling rain and in 2016 he was in Sanremo's Newcomers with Dimentica , placing 4th with Francesco Gabbani and Ermal Meta ahead of him. He soon became a hitmaker for other artists like ...

And let the speculation continue! Still many many weeks to go before Yle announces the Umk 2022 acts but fandom and media still tries to figure out the names from random clues like who does Umk instagram follow recently and so on. Meanwhile the good news is the event in Turku is almost sold out! For previous speculation volumes check them out here and here . Let's see if any of the names has been guessed :-) Konsta Hietanen Former child star, actor, footballer, father of five and singer-songwriter Konsta made a comeback in the spotlight by winning Tähdet, tähdet entertainment show and at the same time landed a role in the most popular sopa opera. He's been trying to start also his singing career so what would be better place than Umk? Listen Hullu Kaija Koo Best selling, multi award winning Kaija Koo has re-invented herself at least three times over the decades. The only thing she hasn't done in her career is Eurovision as solo artist so what about that? She's done bac...

The long selections via Sanremo Giovani and Area Sanremo have ended after auditions and out of over 1000 submissions these 12 will feature in the live broadcast on Raiuno in December. The top-2 will be added to the Sanremo Big category line up and have a chance to win the whole festival and represent Italy at the Eurovision. Just like Mahmood in 2018-19. Samia comes from Yemen and the last four in the list are the ones from Area Sanremo. Here they are: Bais - Che fine mi fai Martina Beltrami - Parlo di te Esseho - Arianna Oli? - Smalto e tinta Matteo Romano - Testa e croce Samia - Fammi respirare Tanatai - Esagerata Yuman - Mille notti Destro - Agosto in piena estate Littamè - Cazzo avete da guardare Senza_Cri - A me Vittoria - California

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 winner s. Gigliola Cinquetti , then only 16, remains the only Castrocaro new talent festival's winner to win Sanremo the same year, and Non ho l'età the only Sanremo winning song to win also Eurovision until Måneskin in 2021. Non ho l'età was performed in Sanremo also by Italian.Belgian Patricia Carli and Cinquetti's win didn't please none other than Domenico Modugno who left furious and didn't save his words.... Two years later whoever he would win the festival with the very same La Cinquetti.  Non ho l'età was and still is one of the  most clear winners of Eurovision having won with 49 points vs runner up's 17. Read more about Gigliola Cinquetti (73) and her second time at Eurovision here

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 winner s. Il Volo won Sanremo and even Eurovision televote against all odds when people said they are too corny and too old fashioned but it seems Grande amore was just what people in Italy and Europe wanted to hear after all. The professional juries in both cases put them down but they ruled the televote and eventually finished 3rd out of 40. Piero Barone (28), Ignazio Boschetto (27) and Gianluca Ginoble (27) met when doing a kid's talent show Ti lascio una canzone in 2009 and soon they were put to sing together and when a producer/manager saw the result Il Tryo, later Il Trio, then Il Volo was born. Thanks to Tony Renis they were soon in the US the latest singing sensation and soon they made it in Europe and Latin America as well. Too b...

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 winner s. Yet another duet! Fabrizio Moro and Ermal Meta joined forces and indeed did win Sanremo together with Non mi avete fatto niente . For once Italy was not among the top favorites but they reached a respectable 5th place out of 43.  Fabrizio Moro (46) started his career in mid 1990's and came to Sanremo's newcomers in 2007 that he won with two albums and one participation in Newcomers. The year after he's third among Big and has ever since collected awards here and there. he also writes for other artists, and 2012 he's behind the 3rd placed song sung by Noemi. Nine studio albums, almost 30 singles and a career that is still going very strong. Ermal Meta (40) was born in Albania, tried Sanremo newcomers twice with diffe...

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 winner s. Gigliola Cinquetti (73) , the 1964 winner returned to Eurovision this time as a Canzonissima winner but Italians didn't get to see that until a month later as at the time there was a referendum on divorce and Rai was afraid the song title Si (Yes) could be seen as political. She placed second right after a certain Abba and almost became the first double winner and went on to record the song in English (UK #8), French , Spanish and German . Gigliola was only 16 when she first won Castrocaro, then Sanremo, then Eurovision back in 1964. She scored hits in a steady flow in the 1960's and in the 1970's she was already an international star singing in multiple languages including Japanese. As an artistic soul she also set to de...

Yle gave hints earlier this week about the UMK 2022 entrants and fandom has been trying ever since to figure out who they are. The first speculation part is here . I guess all these names are more of a wishful thinking rather than reality as I suspect there will be more rock than announced. After all this is Finland. The new names thrown in are nelow. Who knows, maybe one or two of them really is in? Time will tell. On January 12, 2022 that is when the names will be revealed and from January 13 the songs will be released one by one. All seven of them. Yasmine Yamajako Yasmine is a singer-actress of multicultural roots; Benin and France from her father's side, Finnish from mother's. Her aunt is Eurovision 2002 veteran Laura (Voutilainen). Yasmine has been doing musicals. She has been featured in Cheek's megahit Syypää sun hymyyn among others. Listen Kato mitä sä teit  Sini Yasemin Sini is half Turkish, half Finnish and openly lesbian. Two albums so far and 15 singles so far...

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 winner s. Umberto Tozzi (69) won Sanremo 1987 with Gianni Morandi and Enrico Ruggeri with Si puó dare di piú , co-written by Raf or Raffaele Riefoli. Morandi had already done Eurovision and Ruggeri would do it later so Tozzi took along Raf (in the beginning of his career spelled Raff) with another song they wrote together, Gente di mare . It also marked Raf's debut singing in Italian. They placed 3rd out of 22. Umberto Tozzi is one of the most selling Italian artists abroad in the 1970's/1980's with songs like Gloria , Ti amo , Tu , Stella stai . Laura Branigan made both Ti amo and Gloria global hist in English. Over 80 million records sold he's still active today. Four Sanremos with that one victory, 17 studio albums and 60 s...

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 winner s. Rarely there's been such a clear pre-contest favorite than in 2017. Ever since Francesco Gabbani won Sanremo with Occidentali's karma it was The One. The video broke records in Youtube and the hype was real. So much that I remember him saying he had one day off between Sanremo and Eurovision; the rest was promotion and  gigs in Italy and sadly it was evident at the Eurovision stage; in Sanremo he was the quirky flirty himself, at Eurovision he looked tired and somewhat bored to perform the song for the 1000th time...... The uninspired staging didn't help. And Occidentali's karma dropped to sixth out of 42. A shocker. Francesco Gabbani (39) shot to the fame in Sanremo 2016 Newcomers that he won. The year after he won t...

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 winner s. Wess & Dori Ghezzi were one of the many Italian duos at the Eurovision and took their Era to a well deserved 3rd place out of 19. They got the ticket to Stockholm as Canzonissima 1974 winners with Un corpo un'anima . Sanremo was living its darkest years and was won by Gilda and Ragazza del sud . Totally forgotten, both of them. Wess aka Wesley Johnson (1945-2009) was an American singer and bassist who moved to Italy in late 1960's in pursuit of a career in music and bringing r'n'b in Italy and Europe and gained some notoriety with his band and covers.  After he was put together with Dori Ghezzi in early 1970's they had a string of pop hits but separated in 1979. They did three Sanremos together, placing 2nd in...

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 winner s. Maybe the most controversial Italian participation at the Eurovision ever. Italy returned after skipping three editions and vanished after this until 2011. The one surrounded by all sort of conspiracy theories of Rai making sure they won't win,  and dirty job by the Italian media. All in vain, Jalisse finished 4th out of 25 with their Sanremo winner Fiumi di parole . Unknown Jalisse's win at Sanremo was some sort of a shock and soon they became a symbol of everything bad and ridiculous in the festival and sadly this image still remains. Jalisse has tried to get back to Sanremo ever since and has accused and blamed Rai in turn but the fandom loves them and this song and indeed the song is great! Italian media tried to accuse th...

Out of the blue Circus Mircus send a note today they have been chosen by the Georgian television for Eurovision 2022. And all of things turned very interesting and intriguing..... What to expect? They are apparently three circus academy dropouts because they were not good enough. Their sound is sonically unique, as they say...... Their entry will be released later.... Listen and watch below some of their videos to get an idea what to expect:

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 winner s. Mia Martini (1947-1995) did her second Euroviison and it went much better than the first  time  in 1977 . In Malmö the home audience was very intrigued not for her artistry but simply because she was the sister of Loredana Berté, tennis legend Björn Borg's ex-wife! But she handled the situation graciously with elegance and won over most everyone and landed a 4th place out of 23 with Rapsodia , a song Rai picked for Eurovision. She came 2nd in Sanremo with already evergreen Gli uomini non cambiano won by Luca Barbarossa and Portami a  ballare .  Poor Mimi's career was made of highest heights and deepest lows until it came to a sad end in spring 1995. Her legacy lives on and she has left us with several evergreens an...

Yle has teased on on Umk's social medias about the imminent reveal of the Umk 2022 artists sending fandom in frenzy of guessing adding hint and hopes, and a very, very few facts. After Blind Channel's sixth place, Finland's second best ever and Måneskin's global success with rock one can guess there's going to be rock. After all Finland IS rock. However the photo hints didn't reveal much so the glues are thin and non existing but here are the wild guesses put together. Cyan kicks and Husky rescue Cyan Kicks, an alternative rock band from Helsinki has been together since 2016. Their debut album came out in 2019 and they earned an Emma award nomination right away. They mix rock to pop and electronic sounds. Listen The flood Husky Rescue has been around for almost 20 years already, gaining also international success but the last ten without releasing any new music. Could this electronic band be making a comeback? Listen New light of tomorrow Antti Tuisku, Elias Kas...

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 winner s. Marco Mengoni (32) won Sanremo and went on to the Eurovision with his winning entry L'essenziale and finished sadly only 7th out of 39, but all considered that was just the beginning of something huge coming up. That year Sanremo tried the two song for each artist method and the faith had it L'essenziale was the first song to be performed, and also the last. The other one was Bellissimo , eliminated in favor of this one. He had been up and coming since winning X Factor and even already placing 3rd in Sanremo but that festival showed a new Mengoni and when he performed Luigi Tenco's Ciao amore ciao on the cover night it sealed his faith.  Since then he has become a real superstar with a very loyal fanbase, an endless str...