Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

   

 

San Marino's 1in360 selection for the Eurovision song contest 2018 representative has delivered the first of ten finalist, the first wildcard voted in two rounds by various OGAE groups all over Europe, and the fans proved as unimaginative and predictable as I feared when the top-10 is full of familiar names from various national finals etc. Finnish Emma , known from UMK 2017 where she placed third after a disastrous live performance despite being the hot favorite to win, beat in the end Maltese multiple national finalist Franklin Calleja . Israeli national finalist Judah Gavra placed third ahead of Danish national finalist and X Factor UK participant Sada Vidoo . 1. Emma Sandström (47) Finland 2. Franklin  Calleja (46) Malta 3. Judah Gavra (32) Israel 4. S ada Vidoo (32) Denmark 5. Tiago Braga (31) Portugal 6. Yana Glushak (30) Russia 7. Domenico Garincella (28) Italy 8. Justinas Stanislovaitis (26) Lithuania 9. Rick Jurthe (25) Germany 10. Cole...

Hungarian  Joci Papai  follows Origo with  Özönviz . If you loved Origo you will love this one, too. It's made with the same recipe: modern beat, gypsy violin, female dancer, catchy frase repeated so often that you go yodeling long before the song's over..... Love it Slovenian runner ups and elevote winners  BQL  have got around releasing a video for their  Heart of gold  only now. One can only wonder how they would have done in Kyiv.... Finland's runner up  Zühlke  with  Perfect villain  released  Closer  already in April but it's a great track and deserves another change.  Estonia's finest  Ott Lepland  has released  Siin me kokku saime  and here we get it all togerher: his great voice, nice summery rhythm and catchy feel good song. Perfect for lazy summer late afternoons or early evenings.....

Blackbird remix was born during a sleepless night in Kyiv. Spotify

UMK17 revelation Lauri Yrjölä has released a follow up to his Helppo elämä . He moves from easy life to "next to you" wandering around wild rosemary filled Finnish forest. Yes, it's a sweet love song and it rocks. Great stuff. 

Finland review

Pictured is lily of the valley, national flower of Finland Finland used once again Uuden musiikin kilpailu aka UMK. This 6th time however was the most revamped of them all so far (there have been minor changes every year): no more semifinals but just one grand final. As usual the songs and their videos were published way ahead of the final and in theory people were familiar with the songs before the big night. In the end Norma John took a very convincing win with both the international juries and the televoters ahead of some fan wanks with their Blackbird , written by themselves. Norma John is vocalist Leena Tirronen and pianist Lasse Piirainen. Norma John has existed in some form already almost ten years, but Leena and Lasse go back even longer, as they have been friends and musical soulmates since teenage years. Leena (32) first came to spotlight when she placed 3rd in the X Factor 2010 and released an album after that. (Nobody has a glue who the two infront of her were btw...

The Finnish duo Norma John also continued their promotour and performed in Amsterdam's Eurovision in Concert. Melkweg Amsterdam Say cheese..... ... and eat cheese?!

Oh, I almost forgot the milk-o-meter ! But guess what? The cows agreed with the fans - does this mean the euroboys are really cows?! - and predicitions and got their udders flowing and produced a record breaking 34,3 liters of milk when Emma's Circle of light was playing! Skål for that!

Dropping the semifinals and concentrating only to produce a big final with added active social medias buss seems to have worked well for YLE and #UMK17. The show was the 2nd most watched of the week with 1.397.000 viewers, beated only by Putous, a commercial tv's entertainement and comedy character show that is enjoying immense success, it scored last week 1.721.000, which is though less than its previous and season's opening show. 

The biggest fan favorite and the winner of the pre-voting - based on audio and video - and also the Finnish Eurovision fan club's fan award, Emma didn't deliver Saturday night in her live show that turned out a mess. The backing vocals were all over the place while Emma was nowhere at times missing a line or two and sounding very confused. To add to the mess her fire torch didn't burn and she was just showing smoke all over the place. Not good.  She told already in the UMK after show that the audience clapping to the wrong beat in the chorus got her confused. Then the speculation of not working ear monitor started on social medias..... And later she tweeted this: Congratulations to the beautiful Duo Norma John Flawless performance and amazing vocals! I'm so proud of Finland! 💖 And thank you all for your love and support! 💖 Last night I had unfortunately a lot of technical issues with my performance but despite that I ended my song the best way I could! ...

Did you lose track? Can there ever be too much feather, glitter and wigs? No. In my books she topped Club La Persé.  Which one was your favorite? She also knows how to pick up the accessories..... Next stop: Melodifestivalen. Are you ready?

Now, writing this annual post isn't easy this year. It seems there isn't any reaction really. Just short articles "Norma John won" and that's it. Some try to make it look like a surprise win even if they have been one of the top favorites from the day one. On top of that Finland's biggest newspaper published an article about UMK in general, a very critical and negative one. One can only wonder what its purpose is....  It was great to hear last night on tv in the after show all the other artists seemed sincerely happy for their win and no hard feelings from anyone. Emma, when asked, said she's not disappointed in 3rd place but she's sad and disappointed her performance didn't work out: She says she lost the rhythm when people started clapping their hands, then to make it even worse she missed a line and on top of that her fire torch died. Lauri and Anni were very happy, especially for their 12 points from Sweden and Israel respectively, and ...

Norma John has won the Finnish selection for the Eurovision song contest 2017 with Blackbird. 1. Norma John - Blackbird (juries 94+ televotes 88) 182 2. Zuhlke - Perfect villain (74+71) 145 3. Emma - Circle of light (53+53) 106 4. My First Band - Paradise (45+52) 97 5. Gunther & D'Sanz - Love yourself (37+45) 82 6. Alva - Arrows (15+48) 63 7. Anni Saikku - Reach out for the sun (43+16) 59 8. Lauri Yrjölä - Helppo elämä (43+15) 58 9. Club La Persé - My little world (21+29) 50 10. Knucklebone Oscar & The Shangri-La Rubies - Caveman (5+13) 18 It's quite remarkable how the international juries and Finns agreed. The top-4 was a total agreement, as was the last place. International juries favored Lauri and Anni, Finns Alva. Gunther the foreigner didn't convince Finns, as the history once again proved. And it's good to see the novelty acts finished last. A good year, and a great show from most..... Emma messed up h...

Thank you for everyone who voted. This is the final results: EMMA (37%) NORMA JOHN (20%) ANNI SAIKKU (18%) MY FIRST BAND (10%) LAURI YRJÖLÄ (9%) ZUHLKE (8%) CLUB LA PERSE (4%) ALVA (4%) GUNTHER & D'SANZ (3%) KNUCKLEBONE (2%)

Have you voted in my #umk17 poll yet? --------->

Finland has its national final #UMK17 tonight in Metro Arena, Espoo. Ten songs participating with guest performances by Norwegian teenage twin sensation Marcus & Martinus , and local megastar Jenni Vartiainen doing a comeback after a little break. Eurovision veteran and Melodifestivalen participant (again) Krista Siegfrids is hosting the show with the help of Mikko Silvennoinen . For the first time Finland is using the international juries as well, and there are ten of them giving the 50% of the final result: Spain, Iceland, United Kingdom, Israel, Latvia, Norway, France, Sweden, Ukraine and Estonia. Each jury has four members, each using the votes 1,2,4,6,8,10,12 thus leaving three entries with a flat zero. Then the votes are transformed into country's votes the same way (so they divide 43 points. That means the 10 juries will hand out 430 points.  The same amount will be given using the percentage of the televotes . The final televotes include the pre-votes given on...