Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

  As I have arrived today to Venezia, hoping not to find acqua alta, it's a perfect opportunity to post this beautiful song from Sanremo 1984: Acqua alta in piazza San Marco by late Giampiero Artegiani. (NQ among Newcomers) He was back in 1986 with ... e le rondini sfioravano il grano , another beautiful song (3rd in Newcomers). He never made it big as a singer but had success as an author for others, including Sanremo 1988 winner Perdere l'amore, and Italy's home entry in 1991 Eurovision, Comme è ddoce 'o mare.  He also wrote and produced Zarrillo and Silvia Salemi among others.

Lena Philipsson is set to start her new show in Cirkus, Stockholm to celebrate her 30th anniversary as an artist, and why not also her 50th birthday she just celebrated last month. The new show is based on her latest album Jag är ingen älskling released late last year. Of course she will be also performing her older hits and there will be quite a lot of talk, too, but then knowing her twit sense of self irony and comedian skills that's only a good thing. She also explains it's going to be very intimate affair, as the audience will be very close to her and stage, and not a huge show as she's done all that before. It's a lot of her by the piano and the band playing in the background. But the rehearsals have proven it doesn't stop the audience getting on their feet and dancing along to the music and in such moments the stage pretty much disappears and she's just singing among them.  She's got Emma Bucht, a theater director onboard making the show so besid...

Arja Saijonmaa has released a new album in Sweden Dig har jag kär aka My Swedish songbook . It's her first studio album in Swedish since 1999. Her latest studio album is Rakkaus on rohkeutta from 2006 in Finnish. Altogether this is her 25th studio album. Enough of numbers. Arja is coming to Finland this November for a couple of concerts to celebrate her 70th birthday and career that has been going on for over 40 years in Finland, Sweden, Norway and elsewhere including touring the world with Mikis Theodorakis. She has sung everything from Finnish tangos to Swedish schlagerpop, etno music, French chansons and political songs. Besides a singer she is also an actress in theater, movies and television, she's well known human rights activist, she has even written a book about Finnish sauna. And an autobiography that has been published in Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian and Greek. And she's a real diva, too. What else can you ask? She's no stranger to Eurovision either. I...

Lena Philipsson's new album Världen snurrar is out and it's very very good. I've got a signed copy and love it to bits. The new single is Du följer väl med?, half written by Finns btw. There's also a Soundfactory club remix of it already and hopefully she'll do a video, too. And don't forget the fabumous Live tomorrow that has been also remixed .

Blogilkar guest writer Daniel Motiño Camúñez reports: Mecano is propably the most popular Spanish band till now. In 1981 Ana Torroja and the brothers José and Nacho Cano formed the group in Madrid. They were really innovative and advanced by the time in Spain . Now they get a musical makeover by some Spanish eurostars. The country was starting to walk on democracy and they introduced synth-pop sounds to a boring grey musical scene which was dominated by stupid sangria, fiesta and playa hits by then. Hoy no me puedo levantar (I can't get up today) was their debut single, followed by the album called "Mecano". They released their last album in 1991 but only one year later decided to have a break of at least 3 years; things turned up and they ended up with a polemic split in 1998 after releasing a greatest hits album with seven unpublished songs which sold over 1 milion copies only in Spain. Overall Mecano released six studio albums in Spain and Latinamerica...

It's been 25 years since Sandra Kim scored the so far only victory for Belgium in Eurovision with J'aime la vie . She was claimed to be 16 but in reality was only 13 at the time. But time flies and it's been 25 years and for the occasion she has released a new video for it. Or an old one really. A funny idea that in this case works very well, especially if sponsored by an life insurance company! Here .

Mecano has released a fantastic 2CDs + 2DVDs + book about their career - and released also a "new" track Maria Luz and a couple of new remixes . Absolutely worth every 29,90 euros I paid in Las Palmas for it! The book features a discography with the Italian and French releases, biography of the band and individual ones of Ana, Jose and Nacho. The DVD features various concerts and all their videoclips. Check it out here . Oh, and there's also Mecano SingStar available now!

Ramazzotti returned to Sanremo for the third year in a row and won with Adesso tu . He was already a superstar. He also scored first of his many duet hits, La luce buona delle stelle with Patsy Kensit who also at the time was hotter than hot in Italy (and a bit elsewhere in Europe, too) Il tempo tra di noi is from 2007.

Pentti Hietanen has just released a new album Rakastan elämää (I love life). Naturally it doesn't include his Eurovision song that will be sung in Italian but new material mixed with Finnish covers of some classics like MacArthur Park and The brigde over troubled water . As a nice prelude to his Euroviisut 2010 experience there is a cover of Päivä kahden ihmisen (Never the end), the Finnish entry 1986... in Oslo! An omen? Meanwhile here is his Finnish cover of an Italian classic Caruso . And here is Ti aspetteró that he apparently sent into Euroviisut 2002 but was rejected

I have heard many many years ago from a very close source that Jeanne Mas proposed Femme d'aujourd'hui for Eurovision 1986 but was rejected. One can only wonder who were in charge if they then came up with this! She was the hottest thing on earth in France back then, just about to release her second album after selling 900.000 copies of her single Toute prémiere fois , hitting number one with Johnny Johnny (the first female arrtist ever in France) and selling over 500.000. Her debut album sold almost one million and the third single Couer en stéréo was hot in charts. And they said no merci? ? The album went to number one and stayed there for two months selling over one million as well and singles En rouge et noir , L'enfant and Sauvez-moi followed the success in charts but Femme d'aujourd'hui was never released as a single....Anyways, I think we would have had a all French top-4 in Bergen but who would have come out as the winner? Sandra Kim , Daniela Simons...

Bergen in Norway hosted the 31st Eurovision on May 3, 1986. Norway had been waiting for that since 1960 and as we know, Norway was known for its failures, not successes. The Netherlands and Yogoslavia returned but Greece and Italy stayed home. Iceland debuted, and it would be the last debutant until 1993. Host country brought on stage the first (but not last) transvestite. Lasse Holm was there, as well as Doris Dragovic, Dora and Elpida who came last. But it was a Sandra Kim show from the beginning. She was claimed to be 15 but looked even older, but later we would find out she was just 13. She sung her heart out and 12s and 10s kept rolling in and Belgium scored its first win. http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvZz7ebH7g0