Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

Loreen of Sweden is the 15th previous Eurovision song contest winner who has decided and/or managed give it another try. Only Ireland's Johnny Logan has managed to win twice, as we all know. One can't really do a ranking however as the contest had changed so much from the 1950's with maybe a dozen songs to the approx 40 we have these days. In coming days I will feature the winners who decided to come back  after  winning the contest as there also many winners who have won with their second or third try. Dana International (Sharon, previously Yaron, Cohen, 54). Now we can easily say for her coming back wasn't maybe a good idea. If her first time and win in 1998 was a triumphant ground breaking success despite a very small winning marginal: 172 for her, 166 for Imaani and 165 for Chiara.  But this big fan of late Ofra Haza tried already in 1995 to get to Eurovision placing second in the national final with Layla tov Eropa, and had been already scoring hits by then and esp...

I haven't been following so closely the host lottery and gossiping but I supposed Edsilia came from nowhere? And as I am convicted Edsilia fan ever since 1998 and totally in love since Helsinki 2007 I couldn't be happier! She so much fun, pretty, great singer and apparently also a good at hosting considering the jobs she's done so far including Eurovision in concert. I will forever remember her after failing to reach the final in Helsinki 2007 comforting the sad and teary eyed fans post-show in the press center telling it's ok, don't be sad, she's fine..... What a lady! Next to her there will be also Chantal Janzen, actress and musical star and hostess of Hollan's Got Talent and The Voice of Holland. The male star of the trio is Jan Smit, ex-child star and singer, plus the Dutch commentator in Eurovision for the past nine years and otherwise heavily involved in all things Dutch Eurovision. 

Μιχάλης Χατζηγιάννης has been around since being somewhat timid 19-year-old guy having a permission during his military service back in 1998 to do Eurovision with self written boombastic  Genesis  for Cyprus. He has become one of the top artists in the Greek language market in the 2000's delivering hit albums ever since and scoring hits. He's also one of the rare artists from the region I have followed more or less regularly ever since and usually always liked what I hear.  Το καλοκαίρι μου has been my summer anthem ever since it was released. His one and only English album also has left an ever lasting mark with More than beautiful and Everyone dance . He has a back catalogue too long to mention filled with ballads and more uptempo songs with ethnic Greek sounds  and even a hint of Slavic melancholy filled with emotion and passion that come across the language barrier making his musical style a perfect mix for Eurovision song contest. Should either Greece or ...

Should Sanremo festival 2019 act also as the Italian national selection for Eurovision song contest next year ( and we have no reason to believe it wouldn't) there's a major change in rules coming up. Claudio Baglioni, man in charge for the second year in a row hoping to repeat his succesful 2018 edition aims to separate the newcomers and the Big artists totally. That means that the Newcomers, or Nuove proposte aka Giovani will be held already in December instead of along the festival in February. The winner gets a freebie for the Big category. Update: The dates for Sanremo Giovani are December 16-21, with four pre-shows before the two nights primetime shows on 20 and 21. The top-2 will join the cast of the Big in February festival (dates might yet change, btw). All this is also due to all these reality and talent shows; placing the winners and artists to Sanremo has become a very tricky task the past few years - who's big enough for a Big? There are some rules based ...

Every now and then Eurovision song contest winners come back to the contest and looking back quite often it hasn't been such a good idea. A total of 14 previous winners have managed to return (and even more have tried but failed to win the national final. Latest of them is Swedish Loreen last year). In this series I have a brief look at them and how did it go..... Back in 1998 in Birmingham Israeli Dana International was the hot topic of the contest being the first ever transsexual and having angered the priests in her home country. She had tried to enter already in 1995 with Layla tov Eropa but then placed second in the national final, but in 1998 she was internally chosen. It was a close run and she won only with six points (172 vs UK's 166 and Malta's 165) but she became the winner of the first televoting era contest. If you look at the scoreboard those countries still using jury didn't quite support her. In 2008 she was back in contest, but as an author ...

Estonian superstars, the hardest working and performing male artist Koit Toome and the most played singer on radios, Laura, fresh from Eurovision song contest 2017 in Kyiv are coming to Helsinki's Aleksanterinteatteri on October 23. Will they get lost?

I had a pleasure to visit Qormi wine festival and spend a fabulous night. The food was great, the music was great, the wine was great.... and the people were amazing. In between enjoying the music by a duo Gianni & Papps first, and then by Spiteri Lucas Band with singers Kaya, Neville Refalo, Ivan and Eurovision veterans Ludwig Galea and Chiara taking leads (on again.... off again so to speak) and supporting each other through rock and pop classics to today's hits.  Highly entertaining evening in every sense of the word. I was lucky enough to have a chat with Chiara and greet also Ludwig, who I saw last in Istanbul 2004. Chiara turned out to be the most lovable and wonderful person - check out the video of Grande amore below to see her blowing kisses just for you!    She also sung her very own Angel , but also Euphoria and Waterloo , Dancing queen .... Sadly by dear old Lumia decided not to cooperate at that point anymore :-( But after the jump yo...

Emma Marrone won Sanremo 2012 with Non è inferno and now the Cypriot megastar and Eurovision 1998 entrant Michalis Hatzigiannis has made his cover of it as Poios eimai ego (and strangely wrong written Non el'inferno following it. One could ask why, but why bother? He sounds great as always! Emma sounds all rough and raw while Michalis has a softer approach giving the song a slightly different mood - maybe it's all in the lyrics? Not speaking Greek I have no clue. I like both of them. They are different yet the same. 1-1 for me. But that's not all. It seems La Marrone's songs seem to be hot stuff in Greece as also her Amami has been covered in Greek by Nadio Mpoule as Klepse me . And once again Emma's version is much harder, with raw and harsh vocals while the Greek one seems kinda watered down, doesn't it? This goes for Emma!

The ultimate tango king Jari Sillanpää is set to conquer the pop market when he releases his new album Rakkaudella merkitty mies - his first studio one in three years - on September 26, 2014. The first single Malagaan is already out. The album features some young and popular song writers being more pop oriented than any of his previous albums after the recent success with playing with various music styles from opera to reggae, heavy and pop. About this new single he says he first thought it was just too corny and he coudn't possibly record it. After listening to it a couple of days he thought it was amusing and he just had to do it. Indeed it's kinda silly.... yet, it somehow works. Jari Sillanpää has managed to stay on top since his victory in Tangomarkkinat 1995 and his defeat in Eurovision 2004 or coming out in 2006 hasn't changed his status one bit. He has always been adored by elderly women in particular and now he may be crossing over to younger generations - ha...

Michalis Hatzigiannis has teamed up with Midenistis for another very good song,  ΣΕ ΕΝΑ ΤΟΙΧΟ  (translates to On a wall). Once again a very good melodic song, despite the rap, and Michalis provides very nice vocals to it. Written by Dimitris Kontopoulos and lyrics by Nikos Moraitis. I'm yet to hear a bad song from Michalis... Can't Greek or Cypriot TV just convince him to return to Eurovision, please?

Marita Taavitsainen, Syksyn Sävel 1998 winner and Euroviisut veteran return singing about little things, Pieniä asioita , that a mother of little children can enjoy and surely will reach out to her audience. She tells: "Winning Syksyn Sävel is the high point of my career that gave me the opportunity to be a full time singer. When I was asked to take pat I accepted immediately. I bring a song that I can sing to my employers, the people in the dance halls. It would be useless to bring a radio pop song as it would be impossible to sing in my gigs, people want to dance and they have to able to dance to my songs. If some radio will pick it up anyways, that's great! I still do over 100 gigs a year so I need material I can sing there" And her song is just that. That genre isn't exactly my cup of tea but somehow I like this song. It's catchy and it sticks to your head and before you know you are humming along and beating your foot.... And I think this song will fit i...

Museumplein in Amsterdam played host to the big Eurovision concert with Holland Symfonia (support and read more about the orchestra and it's fight for survival here ). Blogilkar's Robert was on the spot, of course! Three actors played Eurovision singers belting out classics like Tu te reconnaitras, Ik hou van jou, All kinds of everything, Save your kisses for me, Hold me now and Waterloo. Some were done very well, especially Annet Malherbe turned out to be fabulous in her solo numbers. Loes Lucas did a decent job but unfortunately Jeroen Willems turned out to be the weakest link by far nearly raping Non ho l'età, Gente di mare and his version Everyway that I can was rather special, too. Besides the obvious choice of performing winning song some great runner ups were also in the line like 1,2,3 and Eres tu. Special guest stars Lenny Kuhr and Edsilia Rombley really shined and showed why they are the stars. Lenny was in top form oozing sympathy and Edsilia was the usual s...

Michalis Hatzigiannis is back again. In English. We own the world tonight is filled with summer and groovy feelings. I'm sure we all would feel like owning the world if Michalis was singing a serenade to us in a hot summer night.... and we can only dream about Malmö for him... 

It's summer in Montenegro and it sounds like Michalis Hatzigiannis To kalokairi mou . But it doesn't matter. I love this song and this reworked version works well, too. Moje leto is maybe more oriented for the late night than the original lazy afternoon one.... For me this is a tune filled with summer and good vibes! And there's the annual rumor Michalis has been offered to return to Eurovision next year. This time for Greece.... And he's also to try again with an English material this fall, so.... 

Mihalis Hadzigiannis has released a new video,  Πλάι Πλάι , that seems custom made for this blog in its light blue imaginary. Very beautifully shot video indeed and the song's good, too. Once again great stuff from him!

It has been confirmed that När jag blundar will stay in Swedish also in Baku 2012. The song was written by Pernilla's brother Jonas Karlsson for their mother's 50th anniversary party last summer. So, this will be Finland's second ever entry in Swedish in Eurovision - and the first Eurovision entry in Swedish since 1998 . When beat won in 1990 with Fri? it felt like YLE had decided a song in Swedish had to win. In previous year's there were so many good songs in Swedish but come 1990, there was only Beat while in Finnish we had some great songs, like this one , that the jury pulled down in favour of a song in Swedish. That's an impression. The trip to Zagreb didn't end so well, last place with 8 points from Norway and Israel, Sweden didn't give it points. This time Sweden can't give it points in the semifinal either... Italy won last time Finland had a song in Swedish, will 2012 repeat the history? :-)

One of the finest existing voices around, Edsilia Rombley released her first album since her less fortunate Eurovision trip to Helsinki 2007 last year titled Uit mijn hart . The first single was Geef je over followed by Uit het oog niet uit mijn hart , a duet with another fine voiced Eurovision lady, Ruth Jacott. And now it's time for the third single Ik laat je niet alleen .  Other songs from the album include Samen alleen  and Dat je altijd bij me bent . This girl could sing a telephone book in Dutch and it always sounds lovely.

Malina Oliescu (37), the second ever Romanian Eurovision entrant back in 1998 with Eu cred (I believe) apparently didn't believe anymore life was worth living when she jumped from the 6th floor of a building and died instantly. Her friends tell she has said several times she would commit suicide before but this time it was for real. Maybe due some boyfriend problems, the gossip tells... Sad, sad, sad... This blogger believes no other person is worth a suicide.

No doubt Mixalis Hatzigiannis is a superstar in Greece and his native Cyprus. His career took off from Eurovision 1998 with Genesi when he was just 19 ( in 1995 he wasn't that lucky yet) but these days he doesn't seem that keen on Eurovision. Oikotimes writes he has said "no thanks" three times to Greece and twice to Cyprus. At least. In 2007 he may have originally said "yes" to come to Helsinki 2007 as a composer but demanded George Michael to sing the song!? Now that would have been something! Then again 2010 ERT was after him but money came in between those plans. The year after, in 2011 he apparently just said "No". But in 2010 and 2011 also CyBC was after him but once again it all fell flat because of money. Or so the story goes.... I would love to see him back in Eurovision if he ever has a change of heart as he has matured a fantastic songwriter and performer. And he has once again a new single/video out, Tharros h alitheia .

Eurovision related artists keep releasing new songs and this time we have Nikki Ponte's Remembering summer nights , her follow up to her Greek Eurovision wannabe I don't wanna dance . Scooter already teamed up with Matia Bazar's Antonella Ruggiero in Ti sento and now Vicky Leandros gets the treatment with L'amour est bleu aka C'est bleu . Another Eurovision winner Dana International visits Subliminal in their Alay . Aurela Gce teamed with MC Kresha earlier this year in Ca$h with its rather futuristic video. Not bad, all four of them!