Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

  They keep on coming before the deadline and here's another one for today: San Marino's Who we are performed by Maltese Jessika Muscat and German Jenifer Brening is now out, remixed and all. Enjoy!

  San Marino and 1in360 will have the final tonight as well. Coming live from Bratislava, Slovakia of all places, with singers from Norway, Finland, Malta, Italy, Germany, Israel, Austria and Zimbabwe,with one rapper from San Marino, judges from Austria, UK, Slovakia and for the final US based John Kennedy O'Connor, presented by British Nick Earles and Krisitin Stein. In the end one might wonder not what love's got to do with it but what's San Marino got to do with it all?  The voting rules have changed on daily basis the past week so I have no idea how it works and why, so I have given up on trying to follow that path. Someone will win in the end somehow.  Sara De Bue seems to be a fan favorite and also liked by the judges - and would nicely follow the Eurovision tradition of over produced nonsense with screamy ladies that are fan faves and fail big time in the contest - but the song Stay must be loved by the judges as they picked it three times; and now Basti ...

  San Marino has published the final versions of the songs competing to represent the tiny nation in the Eurovision song contest 2018 in Lisbon. Recorded in studio and produced instead of the live acoustic ones we have heard so far. Meanwhile the voting procedure seems to change every other day so I'm not even going to keep up anymore. The rules might be changed before I have time to post this anyways, so let's see what's the deal next week. If it even matters in the end. And Irol dropped out of Who we are it being too pop and not fitting into his hip hop genre. Yawn.  Jenifer Brening - Until the morning light Giovanni Montalbano - Per quello che mi dai Franklin Calleja - Stay Sebastian Schmidt - Stay Judah Gavra - Stay Camilla North - Yo no soy tu chica Tinashe Makura - Free yourself Sara de Blue - Out of the twilight Jessika Muscat feat. Jenifer Brening - Who we are Irol feat. Sebastian Schmidt - Sorry Emma Sandström - Diamonds

  And sooner than soon the finalist have been revealed and surprise! Stay is a battle in three as Basti but also Franklin and Judah will sing that same song! I guess I said already in the beginning that Basti and Stay will win.... Hmmm... Next step are the recorded and produced versions of the song to be featured in the final on March 3.  Basti - Stay Camilla North _ Yo no soy tu chica Emma - Diamonds Franklin Calleja - Stay Giovanni Montalbano - Per quello che mi dai Irol feat. Basti - Sorry Jenifer Bening - Until the morning light Jessika feat Irol - Who we are Judah Gavra - Stay Sara De Blue - Out of the twilight Tinashe Makura - Free yourself

  San Marino aired tonight the second show recorded in Bratislava, where the artists sung the chosen songs. Some of them were already featured in the first show sung by another artist, and even tonight both Basti and Franklin sung the same song, and not only them btw. And Emma manages to include "rakas" in her song again .-) Now the judges have a task of picking one song for each artist for the final and make studio produced versions of the songs after these live acoustic ones. There's some good material in there and pretty talented singers.  Emma Sandström - Hold On IROL feat. Basti - Sorry Giovanni Montálbano - Immenso blu Basti - Stay Judah Gavra - Moonlight Tinashe Makura - Free Yourself Jessika - Out of the Twilight Sara de Blue - Out of the Twilight Jenifer Brening - Until the Morning Light Franklin Calleja - Stay Camilla North - Yo no soy tu chica Listen to the first show songs

  The Sammarinese affair has been rather complicated to follow, but we have reached the stage of the two pre-recorded shows where the chosen artists sing live and acoustic (the final produced versions will bee heard in the final only) the songs they have created together with other writers in songwriting camp. 1in360 writes in their FB:  "In the interest of transparency and because some of you asked, a few words on how the songs were written: We didn't give the candidtes pre-manufactured songs. Instead we conducted a songwriting camp in Vienna, for which we prepared a few chords and melodies. Our songwriters, producers and the candidates themselves then collaborated to turn them into finished songs. As a result, we've got a lot of songs with multiple songwriters (several have five songwriters). Zoe Straub, one of the judges, actively participated in the camp and has credits on all but two of the songs. The same is true of other members of the 1 in 360 creative tea...

  After three wildcards SMRTV has chosen the other seven eight finalists for the national final selection, and the list includes several national final wannabes in some countries, Malta and Israel at least. Now these more or less raw or experienced talents will have songs written and elected for them and the real business starts. Good luck with that! Irol (San Marino) Sammarinese wild card Emma Sandström (Finland) Fans wild carf Giovanni Montalbano (Italy) Web wild card Camilla North (Norway) Franklin Calleja (Malta) Jenifer Besky (Germany) Jessika Muscat (Malta) Judah Gavra (Israel) Sebastian Schmidt (Germany) Sara de Blue (Austria) Tinashe Makura (Zimbabwe)

  Valentina Monetta has announced in her self ironic way "No, no don't worry it's not me, it's my dear friend... Irol!" He joins Finnish Emma (Fan's choice) and Italian Giovanni Montalbano (Internet's choice) in the final ten. The seven other entries will be chosen by SMRTV and 1in360 among all the submitted wannabes.

  Sicilian Giovanni Montalbano has won the second wildcard for the Sammarinese 1in360 selection, the internet card that is, and even before his announcement fans reacted to his (and others) suspicious votes. Apparently Montalbano got 170.000 votes within 24 hrs, judging by the comments. This blogger can't say a thing as I wasn't following the process. In fact the organizers themselves gave a statement in Facebook about all that fuss last night: We've received emails from several 1 in 360 fans alleging fraud in connection with the open process for the selection of wild card no. 2. Specifically, they pointed out that certain candidates gained tens of thousands of votes in a short period of time. We appreciate this may look suspicious. Going into this, we considered requiring fans to pay a small amount of money in order to cast a vote. While this wouldn't have prevented fraud, it would at least have made it more expensive. In the end, however, we decided to be...

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...

The 1in360 selection for the next Eurovision song contest entry for San Marino has reached already 1000 submission from all over the globe. Sammarinese artists have not been very keen on participating to the disappointment of Head of Delegation Alessandro Capicchioni ( read more here ), but as soon as it was announced the third wilcard will be given to a Sammarinese artist they have started submitting entries from Junior Eurovision and Eurovision veteran Anita Simoncini , Eurovision spokesperson Irol , Valentina Monetta collaborataed Mirko Moroncelli and Alessandra Busignani , to add to those three that did it before: Fabrizio Valentini , Alibi and Gianluigi Colucci .  Meanwhile the second wild card voting is on in various OGAE clubs all over Europe. They have a shortlist of 70 lucky ones, including Michele Imberti . 

San Marino's Head of delegation Alessandro Capicchioni declared his disappointment for the lack of Sammarinese artists in the search for their 1in360 search for the next Eurovision star in an interview he gave to Eurofestival News . So far 750 submission from 70 countries in five continents have arrived but only two  three of them are from San Marino. I'm very disappointed. I don't hide the fact that most of this has been made for them. Or rather an international selection process has always been out stragedy, and finally we managed to do it. For this we have said no to several proposals from abroad to be able to give a chance to home artists. We have also made a few shout outs in local media and we are still hoping for a last minute rush - otherwise we may have to give Miss Monetta a call! He also explains how they put the symbolic fare of 4,99 euros to avoid multiple submissions and those who would do it just for the fun (Well, that hasn't stopped some cr...

  I was planning to ignore the Sanmarinese 1in360 selection process until final stages, but something came up and I just have to do my duty. No, it's not Valentina Monetta but the next best thing: Michele Imberti. Share some love and click like. Pretty please? (And you propably know his song, too, btw)

San Marino is after you. If you are an inspiring artist dreaming of Eurovision (no, I don't mean you, Sasha Bobnigov but I suppose we will see you anyway...) and launches a global talent search and the winner gets a record deal and gets to represent San Marino at the Eurovision song contest 2018. It's a co-operation between SMRTV and UK based 1 in 360 Ltd, a production company. The whole idea isn't maybe all that revolutionary as they advertised beforehand as Switzerland and also Germany have tried something similar in a smaller scale before.   So, in short: record a song (preferably a cover, but original songs are welcome, too), submit it (between October 21-November 30) and then after November 1, 2017 when the entries submitted will be out in the open in www.1in360.com all you need to do is get enough likes and shares to get further or to be heard by the judges. Yes, either 100 likes or paying a fee of 4.99 euros or they won't bother (and who can blame them...