Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

In 2000 Alice returns to Sanremo . Apparently she didn't quite want to but that way as compromise she managed to release her God is my DJ album in 1999. Juri Camisasca wrote Il giorno dell'indipendenza for her and it became the lead single for her new compilation album My personal jukebox that included also two new songs besides this track and her biggest hits, some of them in new versions. She placed 9th in the competition but the song didn't set the charts on fire, nor the album but she reminded the wide audience she's still around even if she hadn't done any television and promotion for more than a decade already. forse un po' ingenuamente sognavo in un mondo felice senza rendermi conto che troppo amore ferisce Tornerai da me Tornerai da me maybe a little naively I dreamed in a happy world without realizing that too much love hurts You'll come back to me You'll come back to me

Alice debuted in Sanremo (under her real name Carla Bissi) in 1972 without success, returned in 1981 and won it. That started a internationally successful pop career all the way to Eurovision 1984 with Franco Battiato. After that her music changed, she abandoned the search for hits and spotlight on festivals and television. Her label didn't like that very much though. She got her wish to publish a special album God is my DJ of sacred music and sacred in music only by agreeing to do Sanremo 2000 and a compilation album Personal Jukebox of new versions of her hits. Il giorno dell'indipendenza placed 11th. She has returned to semi-pop oriented music in her 2021 and 2014 albums, and has toured and released an album of Battiato's songs in 2022-23 after his death. 

While waiting for the entries for UMK2023 aka Finland's national selection for Eurovision song contest let's look back at some of the best non winning ones from yesteryear. Euroviisut 2000, what a mess! Nightwish was the clear televote (well, telephone) winner getting the double of votes the runner up got), the jury winner was Nylon Beat while Nina Åström, sadly a random nobody before and after Eurovision won placing jury 3rd and people's 2nd won with A little bit . A cute little harmless tune. Anna Eriksson placed jury 2nd and people's 3rd and 2nd overall 4 points short of Nina with a real Eurovision banger. Oot voimani mun   (You are my power) would have been composer Petri Laaksonen's third Eurovision entry. Instead it became a huge hit and Finland's only winner so far in the OGAE Second Chance song contest. Oh, and Nina finished 18th with 18 points in the end and was never heard again.

Remember Musiqq?  It might be already six years from Angel in disguise but the duo has been delivering singles and hits all this time. The latest offering is Manā Pilsētā Līst and it fits like a glove for tonight's mood as it's raining since hours..... This is as good a moment as any to remember their last year's megahit with another Eurovision veteran, Brainstorm aka Prāta Vētra in  Debesis iekrita Tevī , another goodie!

It's time to dust this series. And we start with Craig David's 2000 release Born to do it . This album was a bit of a revolution for me. I hardly knew what 2-step garage was and didn't care for that so much, but the album's r'n'b, electrobeat and simply great melodies conquered me. I loved his voice, the sound and the arrangements and the album delivered hit after hit in the charts. Craig was still in his teens when this his debut was released and he wrote these songs. Before he had already hit the #2 with Artful Dodger and Re-Rewind (The crowd say Bo Selecta) and #6 with Woman trouble . His first solo singles Fill me in and 7 Days went to #1, Walking away #3 and  Rendez vous  #8. The album was re-released in the US including also fabulous Key to your heart .  The album sold over 8 million worldwide (over 1,8 million in the UK alone), making it one of the best selling r'n'b albums by an UK artist. It also debuted at #1 in the UK charts becoming...

Sometime ago I was asking what happened to the Swedish songwriters in Eurovision ( here ) and now it's time to ask whatever happened to the English language? Namely, since the language rule was dropped in 1999 this year we have fewer songs in English than ever! Mind you, I think these two things are extremely positive things; both the lack of English and the Swedish songwriters! In 2013 we have 39 songs in the competition and 22 are to be sung in English (or 56%) and 17 in other local languages, and for the first time none in a mix of English and something else. That was close already back in 2010 when there were only two bilingual songs including English (Poland and Bulgaria) and neither of them made the final. On the other end of the statistics is 2007 when 13 of the 42 songs were with mixed English and 22 in English alone bringing it up to 83%. But that's not the worst of it. In 2001 that was 87% when only Israel, Portugal and Spain fully believed in their own local la...

Apparently not but a fake. But just the thought about it was so funny, or rather some comments I read on internet. This is supposed to be Aurora Borealis, that I believe isn't very common wonder of nature in south of Sweden but who cares if it makes a good logo? Anyways, some see it as Loreen's hair. And now it all makes sense as if the 2000 logo was Charlotte's botoxed lips, the 2013 logo should be Loreen's colored hair? Right? If this is so, I'm afraid to think what comes next when Sweden wins again.... 

Even in the era of internet and all the media means sometimes someone manages to surprise us. That's the case of Tarja Turunen, ex-Nightwish singer (Euroviisut 2000 with Sleepwalker ) who managed to keep her pregnancy secret to media and fans. Of course living in Argentina helps in that, but still.... Well done!  The secret was revealed yesterday when she posted a photo on her FB page holding a little baby in her arms and the Finnish media went wild. Today her publicists confirms it's her biological child. Now that's a nice Christmas gift to her family in Finland! Earlier this fall she released a double CD/DVD Tarja Turunen - Act 1  and next week she will hit the road with her Christmas in the heart tour, a challenge for a new mother for sure! Mainz - Germany, December 3, 2012 Berlin - Germany, December 4, 2012 Oberhausen - Germany, December 5, 2012 Leipzig - Germany, December 6, 2012 Savonlinna - Finland, December 12, 2012 Haapajärvi - Finland, ...

OGAE Italy is having its annual meeting in Bologna this weekend and the program includes the usual dinners and karaokes with the guest of honor Fabrizio Faniello. Here's an interview (In Italian) with him by OGAE Italy president Cristina Giuntini. He's doing career in Indonesia these days but dreams of Sanremo.... and he has a song running for Eurovision 2013 as well... His latest single is a Tose Proeski cover The hardest thing .  Se vuoi sapere più che cos'è OGAE Italy, clicca  qui . 

Happy birthday Alice!  She turns 58 today, believe it or not! Her new album Samsara sits nicely at #1 in digital downloads 7digital.it  and she's doing PR in Italy while preparing for a tour first in Italy, then in Europe. By clicking that #1 slot in the charts you can listen snippets of all the songs in her album. meanwhile here's pretty fantastic, self penned Orientamento . Update 27.9.2012: In the official FIMI charts of the physical sales she enters the chart at #10!                               And her new website is finally online, too. Here . 

Today's the day. Alice finally releases an album with new songs, her first of that kind since 1998! While you read this I'm walking the streets of Catania in Sicily in search for a record store and the CD.... Judging the pre-release hype it shouldn't be too difficult but then it's Italy and you never know :-) Wish me luck! I hope it will follow the magic of Caponord (1980), Alice (1981), Azimut (1982), Falsi allarmi (1983), Park Hotel (1986), Il sole nella pioggia (1986), Mezzogiorno sulle Alpi (1992), Charade (1995) and Exit (1998)... and I'm pretty sure it will! Update : Alice's Samsara was nowhere to be found in catania on September 18, the day of release. "It will come tomorrow. Maybe" said one store, "It should have arrived but it's not here" said another... A very sad and disappointed visitor left the town in the evening and the country in the early morning after....

The Finnish post has reached the 1990's in their series of stamps featuring popular artists. The stanps are published on September 3, 2012 and the criteria for choosing these six artists is that their career and popularity is still strong besides them being top sellers of the 1990's. Among them we have two Eurovision veterans, Jari Sillanpää and Laura Voutilainen, OGAE Second chance winner Anna Eriksson, the best selling female singer of the 1990's Kaija Koo and two ever popular bands, The Agents and Yölintu. The stamps simply feature their best seller album sleeves.

Il festival della canzone Italiana aka Sanremo (February 14-18, 2013) has been changing its formula all the time with some changes that have been good, and some that were just confusing. And often those formulas were maybe new to Italians and they thought they were extraordinary and original, but frankly, most of them have been already tried in many national Eurovision selections; all from second chances and such... For 2013 Fabio Fazio, who will the main host again (he already did 1999 and 2000) has come up with the idea, that sounds very much like the Finnish Euroviisut in mid-2000's (that brought us Lordi and Hanna Pakarinen): there will be 14 artists, each with two songs and people may vote one song to the final, so that way everybody gets to the final. I hope they won't end up with the same problem we did: singers brought two songs clearly favoring the other while the other was just a filler (and if people actually voted the filler to the final their faces clearly sho...

Natasha St Pier returns to the recording market with Bonne nouvelle . It's a summery little song that makes you hum along after a few listenings......

The Finnish music scene has been dominated by female artists the past few years. First names like Jonna Tervomaa, Irina and Maija Vilkkumaa did pop rock, followed by more sophisticated Jenni Vartiainen and Chisu while Kaija Koo was always there in between. Then we have Jippu and Anna Eriksson who both have returned with a bang this spring. And they both have turned very dark!  Jippu entered the album chart at #8 this week with her Väärinpäin lentävät linnut full of very personal songs about the very colorful life of this somewhat troubled and sensitive artist. This is her third album following the previous #1 album Kuka teki musta tän naisen four years ago. In between she scored cover hits in duet with Samuli Edelmann. And did you know Jenni Vartiainen is one of her closest friends? Here is Henki ja elämä and the title track .  Anna Eriksson returns with her 7th studio album Mana in Finnish after the previous Garden of love album in English and went straight to #2 ...

After Amsterdam it's all about London this weekend, where the 5th annual meeting and greeting of the Eurovision artists takes place. Nine of the 2012 acts have confirmed their presence so far and also Slovenian Omar Naber (2005), Kati Wolf (Hungary 2011) will be there with maybe some other surprises. Also you can win tickets to fly to Baku for the real thing. So, Anggun from France, Compact Disco from Hungary, Donny Montell from Lithuania, Eva Boto from Slovenia, Kaliopi from Macedonia, Sabina Babayeva from Azerbaijan and Valentina Monetta from San Marino and Filipa Sousa from Portugal will meet again.  The Shadow Lounge in Soho will be the location and the doors open at 7pm on Sunday April 29, 2012.. Nikki French (UK 2000) and Paddy O'Connell are hosting. More information here . 

Nightwish shot straight to number one with their second single off the latest album Imaginaerum dropping Rabin to #2. Here's The crow, the owl and the dove .

Jos mulla olisi sydän , or If I had a heart if´s the brand new single off Anna Eriksson's coming album Mana . She's back to singing in Finnish after her previous Garden of love album. The new album will hit the stores on April 18, 2012 and she will only do two concerts in Finland this year: April 18 in Turku's Logomo and April 28 in Helsinki's Musiikkitalo. Watch the new video here .  Mana is Anna's ninth studio album. Her albums have earned her so far one multiplatinum, 4 platinum and 9 gold discs. Anna is so far the only Finnish OGAE Second chance winner in 2000 with the Finnish national final runner up Oot voimani mun . 

Five years ago she released a Christmas album Henkäys ikuisuudesta , fresh from having been kicked out of Nightwish. Since then she has released two solo albums for the international market and here comes an album full of Finnish Christmas songs for the international market, too! But not only, songs like You would have loved this and Walking in the air are included. All recorded live 2 years ago in Lahti's Sibelius Hall with Harus. "Why Finnish Christmas songs for the international market? Why not? People find it exotic and in concerts in places like Germany and Brazil they just go wild when I sing in Finnish! Some say it sounds a bit Italian, the intonation and speed of talk. Or it's just me when I talk as I come from the east?" So Tarja comments. And I do agree. This blogger's from the east, too, and speak like an Italian! Viva Carelia!

Nightwish returns ang goes straight to #1 with their comeback single Storytime .