Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

After five years of semi-final Norway is back to one night Melodi Grand prix when nine songs will battle out the ticket to Basel 2025 Eurovision on February 15. The show also returns to Oslo's Spektrum. Originally it was supposed to be ten songs but Lavrans Svedsen withdraw in the last minute. Also Angelina Jordan withdrew a week before due to Los Angeles wildfires as she lives there. It is however not revealed who from the backup list replaced her. Svedsen won't be repalced thus only nine entries. The line up sees two winning comebacks: Bobbysocks or Elisabeth Andreassen and Hanne Krogh return after 4o years of giving Norway it's first win in 1985 with La det swinge. Another returnee is back after 20 years is Wig Wam. Should Elisabeth win again it'd be her fifth and record breaking time in Eurovision song contest leaving San Marino's Valentina Monetta and Switzerland's Peter, Sue & Marc behind. She has also placed well every time: 8th, 1st, 6th and 2nd. Han...

Hey ho! Moldova was planning a national final for the March but a sudden change in plans turned this afternoon's live audition round to a national final where a jury picked up the winner who goes to Turin 2022 Eurovision. The 3,5 hours long parade of low quality demos, broken English, unfortunate performances of every kind will make up for missing Belarus auditions this year for the fandom. Apparently none of the songs or performers had time to become a fan favorite - except one random withdrawn nonsense I don't even care to mention - so the winner's announcement remained rather low key.  If you care to check out a recap of all entries it's here .  The jury decided to send the most experienced act, one that has all social medias and most likely record label back up and all that in good shape, or Zdob si Zdub. The band was Moldova's debut entry back in 2005 and with their drum beating granny scored a very respectful 6th place, still Moldova's second highest. The...

Play is an irresistible combination of country and pop. Its lyrics focus on an on-and-off relationship where one person has become fed up with constantly forgiving the other. I want my audience to open their hearts and find the power and support they need to move on in their lives and relationships. I believe that my story will resonate with many listeners , Laura says. Ever since she was a little girl, Laura has spent a considerable amount of time in Finland. Today, she typically spends half of the year in Finland as part of her musical and professional career. Her tenth album, released in the winter of 2019, was produced in Finland, and she has also begun learning Finnish. Laura feels that participating in UMK will help further cement her position in her new home country. The final spark for performing in the contest was lit last spring when she participated in UMK’s international jury. Better on her own? We will see. She's been to Eurovision twice but never solo so far and I d...

Today of all days it is a good reason to remember this pearl from the national finals, one of the best ever. If only Laura went solo to Eurovision with this runner up rather than shouting along with other Suntribe girls Estonia would have most likely moonwalked to the final and who knows how high in there...  That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind

Hanna-Riikka Siitonen (47) has died of thyroid cancer she was diagnosed in 2000.  She was multiple times a backing singer for Finland in the Eurovision song contest (1996, 2004, 2005) and participated in the national selection 2006 and was a featuring figure in the opening and interval acts in Helsinki 2007 Eurovision. She was one of the most used backing and studio singers in Finland, and worked a lot in television and theatre both in music and acting, radio and was Idols vocal coach. She was a daughter of Fredi aka Matti Siitonen (Finland ESC 1967, 1976, composer 1979).  In 1990's she formed multiplatinum selling duo Taikapeili with Nina Tapio. 

Emmelie has been a bit lost ever since her win, and has released a sting of undisturbing singles and History isn't any exception. Nice but forgettable.... After dusting off I didn't know with Martha Wash Serhat does the same with Helena Paparizou for his oldie Total disguise , then in duet with Eurovision presenter Viktor Lazlo.... The question remains: why? The Azeri victory remains still a mystery (well... really?) and both winners haven't really been heard of ever since. This is one of Eldar's latest, dating 1,5 years ago. I miss you is his latest.  His partner in victory Nigar Jamal hasn't bothered the international charts since then either. Her latest (?) Sus is kinda nice ethnic pop. Worth a listen. 

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 ...

  The Fizz (or Eurovision 1981 winners Bucks Fizz) continue their comeback success with second single Amen (following amazing Dancing in the rain ). The video is very fitting for this Halloween period. Welcome back! San Marino's Eurovision entry I didn't know by Serhat has been re-released as a new duet version with legendary disco queen Martha Wash . As much as I love her she isn't bringing much extra to the table and it's a shame. Martha: belt it out LOUD! As no one does that as beautiful as you do.... Another Eurovision winner Helena Paparizou has released for a change a goodie in Greek, An me deis na klaio , apparently translates to If you make me cry . It features Anastasios Rammos and is the best thing I've heard from her for years! Check out also this live version ! (And so great Greece will sing in Greek again in Eurovision!) Third Eurovision winner in this post is Loreen . Yet another release from her worthcoming album, Hate the way I...

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?

Eurovision song contest 2005 winner Helena Paparizou has been enjoying Top-5 hits every year since 2003 with the exception of 2010 and 2014, this latest one being already her 27th! And Haide is charting also in Bulgaria and Finland, of all places. The catchiness of her hits has changed less over the years than her face....  Here's the English version , below the Greek version. 

Pictured is Slovenia's national flower, red carnation Slovenia organized as usual its national selection EMA with two semifinals and the final. 90 songs were received and 16 were chosen. After that previous winner Amaya aka Maja Keuc withdrew and was replaced. She had other career opportunities and decided to go for that. Other previous winner Omar Naber, who represented the country already in Kyiv's frst time in 2005 will return this time with self-penned On my way . He won his semifinals both televote and the jury vote, but in the final he won the juryvote but was second in the televote to teen heartthrobs  BQL. Omar Naber's (35) father comes from Jordan but is Slovenian born and raised. His career started from a talent show, and then he was hot and in Eurovision. He failed to make the final but he's been around ever since. Four albums to his credit, one of them also in English and several attemps to get back to Eurovision (2009, 2011 and 2014 plus 2016 for ...

Omar Naber has won the Slovenian national final Ema 2017 with On my way. He's indeed on his way back to Kyiv where he already competed back in 2005 with Stop and stop he did failing to reach the final. Let's see how it will go with his power ballad. 

Geir Rönning turns 54 today. Congratulations! He sung for Finland in Kiev 2005 Why? a ballad inspired by Beslan school hostage crisis in Russia. It scored 50 points in the semifinal finishing 18th out of 25th. 

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...

The open selection process that was ment to be something new and exciting and turned out to be a near farce is over. Kyiv has been announced as the host city. At this point it is worth remembering this was the first time the bidding and selection process was this open, an initiative by NTU.  I suppose someone is now feeling sorry and probably we won't see this much openness in the future. Speculating fans can se such annoying thing at times.... This said, NTU should also have a long look at the mirror and process what went wrong with false starts, promised dates and all the rest. Instead of an exciting weeks to follow the selection process we got... well, a bit of a farce that made some even doubt if they can handle it at all. But if things went like the previous years, we would have only gotten the bids without too much information at the start, and then one day the chosen one and that's it. No hard feelings, no useless rumors, no misinformation, failed promises and dea...

Three cities in Ukraine have candidated for the Eurovision song contest 2017. It seems though NTU and EBU are settling for Kiev for all obvious reasons as other candidates Lviv and Odessa may be up to requirements from suitabel venue to hotel capacity and international trave connections. The work in Ukraine has already started and Viktoria Romanova, Head of delegation in Stockholm, hopes the people's fear of not having enough money to organize it will soon turn into joy and source of pride but the fact is they need some additional funding, and that's the main problem to be resolved. We can expect the decision where the contest will head to next May within a couple of months, before the end of summer at latest.  "With regard to the budget there are no restrictions, but we have a moral feeling within ourselves that we should avoid luxury and sparkles purely for moral reasons, since after all the country is still in a war state" - NTU's General Director Alasania ...

Bojan Jovović, ex-No Name has joined Higway, the trip (Petar Tošić, Luka Vojvodić and Marko Pešić) that is going to represent Montenegro in the Eurovision song contest 2016 in Stockholm. It seems they needed some vocal power and experience in their Eurovision adventure that they want to do the best way possible. Bojan is joining also them for the recording of their album so it seems the band is a quartet now on for real.... It's worth remembering No Name also won the Serbia & Montenegrin national final also in 2006 in rather controversial way that ended with the country pulling out from the contest and then falling apart altogether. For other reasons though...

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...

Sanna Nielsen, nicknamed the oldest granny in Sweden is still only 29 years old. Over the years she has created a huge fanbase with her six previous attempts to win Melodifestivalen and finally she did it with Undo . I already wanted her to win with Empty room in 2008 when she was the runner up. Sanna is adorable, has a fantastic voice, has charisma and is likable. Aren't we all happy she won finally? Robert: Sanna has a strong song and is an excellent singer that knows how to deliver. After numerous attempts to win the ticket to represent Sweden, you can only be happy that this very sympathetic singer finally succeeded. Of course she will go straight to the final. However my favourite song of this year's Melodifestivalen was not Undo or any other song of the 10 finalists but a song that just failed to reach the final by Martin Stenmarck called När anglarna åar hem With this song, it would have been a real nice come back for Martin to the Eurovision stage after his con...

Slovenian TV has today published the list of their finalists picked out of 29 artists and 42 songs submitted. There's no Maja Keuc but several other familiar names. Tinkara took part in 1997 , 1999 and 2001 , Samuel 2009 , Nude various times (1999, 2001, 2005, 2007) and Bilbi co-wrote the funny song Kooninchiwa in 2012. Omar Naber won in 2005 with Stop and has tried his lucky again in 2009 with I still carry on . and in 2011 with Bistvo skrito je očem . Rudi took part in 2009 with Alya and Zadnji dan .  Muff had a number one hit in 2012 with Naj sije v oče and are having a hit right now with  Nov dan . I loved Samuel's entry back then so for now he's a front runner for me. His duet partner Nermin is actually from Bosnia. The Slovenian final EMA 14 will take place on March 8, 2014. Bilbi Tinkara Kovač Omar Naber Rudi Bučar & The Elevators Muff Samuel Lucas feat. Nermin Puškar NUDE (Marco Mosca contributed to this post. Grazie!)