Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

  This is probably the most boyband-esque Sanremo winner ever. Brothers Diego e Luca won Sanremo Newcomers with L'amore in 2008 and later gained a great success, released albums in Latin America, Brazil and Japan, treid Sanremo again and flopped. I have lost track on them after this song but according Wikipedia they are still active. Who knew? I just know I liked this song back in the day.

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. Charlotte Perrelli (48), ex Nilsson went solo in Melodifestivalen 1999 after having sung with several dancebands since she was 13. Her heavily ABBA inspired schlager banger Tusen och en natt won and went on winning in Jerusalem as well 17 points ahead of Iceland's Selma, the hot pre-contest favorite whose song was very up-to-date instead. Nostalgia won and Sweden took its 4th win. She gained great success at home and some abroad touring Europe and Middle East, was voted ...

Albania's Festivali i Këngës reaches its 58th edition this December and the dates have been set to 19 and 20 for the semi-finals and after one night break the grand final on 22nd. Among the participants again familiar names from Olta Boka (ESC 2008) to already ever present Bojken Lako and Kamela Islamaj and Era Rusi. Local megastar Elvana Gjata appears on the list as well as Arilena Ara who has already enjoyed some international success.  Wendi Mancaku – Ende (Endrit Mumajesi/Wendy Mancaku) Valon Shehu – Kutia e Pandorës   FINALIST (Elvis Preni/Eugent Bushpepa) Tiri Gjoci – Me gotën bosh   FINALIST (Pandi Laço/Everest Ndreca) Sara Bajraktari – Ajër   FINALIST (Adrian Hila) Robert Berisha – Ajo nuk është unë   FINALIST (Filloreta Raçi) Renis Gjoka – Loja (Ilir Krasniqi/Renis Gjoka) Olta Boka – Shkrime në mur   FINALIST (Genc Salihu/Florent Boshnjaku) Nadia & Genc Tukiçi – Ju flet Tirana (Agim Xheka/Genc Tukiçi) Kastro Zizo (a...

Salvador contiues on his path of feelings, not fireworks..... even if this song sparks at moments... Lena jumps into Juan Magan's and Topic's Latin pop when you least expect it.... Dima Bilan goes very eletric in his Девочка, не плачь aka Gil, don't cry. The girls in question is Miss World 2008 Ksenia Sukhinova Loreen is dark and mysterious on her ride, that is a lot more interesting than most of her stuff ever....

Now what can I say? Carola is one of my favorite artists, an ultimate Eurovision Diva and we go back a long time. Flashback summer 1983: I was spending summer at my aunt's in Sweden. And Sweden was all about Carola after her Melodifestivalen win (full marks from each and every jury - for the first and last time ever) and 3rd place in Eurovision (6,1 million Swedes watched her there!!!) with Främling   (fate is I was also in Sweden when the Mello took place and saw it live on tv. However then I was all for runner up Kikki Danielsson's Varför är kärleken röd ...) Her album was the best selling album in Sweden ever (over 1.000.000 copies). She was everywhere, including a Folketspark near Fagersta where I saw her live.  The tour broke all previous records in 24 out of 25 parks. The year after I saw her live in Finland. And again in the years to come . But then Carola, a controversial figure retired after 3-4 years of success and even an album with the BeeGees in the USA to...

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..... If Dana International became the first Eurovision winner not to make the final again, it was a close call for Charlotte Perrelli. To her luck in 2008-2009 there was the jury wildcard rule or only the top-9 of the semifinalists qualified for the final and the jury chose the 10th one. In 1999 Charlotte Nilsson won Melodifestivalen with Tusen och en natt , and thanks to the new rule of free language it became Take me to your heaven in Jerusalem and she beat Iceland's Selma with 17 points taking a somewhat surprise win. Conflicts with SVT caused her to stay out of Eurovision song contest in 2000, breaking ...

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 Russian superstars have both released their new albums for the Christmas market and it will be interesting to see who scores better in the end in charts and sales.  Sergey Lazarev 's V Epitsentre album is his 5th studio album (after a couple of years and albums in duo Smash!). He has been releasing singles off the album all fall so several songs are already familiar to his fans. Fourteen new songs and one remix. All songs are in Russian (a first for him actually!) and the English version will be released next year. A lot of foreign (aka Eurovisionary) song writers for him and middle of the road, rather unoriginal but somewhat pleasant pop with Russian drama ballads thrown in. Singles Vdrebezgi ,   Shepoton ,  Lucky stranger , Tak krasivo , Idealny mir and his Eurovision entry in Russian are included. And sadly they are the best the album has to offer with the title track. Listen in Spotify   *** Dima Bilan released his album Egoist already December ...

  Russian Eurovision stars Dima Bilan (2md in 2006, 2st in 2006) and Sergey Lazarev (3rd in 2016) have finally released the video for their joint hit single Prosti menya , filmed in Sintra, Portugal this summer. The guys started their career same time and have since been often rivals and have both developed their careers over the years, sometimes they have crossed paths (Lazarev also took part in the Russian national final 2008 placing 4th with Flyer ) , sometimes they went to different directions but the claimed hostility between them is nonexistent, and this duet cements their professional friendship finally. It was worth the wait.  Meanwhile Biland has released his new album Egoist

  The all Danish boy of Cliche love song Basim sounds completely different in his latest  Comme Ci Comme Ça ft. Gilli going full front to his Moroccan roots. It paid off, it's already #2 hit in Denmark  Armenian Sirusho 's latest Huh-hah is also filled with exotic sounds. The video also takes full advantage of the rich Armenian culture and looks like ... well, Eurovision promo video, doesn't it? It even clocks just over 3 minutes..... Nearly ten years have passed from her Eurovision adventure but she keeps going strong releasing hit singles and picking up awards on annual basis. Maybe a comeback to the contest would be an idea? Another Armenian diva Iveta Mukuchyan has released  Depi Nor Irakanutyun , aka Towards a new reality she wrote herself and it comes with a fancy futuristic video. Quite interesting and catchy, in the same way her Eurovision entry was but less dramatic. Another Danish boy to close this video post, with a link to Africa as ...

  Albanian Elhaida Dani is out with a new song  Më Mbaj or Keep me. She has written the song herself and is writing and recording her new album in Italy in both Italian and English, but this one's strickly in Albanese. Beautiful. And kinda melancholy. The late summer/early autumn blues continues with Eric Saade 's Another week . Released already some time ago but it has proven to be a real earworm and pops into your head when you last expect it.... and comes with quite a Swedish party video, too! Dima Bilan 's latest is  Держи (Hold). The Russian superstar continues to deliver radio friendly pop tunes and this is another one, a bit groovier and poppier than most lately though. And the video is shot in oh, so fashionable Portugal. And must be sponsored by the car manufacturer.... Lara Fabian has already released a second single Choose what you love most (And let it kill you) off her new album Camouflage , but this first single Growing wings is stuck i...

Teräsbetoni's front man Jarkko Ahola turns 40 today. Teräsbetoni may have been in hiatus since 2011 but Jarkko has launched a succesful solo career besides being active in his own band Ahola and most of all in Northern Kings, a megagroup of Finnish heavy singers. His solo career so far consists of three Top-5 albums of Christmas classics with other more or less classical songs, one could maybe call it pop heavy. He's also been involved in many other projects.  Congratulations!

Forgive me. That's the title of a surprise duet with Sergey Lazarev and Dima Bilan, presented in the annual MUZ-TV awards. The tender ballad came as a surprsie as all was hinted beforehand was Sergey would be presenting a new song, but Dima's participation came as a real surprise.  I'm liking this, Russian pop at its best. 

  ... because there has been some different system for qualification in use..... If the Eurovision song contest semi-final qualifiers were very straight forward with top-10 qualifying from 2010 onwards, before it was a different story. In 2009 only the Top-9 qualified while the 10th qualifier was chosen by a jury, to a criteria only known to themselves. And they surely used their power with variable success..... In the first semifinal the qualifier would have been Macedonia's Next Time  (10th) with  Nešto što kje ostane. The jury decided to skip also the 11th one, Montenegro's  Andrea Demirović 's Just get out of my life and lifted to the final instead Finland's Waldo's People  (12th) and Lose control , that then placed second to last, 24th, in the final. Of course as a Finn I was happy for the sudden turn of the things :-) In the second semifinal it was ever more cruel: the jury chose Croatia's Igor Cukrov feat. Andrea with Lijepa tena th...

Milla Jovovich apparently was in negotiations to host the Eurovision song contest 2017 - just like Lady Gaga to perform as interval act - but the deal wasn't made in the end. Money. It's always about the money, isn't it? Milla, a worldfamous model and actress was born in Kyiv in 1975, then Soviet Union as daughter of a Russian actress and a Serbian father. She however spent her childhood in Moscow and the family immigrated to London for political reasons in 1980, and moved on to Los Angeles soon after. Milla has declared she feels more Russian than Ukrainian, having only born there but spending her early years in Moscow, so in this light it seems a bit unlikely Ukrainians would have chosen her at this time and place of the world so I label this "only rumors".... Wasn't she rumored also in 2008 as a host for the Belgrade Eurovision?

Cristal Snow is releasing a new song and video every October week and plans to be just as gay as he wants to. The message is that everyone can be whatever they want to be, and it's also against the fact that in 2016 one's sexuality is still an issue.  "I'm gonna sing about love until I die, and the only kind of love I know is that for a man. I don't see any point of pretending in videos and have some hot chicks in them. I had a huge fight in family about homosexuality when Pekka Haavisto was running for president (He got to second round and came close second. Ed.note) . The issue being what a gay man can do and can't do, and can a gay man be president. That fight lasted for a couple of years. I also get feedback in social medias why I have to be so gay and I'm like fuck it! I'm as gay as I want to be! But no one has right to out other people, it must come from within." Cristal Snow competed in UMK2016 with Love is blind and in Euroviis...

It's all in your head sung Lys Assia and Dima Bilan follows with   В твоей голове (In your head) and the flow's good. An uptempo song for a change that comes with a beautifully colored funny video. The song is his 22nd Top-20 hit in Russia, 

Eurovision 2008 winner Dima Bilan is now also a silver screen actor, as his debut as leading role premiered in Russia yesterday. He's actually doing a double role in a drama of love and war that takes place in the first world war and 100 years later in our times. Bilan is lieutenant Andrey Dolmatov, and there's princess Vera Chernysheva until the world turns upside down in the catastrophe that is the war and world is divided into different camps.... but love is immortal and unites people, even after one hundreds years.... The film Hero ( Герой )  is shot in Paris and Lithuania. The movie will premiere in April also in the US and rest of the world under title The heritage of Love .

Dima Bilan is about to release a new album and has released a video for his latest single Ne molchi, that is once again a very nice pop song. After losing to the Finnish monsters back in 2006 and seeing the Finnish entry 2015 must have brought him back memories and he has now stepped out for the rights of the people with disabilities. The video stars a supermodel and founder of Obnazhennoe serdthe aka Naked Heart Natalia Vodianova.  "We have been waiting for this for so long !!! I sincerely believe that this video will change the lives of many people and will be an important step in building an inclusive society in Russia. " Meanwhile the new album with the same title is on preorder at iTunes and will be released October 2, 2015. Recorded over the past two years it includes 15 songs.

Elnur Hüseynov has not only released a Turkish version Karanlıklara Teslim Olmam of his Azeri entry Hour of the wolf for the Eurovision 2015 in Vienna but also a beautiful new video clip has been released shot in ever so wonderful Istanbul. Enjoy!  Oh wait there's more: a remix!