Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

  Latvia's LTV organized the national selection Supernova once again. 15 semi-finalists were selected among the 108 submissions and 10 of them reached the final. Dons took an easy win with his Hollow. He has been twice the runner up already: in 2010 with My religion is freedom and 2014 with  Pēdējā Vēstule .  Artūrs Šingirejs aka Dons (39) is a Latvian singer-songwriter, born of Belarusian father and Latvian mother. He has learned to sing and play guitar by himself and has studied culinary arts instead. He started performing at school but didn't get into music until 2003 when he took part in Talantu Fabrika talent show where he also met Lily (or Linda Kalnina, his future wife) and they did an album together. His solo debut  album came in 2006. Since then he has become one of the most succesful Latvian singers and has won Top Hit Radio award eight times for the most played song, and The Song of the Year award for five times. Add twice the Best Pop Album (out of five ...

Eurovision veterans Kuunkuiskaajat have joined many previous Euroviison stars to support Käärijä and his Cha cha cha. They have made a hilarious boomer version of Cha cha cha. The video pretty much displays what they're into i nstead of Käärijä's night at the bars and pina coladas... . 

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. First time since 1957 the reigning champion returned the year after to defend the title. That's what German winner Lena Meyer-Landrut (31) did after 2010. And she was internally chosen, too, and had her own national final as well. How cool. The newcomer who won with Satellite with a landslide had become the hottest thing on German soil after winning, breaking records, hitting number one in both albums and singles so her second participation just continued the trend. She ...

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.   Ireland dominated Eurovision in the 1990's and Niamh Kavanagh (55) scored the second win of their triplet in 1993 at home in Millstreet with In your eyes. She dropped her plans to move to the US and instead released a successful album and enjoyed her newfound fame for a while before settling into quiet family life and children a few years later. Occasionally she was involved in the Eurovision celebrations until she was convinced back to the Irish selection in 2010. She...

Darin is no stranger to Eurovision having participated in Melodifestivalen 2010 with You're out of my life , six years after his breakthrough in Idols , and being part of the interval act in 2013 Eurovision semi final. He has become one of the most succesful if not the most succesful Idols born artist in Sweden despite being only runner up (to Daniel Lindström - who? and beating Loreen among others). He started in English but switched to Swedish (and more acoustic sound) in 2014 and it made him even more popular. Seven out of his 8 albums went to #1 so far, and he has also 10 top-10 singles to his credit. He has also written songs for other artists and was even asked to write a song for the Crown Princess Victoria's wedding, Can't stop love . Tvillingen was the most played song in Swedish radios in 2017. His career is also going strong in Asia.  Check out also Nobody knows , Lovekiller , Mamma mia , Ta mig tillbaka  and F your love . If only SVT could manage him get...

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....

Or depends how you want to count it. if we only count the top-10 placings then Sweden has 7 and Italy 6, and then we have Denmark, Norway, Russia, Ukraine and Azerbaijan with 5 so it makes it all very Nordics Vs. ex-Sovjets. And the odd one out: Italy. On the other hand if we look at the placements turned into Eurovision points (12, 10, 8....1) Sweden is still ruling with 56, but Azerbaijan is second with 43 (but we all know what happened, how all of sudden they were no longer in top-5 every year but where they belonged: vote rigging. Before that they managed to collect in five years one of each placements from one to five, with Swedish songs mind you). Russia follows with 38 with Italy close behind with 35. Ukraine completes the top-5 with the Nordics after: Denmark and Norway. Italy has been flirting with the victory already several times, it's time they take trophy home soon. All other countries in Top10 have won (except Turkey, abseent since 2013 but but strong with 3 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..... 19 years old Lena Meyer-Landrut came from nowhere and after winning the German national final in 2010 went on to win the Eurovision song contest as well with her Satellite . She wasn't quite a favorite but once the votes started rolling in she took a convincing surprise win over Turkey's maNga (246 vs 170) scoring top-3 from 18 countries including nine 12s.  Her album went to #1 in Germany and  Satellite charted all over Europe making it one of the most succesful Eurovision winners of recent years. Her momemtum carried all the way to the next year's contest when it was announced she would do the 50...

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..... Niamh Kavanagh first came to Eurovision in 1993 giving Ireland the second of its third consegutive wins with In your eyes . Niamh was rather unknown back then even if she had already sung in The Commitments soundtrack but no doubt it one of the finest vocalists in the contest ever. She battled it with UK's Sonia until the end but secured a 23 point lead with seven 12s and votes from each and every country. In 2010 she was back with It's for you . Placing 9th in her semifinal (12 points from Switzerland and 10 from UK clearly saved her) she qualified for the final where she collected 25 points and ...

  Finland celebrates its 100th year as an independent state and has ever since searched for its place in Europe and the world, between East and West. Sometimes with less success. As we speak in 1939 we were at war again with Soviet Union but - let's make a huge change of subject here -  since 1961 Finland has been taking part in the Eurovision song contest (and we also took part, and won twice, the copycat contest behind the Iron curtain, Intervision song contest). It may have taken awhile before we won, but it never stopped us taking part. EBU did, in those crazy 1990's-early 2000's. Let's look back in coming days as a countdown to the Big Day some of the most memorable and significant entries from Finland..... Monica Aspelund 's 1977 entry Lapponia is one of the most iconic Finnish entries, and one of those taking a large serving from the mythology with added flavor from Lapland. This is exotism we should have used more often, this blogger thinks. It...

  Belarusian Ivan goes from Eurovision wolves to Aliens in his latest,  Чужая . A midtempo rock song with enough drama to keep you watching the video til the end...... Errr.... what was that? Russian Serebro  from Eurovision 2007 in Helsinki are unstoppable and have released  в космосе or In space, despite being in the middle of recruiting a new member. It's another pop tune in pure Serebro style. Love it. Sunstroke Project that took Moldova to the surprise podium at Eurovision 2017 is back with another saxxy hit, Sun gets down. Maybe they should have released this a month or two earlier to score late summer hit..... In rainy dark Finland this feels like a slap in the face instead...... Ola Salo , who sung for Sweden with The Ark in Helsinki 2007 has went solo ages ago and has released a new single, I call your name . I wonder if he's really calling for the safety word as he seems to be performing in a sexclub where all sort of things are going...

As an Eurovision fan travelling to a new Eurovision country is always also an adventure to the local record stores - if they only exist anymore. I was in Prague last week and they do have several stores left but....  not so much for a collector of this genre... The only Eurovision artists I saw were Kabát and Karel Gott. But then again, Kabát was all over the place; streets full of their tour ads and their CDs in every shop. The band's been together since 1983 and still seem to be the Czechia's finest and most popular rock band, filling stadiums and arenas. Their Mala dama deserved so much more in Helsinki 2007! Karel Gott is still very popular, at the tender age of 78, it seems. He has released dozens of albums since his Eurovision (for Austria) in 1968. He has already retired twice but seems to come back due to the popular demand again and again.   The Golden Voice of Prague joined forces with rock band No Name this summer for Kto dokáže for example..... and his ...

  This year it  happened to Georgia and Serbia. The dreadful 11th place in the semi-final. As for Georgia it was pretty clear with 16 points missing but Serbia lost only with 3 points, and Switzerland was only 4 points away from a possible qualification. Let's have a look at the closest miss outs over the past years. The 2011 edition was very close with three songs one point shy of qualification, while in 2016 the qualifiers were more than clear with a huge margin to the 11th ones in the semi-finals. Bulgaria 2012 - Sofi Marinova - Love unlimited The only tie so far with Norway that qualified having been voted by 11 countries, while Bulgaria only by ten. So Norway qualified for the final and Bulgaria was left out.... Malta 2011 -  Glen Vella - One life -1 point (placing 11th in the first semi-final) Armenia 2011 - Emmy - Boom boom  -1 point (placing 12th in the first semi-final, tie with points with Glen Vella) Belgium 2011 - Withloof Bay ...

The streaker who jumped to the stage while Eurovision winner Jamala was performing last night and lowered his pants showing his arse to the world in live broadcast has been arrested and identified. He's journalist Vitalii Sediuk, a know streaker who seems to be doing stuff like this as a hobby. Recently he has been caught grabbing Gigi Hadid and trying to kiss Kim Kardasian's bum. He has also harassed bradley Cooper, Brad Pitt and America Ferrara among others, and was expelled from the USA. Now he can expect a heavy fine or even prison up to five years, confirms Ukrainian minister of the interior according HS . Sediuk says he only wants to entertain people.....  Kudos to Jamala who didn't miss a note and kept a straight face all through it! Last time something like this happened was in 2010 when Spain got an extra dancer on stage when infamous Jimmie Jump entered and joined the choreography before being chased off by the guards. In Helsinki 2007 someone tried t...

Pictured is Moldova's national flower, dog rose Moldova organized its usual national final, O melodie pentru Europa. TRM received 40 submissions, all of them wree invited for live auditions and 14 were invited for the semifinal. The selection also included a fair share of withdrawels and disqualifications. Eurovision veterans Sunstroke Project won the semifinal and the final finished with a tie with jury's favorite Ethno Republic but the televote was decisive (phew) and they return to Eurovision after seve years with Hey, mamma! written by Anton Ragoza, Serghei Ialovitki, Seghei Stepanov, Mihail Cebotarenco and Alina Galetcaia. Sunstroke Project is Sergei Yalovitsky (vocals), Anton Ragoza (violinist, composer) and the Epic Sax Guy Sergey Stepanov, who became a real internet phenomenom after their 2010 particiation with Olia Tira. The year before they already tried to get to Eurovision and again in 2012 and 2015 so they are really eager to do it again. The trio celebra...

Susan Aho of Kuunkuiskaajat fame turns 43 today. Congratulations!

The youngest ever Tango King in Finland, Amadeus (Lundberg) has gone a long way after his win back in 2009. The year after he got a free pass to Euroviisut, the Finnish national final for the Eurovision and he presenter Anastacia, that followed nicely his debut single Matador . He released his debut album and after his reign was over went on touring all over tango circuit. Two years ago he released with Riku Niemi Orchestra an album with covers of classics with new songs, and in 2015 another one. The succesful series is completed now with a third one, that is basicly only covers of Italian classics, including Volare and Si from Eurovision song contest plus songs like Il Mondo that has been recently covered also by Il Volo. Listen the album here .  Volare has been of course covered about a zillion times so that's no news and more like a yawn, but it's not everyday you get a new Si cover. His voice fits the song nicely and the arrangement is rather simple dance oriented (...

Edward af Sillén and Daniel Réhn are writing the script for this year's Eurovision song contest and they say it's going to be crazier and taking things a bit further than before. They know what they are doing as they have also written the scripts for Oslo 2010 and Malmö 2013. They both love Eurovision and will threat it with love, joy and without cynicism. And they love to work with their old friends Petra Mede and Måns Zelmerlöw as they are "safe and fun. And they are quite unpredictable both of which are fun. And they both love the show, no need to fake it!" Edward and Daniel met thanks to Slovakia's Eurovision entry 1998. Edward heard it in a bar in Stockholm and stood up and went to ask the bartender who is this. Daniel thought he was there to critizise the music choice - as it usually was - but it was on the contrary. They have been friends since. And now they are once again working together for Eurovision. "We want to cherish the gift we are given...

"Kuunkuiskaajat's 8 year journey has been full of joy and laughter, bubbles, friendship and unforgettavle moments. This is a good place to end our journey and Revitty rakkaus will be our beautiful farewell album, that will live on. Thank you for all these years and moments. Without you there wouldn't be us and this album. Let Revitty rakkaus take flight and keep singing this beautiful story!" With this surprising announcement Kuunkuiskaajat is no longer. This will be their second and last album. It was a long long time in the making. Their latest single Unelmaa (Dream) was released earlier this year and has been doing well in the radios. Buy your copy here . 

Unelmaa, like a dream is Kuunkuiskaajat's comeback single and video. It's from their coming album. The girls started writing the album already five years ago but a lot has happened in between, including Johanna's cancer - you can see the cancer scar in her neck in the video. But as her hashtag #fuckcancer tells, it's over and they are ready for a new start. With an album that is more personal, more pop than ever!