Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

  Mahmood first tried his luck in Sanremo in 2016 placing fourth with Dimentica among the Newcomers. The ones doing better (and I say being understood easier) were certain Francesco Gabbani, and a certain Ermal Meta, and err... Chiara Dello Iacovo who we haven't heard ever since. But he did beat a certain Irama though, what a cast that year!!! This blogger loved Dimentica from the first hearing and also got very interested in Mahmood and certainly I haven't been disappointed the past few years when he's been belting out hits in steady stream and has won two Sanremo along the way, and almost won Eurovision, too. What a find!

All is good in Eurobubble when Aiste is back in the Lithuanian selection and Markus Riva in the Latvian one. And we have also a previous winner Justs (ESC 2016) and a couple of other familiar names as well competing in this year's Supernova. There will be a semi-final on February 4 and only ten entries will make it to the final on February 11, already a very very busy night in the Eurovision world! Will Markus be 9th time lucky? 24. Avēnija - You said Adriana Miglāne - Like I wanna   NQ Alise Haijima - Tricky Artūrs Hatti - Love vibes Avéi - Let me go Inspo - Sway   NQ Justs - Stranger   NQ Katrine Miller - Beaten down   NQ Luize - You to hold me Markus Riva - Forever Patrisha - Hush Raum - Fake love Saule - Finally happy  (Disqualified) Sudden Lights - Aijā Toms Kalderauskis - When it all falls

Italy took its well deserved third victory - finally! - at the Eurovision song contest 2021. Over the years several other Italian entries would have been worthy winners. In this series I will go through all of them from the worst ranking to the winner s. Alessandro Mahmoud aka Mahmood caused quite an outcry in Italy after winning Sanremo, mostly a very racistic one. Nut Europe loved his clap clap Soldi and he missed the Eurovision victory only by 26 points, that's just a bit over 5% Duncan Laurence's winning points. This said he placed 2nd out of 41. This Egyptian-Sardinian Milan based tried his luck first at X Factor 2012 and made it all the way to the judge's houses but didn't make it until he made a comeback as a wildcard and lasted three episodes. In 2013 he released first song Falling rain and in 2016 he was in Sanremo's Newcomers with Dimentica , placing 4th with Francesco Gabbani and Ermal Meta ahead of him. He soon became a hitmaker for other artists like ...

Italy took its well deserved third victory - finally! - at the Eurovision song contest 2021. Over the years several other Italian entries would have been worthy winners. In this series I will go through all of them from the worst ranking to the winners. Francesca Michielin (26), a self declared Eurovision fan, got to Eurovision 2016 with her Sanremo runner up when the winners Stadio and Un giorno mi dirai declined the offer and said instead that Michielin should go. After a very long period - well, it felt like that anyways - Rai confirmed that they had chosen her indeed. She revamped and renamed her song, originally Nessun grado di separazione and travelled by bus (and social medias) to Stockholm but only placed 16th out of 42 with No degree of separation ..... Francesca shot to the fame after winning X Factor and has had a string of hit singles ever since, also in several featuring with various top rappers. In 2021 she was close to Euroviison again and placed second in Sanremo with...

Stefania Liberakakis (17) was internally chosen by Greece to represent them at the Eurovision 2020 in her other home country the Netherlands. She's a singer, actress, voice actress and ex-child star and Junior Eurovision veteran having represented the Netherlands as a member of girlgroup Kisses in 2016 with Kisses and dancin' . She also did The Voice Kids and joined a child choir Kinderen voor kinderen. In 2018 she launched her solo career and the year after also her career in Greece. Is she their next superg!rl?

  The rumors running wild the past few weeks have been confirmed tonight: Stefania will represant Greece in Rotterdam 2020 Eurovision song contest. She doesn't have to travel far as she was born and lives in the Netherlands. Her song titled  Superg!rl will be released in coming weeks, She had three songs in the running and the chosen one is by the usual Dimitris Kontopoulos, Sharon Vaughn and ARCADE team.  Stefania Liberakakis (17) has already a lot of experience despite her young age. She took part in The Voice Kids in 2013 in the Netherlands. Three years alter she was part of girl trio Kisses, that finished 8th in the Junior Eurovision with Kisses and dancin '. Since 2018 she's been releasing solo singles, acted in tv-series and movies.  Below are some of her previous songs ...

  Once again the rumors were true: Austria has confirmed today Vincent Bueno as their represent in the Eurovision song contest 2020 in Rotterdam with Alive , the song that will be only revealed in March 2020. Vincent is no stranger to Eurovision having already tried the national final back in 2016 and has been lately collaborating with Nathan Trent here and there, even in Eurovision events . His breakthrough came with Musikal, Die Show! win in 2008 that lead him to various musicals. He has also a career going in Philippines it seems. He sings in English, German and in Tagalong .  Vincent (34) is of Philippine origin, married with two daughters . The number could be three but his second one sadly only lived 97 minutes. 

Amir has announced he will retire from the public eye shortly for awhile to relax, spend time with his family and of course to write new songs. He has been on the road, releasing music and gaining success and winning awards non stop since his Eurovision 2016 success. Recently he won again La chanson de l'année aka Song of the year 2019 award for his Longtemps .  But before vanishing he has released a bilingual   בואי נלך with Israeli Moshe Peretz.... This is not Amir's first collaboration with Israeli artists, check out also Comme les oiseaux with Ishay Ribo.

HoloMe collaborates with singer and songwriter, Amir and his record label Warner Music France, to produce a never-seen-before augmented reality (AR) music video. Using an app exclusively developed by HoloMe for Warner Music France, Amir’s latest music video 5 minutes avec toi  has been released in AR using HoloMe’s AR technology. Amir serenades his fans in the revolutionary music video in the form of a hologram. This is the first-ever human hologram music video to be released by an artist; taking artist interaction with fans to a whole new level. Users are able to record themselves dueting and dancing with Amir by their sides as he performs the song. HoloMe has developed an app which is available for download on Android and iOS devices with AR compatibility, in order for Amir’s fans all over the world to gain access to the unique AR music video. Amir has said: “I’ve always been fascinated by innovation, music and tech. Thanks to Holome’s incredible technology and Warner Musi...

Malta has revealed its entry for Eurovision 2019 in Tel Aviv by X Factor winner Michela Pace (18) and it's called Chameleon - no, not the Ira Losco song she won with in 2016 before they changed it into some random Walk on water . Michela is good but loses this blogger once the chorus hits in - I have always found that kind of sounds irritating and this is no excption. Maybe I'm just old, I don't know. But the video is rather fab featuring all trends what comes to interior design this season: exotic flowers and parrots, palm trees and other animals. And a lot of flowers everywhere! Spot on in that department, looks like a shoot for some department store's spring/summer catalogue. And I know a thing or two about those!

The love of you're the only one has turnd sour in three years and this time Sergey Lazarev presents Scream , written by Dimitris Kontopoulos and Philipp Kirkorov, with lyrics by Sarah Vaugh. Fokas Evangelinos will take of the staging. Moscow Symphony Orchestra is heavily featured in the track. What an anti-climax after all this wait.....

Serhat continues with shameless disco pop with his second Eurovision adventure for San Marino. Say na na na is even catchier than I didn't know in 2016. The video drops at midnight.

As rumored already for weeks it was confirmed last night: Sergey Lazarev is returning to Eurovision song contest. Apparently he's back with his dream team Philipp Kirkorov, Dimitris Kontopoulos and Fokas Evagelinos. The song will be released tomorrow afternoon..... Sergey placed a bitter third in 2016 after winning the televote in the epic Russia Vs. Ukraine battle messed up by Australia.

After playing with the social media (San Marino is bcoming a real master in that game!) and fans speculating wild and getting the media write about them all over Europe (even Finland) thanks to Human Ken doll Rodrigo Alves and some Russian wannabe among others they announced Turkish Serhat will come back again and represent the county in its 10th participation. Now we all can say in unison: I didn't know . The song for 2019 will be made public in February.  Between 2016 and 2019 Serhat has scored a #25 hit on Billboard Dance chart in the US with re-released of his entry featuring Martha Wash, and dueted with Eurovision winner Helena Paparizou.

Douwe Bob is one of the artists I've been following since he slowed down Eurovision in 2016. Judging his resent interviews he's had a rough ride since including too many parties, alcohol and becoming a not so nice a person. Add breaking up with his girlfriend and alcohol abusing dad in a care center and that got him sitting on his sofa in a boat - he's Dutch after all - for months until he realized music is his savior and he better shake himself out of that misery. Thus The Shape I'm In .  If you liked his previous album Fool bar you are going to like this one, too. This blogger isn't a big fan of country pop/rock but for some reason Douwe hits the right spots and this new album is something I listen with pleasure over and over again. The lead single is Shine , and also I do has been released for promotion, a duet with Jacqueline Govaert. Twelve songs in all and they all could be next singles, but I took instant liking to Consider , Make believe and Running ...

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. 

Måns Z continues to release singles that are nice but not extraordinary. Good effort though... Lordi does what Lordi does best: poppy hard rock with questionabe lyrics Marija does what Marija does best: Balkan ballad Jamala continues on her own path delivering some wings this time.  Mind you there are other versions:  Deep House remix , Disco remix , live

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...

Congratulations to Eurovision 2016 winner Jamala who gave birth to a baby boy yesterday. The little prince is named Emir-Rahman. But no Eurovision without babies: this year's baby onboard is by German Michael Schulte. His girlfriend is expecting a baby girl. Congratulations as well! And lets not forget also Eurovision winner 2015 Måns Zelmerlöw is expecting a baby from his girlfriend.