Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

 Today one song from Sanremo's recent years I have loved the most, Il diario degli errori  that Michele bravi took to 4th place in 2017.

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. Rarely there's been such a clear pre-contest favorite than in 2017. Ever since Francesco Gabbani won Sanremo with Occidentali's karma it was The One. The video broke records in Youtube and the hype was real. So much that I remember him saying he had one day off between Sanremo and Eurovision; the rest was promotion and  gigs in Italy and sadly it was evident at the Eurovision stage; in Sanremo he was the quirky flirty himself, at Eurovision he looked tired and somewhat bored to perform the song for the 1000th time...... The uninspired staging didn't help. And Occidentali's karma dropped to sixth out of 42. A shocker. Francesco Gabbani (39) shot to the fame in Sanremo 2016 Newcomers that he won. The year after he won t...

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...

Daði Freyr Pétursson (27) was born in Reykjavik but grew up in Denmark and now lives in Berlin. He plays bass, drums and guitar, started in bands in early age and already back in 2012 was chosen the electric musician of the year. His band RetRoBot released also one album . In 2017 he tried for the first time to reach Eurovision with Is this love? (Hvað með það?) and finished second. This year he was back with his band Gagnamagnið and won. Plus became an internet phenomenon before Eurovision 2020 was cancelled. He has then announced he's not interested in taking part in 2021.... He has released one album and one EP plus a string of singles, Think about things being his seventh. He's married to Árný Fjóla Ásmundsdóttir, also in his band and the 2020 winning song is dedicated and about their newborn daughter. 

    Catharina Zühlke is the best known name for the Eurovision fandom this year in UMK. She was the runner up in 2017 with Perfect villain and in Finland made a name already back in 2013 in Idols placing fifth. She's been full time singer and musician ever since despite not really scoring a major hit yet, nor has releasede an album yet. She's given us two EPs and a string of singles like Die again ,   Imaginary me , Doing Dubai and Closer ,

Local teenage superstar aiming for post-army international career with new style.... Half Portuguese Abreu keeps flirting with Latin sounds Title track from his third album that went to #3 in charts following his success, he had the most played song of 2017 in radios with Antaudun  ... ... and this one was the most played song in radios in 2018!

Outside Eurovision bubble life continues. Francesco Gabbani is back! New album coming soon but here's the first single off it, È un'altra cosa . Enjoy!

Sanremo winner and Italy's Eurovision song contest 2017 entry Occidentali's Karma by Francesco Gabbani has passed the 200 million views mark on Youtube. It could also become the most viewed Italian video on Youtube ever as the most viewed one Pulcino Pio has 234 million views and the second Roma-Bangkok 223 million and he has reached already 3rd place. And not only, it's also by far the most watched Eurovision entry on Youtube! PS. This year's winner Netta stands at 91 million, Måns Zelmerlöw's Heroes at 30 and Loreen's Euphoria at 38 while Salvador Sobral at 17 and Jamala even less....  Another Italian act is riding high as well: Il Volo's Grande amore at 130 (making it the second most watched Eurovision Youtube ever) while Mengoni stands at 55, Francesca Michielin at 31, this year's MetaMoro at 25 and the rest far far behind.... while Alexander Rybak's Fairytale completes the top-3 of Eurovision Youtubes with 97 million views. 

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....

The beauty of Eurovision is that sometimes the competing artists become friends, start collaborating and performing together at times, and sometimes even end up in a recording studio together. Like last year's Polish Katia Mos and Finland's Norma John. The result is atmospheric Wild eyes . Enjoy!

Eurovision Class of 2017 and 2018 release follow ups to their entries. This year's UK entrant SuRie releases Taking it over and fandom seems to agree it's fab, great and fantastic. How ironic - it's like any album track from Jamala really (which in my book is a positive thing) but how come no one's getting excited about Jamala's songs? I wonder. This year's Armenian Sevak Khanagyan goes up tempo compared to his entry but his voice is very recognisable.  Зеркала aka Mirrors is a very Russian sounding pop. Last year's Belgian Blanche continues with Wrong turn the same style but less intensive and less effective. Austrian Nathan Trent teams up with J-Mox for Secrets . 

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...

Today's second leak (?) or is it just a strategy to get us all talking, searching and hunting for the video or the audiofile? Anyways, Russia's entry is out. I won't break by Julia Samoylova. This time they keep the wheelchair hidden. Sort of....   Here it is, officially now:

Australia is now taking part for the fourth time in Eurovision song contest and has been faitful for its idea of selecting artists of mixed origins, if that has been intentional - I think I read somewhere it is or at least was for the first three participations. Either way, Jessica Mauboy continues the trend. Guy Sebastian was born in Malaysia and moved to Australia with his family when he was six. His father has Malaysian Indian and Tamil blood  with a hint of Ceylonese and Portuguese. His mother is English-Portuguese and was raised in India. He later became the very first Australian Idol in 2003. Dami Im is pure South Korean. She moved to Australia when she was nine and represents the large Korean population in the country. She won X Factor Australia in 2013. Yorta Yorta art Isaiah Firebrace is a real Australian aboriginal. His father is Yorta Yorta and his mother is Gunditjmara. He won X Factor Australia 2016 and went on to Eurovision within months. Fight...

  The reigning Eurovision champion starts its search for the follow up entry at home soil in Lisbon 2018 Eurovision song contest. tonight As usual, RTP invited composers to create a song, choose a singer and tonight half of them, 13, will perform and a jury will pick up seven for the final. Actually, RTP invited 22 composers, one was chosen by Eurovision winner Saldavor Sobral (Janeiro), one got the ticket by a contest organized by a radio station (Daniela Onis, in 2nd semi) and two were chosen among the open submissions: Rita Diaz and Peter Serrado (in 2nd semi) The jury includes singers and composers, radio hosts and journalists and some familiar names: last year's winning entry's composer Luisa Sobral and Eurovision veteran Sara Tavares among others. Among artists another Eurovision veterans, Anabela and Jose Cid. Judging the snippets (click below) I'm most looking forward to Peu, Janeiro, JP, Catarina, Beatriz, Maria and Rita.... Peu Madureira – Só Por E...

Last year Russia tried to send Julia Samoylova and her wheelchair to Kyiv and long story short: she never got there. Now she's given another chance as Russia has confirmed she will be the one indeed for Lisbon. This blogger must admit I never thought this would happen, but hey, life's full of surprises. Wheelchair or not, I hope she has got a better song and learned to sing better during this year.... Just sayin'... And considering Russia and Ukraine are in the same semi, and apparently the Ukrainian law forbids broadcasting these banned artists even on television....  this isn't over yet, I suppose. And curiously Russia confirmed her as soon as the allocation draw took place.... Hmmm...

NRK released the names and songs of MGP 2018 on January 15 and among them we have Alexander Rybak (Eurovision 2009 winner), last year's JOWST is back at it, credited as the singer Alexander Walmann this time, Roxette 's Per Gessle has co-written Charla K 's song. Kjetil Mørland (ESC 2015) hs written Rebecca 's song. Stella Mwangi (ESC 2011) is another veteran re-trying. Only one song in Norwegian this time.  This blogger loves Chilean Alejandro Fuente 's Spanish language entry Tengo otra with it's beat - must be the recent Cuban influence and the beat is pure Gente De Zona . Love it! But maybe it's not the way to go, even if Norway has sent some Latin stuff before. Other ones to look out Walmann , Rybak (but I doubt this groovy number would set European wide audiences to voting frenzy.... or would it? Hmm...), Charla K and Vidar Villa .  All in all a good selection of songs a quite many potential winners :-) Alejandro Fuentes - Tengo otra ...

A total of 18 songs made it to the number one in the official Finnish singles charts in 2017;  15 of them being Finnish! But as the Finnish ones, mostly various pop rapper, shot to the top and dropped out in a week or two mostly, the foreign ones stayed on top for several weeeks and months making a total of 30 weeks! The hugely popular Vain elämää's two seasons both gave us countless radiohits but only two made it to #1 (Nikke Ankara and Cheek with a Jari Sillanpää cover) last year, one from each series. Without further a do, have a listen below.... ARTTU LINDEMAN - HUKUTAAN (Week 1) ED SHEERAN - SHAPE OF YOU (Weeks 2-6, 12-15) MIKAEL GABRIEL & ISAC ELLIOT - LIIKAA SUSSA KII (Weeks 7-8) JVG feat. ELLINOORA - SITÄ SÄÄT MITÄ TILAAT (Weeks 9-10) ANTTI TUISKU - RAHAN TAKII (Week 11) REINO NORDIN - ANTAUDUN (Weeeks 16-17) NIKKEluis f ANKARA - PETTÄVÄLLÄ JÄÄLLÄ (Week 18) LUIS FONSI  ft. DADDY YANKEE - DESPACITO (Weeks 19-23, 24-31) ANTTI TUISK...

Tune in and join in the fun. Here 1. (1) Sweden 2012 - Loreen - Euphoria (6991) 2. ( new ) Portugal 2017 - Salvador Sobral - Amar pelos dois (4433) 3. ( 4 ) Ukraine 2016 - Jamala - 1944 (3330) 4. ( 2 ) Italy 2015 - Il Volo - Grande amore (2797) 5. ( new ) Belgium 2017 - Blanche - City lights (2657) 6. ( 5 ) Turkey 2004 - Sertab Erener - Everyway that I can (2593) 7. ( 8 ) Sweden 2015 - Måns Zelmerlöw - Heroes (2539) 8. ( 7 ) Spain 2012 - Pastora Soler - Quédate conmigo (2435) 9. ( new ) Italy 2017 - Francesco Gabbani - Occidentali's Karma (2395) 10. ( 13 ) Belgium 2015 - Loic Nottet - Rhythm inside (2321)