Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

  Erika Vikman returns and is The One to Beat this year. Fandom and public has waited for her return since Cicciolina didn't win in 2020 and she's been present in UMK multiple times in a way or another  since: Opening act with Antti Tuisku in 2021 and 2024 interval act with Käärijä. Eerika started her career in tango circuit, a very popular music genre in Finland, by winning Tangojunior in 2008. More talent shows followed and she also acted in tv drama series 2009-10. The year after she starred in a musical and in 2013 tried her luck in Idols placing seventh (ahead of her UMK veteran Zuhlke and international pop star Alma btw). Her big breakthrough came however in 2016 when she won Tangomarkkinat and was crowned the Tango Queen. The year after she starred in reality  tv-series Iholla. In 2020 she dropped her tango singer image and launched the raunchy slutty pop diva with usually double sensed lyrics and humor with Cicciolina winning the televote in UMK but the juries...

The hugely successful and polar duo has left Sanremo after five years. Whoever follows them has to face a similar situation as UMK2024 artists had to do post-Käärijä. Nothing is good enough. Artic director and host Amadeus and co-host Fiorello, after celebrating Angelina Mango's victory on stage walked out of Teatro Ariston hand in hand, stepped into their Cinderella carriage with horses and drove to sunset, or as it was Sanremo final night to dawn. All that after scoring a record breaking 90,7% share in the viewing figures as nearly 9 million Italians were still clued to their tv-screens to see them off. Earlier in the evening they reached 18,259 million and 85% share at 01.56 when the Top-5 super finalists were announced. How can you beat that? And it's not only the viewing figures but his five years have also been hugely popular in charts as all those chart toppers, multi platinum selling singles prove. Mahmood winning in 2019 was a shock and a start of something new in the ...

Norway's Melodi Grand Prix 2022 went through four semi-finals where from only one act made it to the final. The we had two rounds of last chance before one more act was added to the line up. These five meet five internally chosen acts in the grand final before we finally find out the winner who gets the ticket to Turin 2022. Generally the standard has been very low, sadly low for Norway and the two favorites Subwoolfer and Elise Bay are very different. Noway has already proven during these semi-finals they often go for not the obvious so let's see what they come out with from this season.... Dance like a pink flamingo by Trollfest was the closest to the final before dropping out to Maria Mohn's Fly. My favorite to make it would have been Steffen Jacobsen's With me tonight  (Estonia is pleased!) Prior this I only partly saw and heard the first semi-final and listened the songs of the second semi-final until I lost my interest.  Oda Gondrosen - Hammer of Thor ** A musica...

A special epilogy to this series for Diodato , Sanremo 2020 winner with his Fai rumore . A song that became a symbol for hope during Covid-19 pandemic and served us the most touching performance during the cancelled Eurovision song contest 2020 celebration show. One can only wonder how well it would have done in Rotterdam...... In my books one of the very best entries from Italy. Period.  Fai rumore, or Make noise is exacrly what Italy did at Eurovision the year after and.... well, you all know how it ended!

  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 win ners. Ricchi e Poveri and Questo amore were chosen by Rai for Eurovision because... why not? They were popular and their record label was linked to Rai by ownership. Sadly their entry, that placed only 12th out of 20, is almost a forgotten one among their countless hits but for this blogger, 11 years old at the time,  it is the start of love Italian language and all things Italian and I still just love Ricchi e Poveri. The quartet of Angela, Angelo, Marina and Franco was founded in 1967, has sold over 20 million records globally and is still going strong. Marina left, or was forced to leave depending sources, in 1981 - apparently for flirting a bit too much with Angela's man -  just before the group had their biggest hit Sa...

Erika Vikman scored the biggest hit out of UMK ever with runner up Cicciolina , and managed to score even bigger hit with Syntisten pöytä and gaining support from critics as well. Now finally her debut album is out and set to hit hard the Finnish charts. A perfect retro pop with somewhat naughty lyrics and lyrics filled with funny double meanings. One can only wonder how Rotterdam 2020 would have turned out for her.... Intro + Cicciolina Aikuisten rannekkeet Pyhä Erika Ei rakkaus kulu käyttämällä Pizza Häpeä Tääl on niin kuuma (with Arttu Wiskari) Amorin siivet Syntisten pöytä

While riding high on polls and betting odds, higher than any Sammarinese entry before, Senhit's video extravaganza #FreakytriptoRotterdam continues with a homage to legendary Queens like Marie Antoinette and Elizabeth I. Here is Roi . Enjoy! While at it check out the previous videos here

Destiny , no doubt a great vocalist, Junior Eurovision winner but still very much lost with her style and musical direction. Je me casse mixes pop and electro swing, a winning combination at Eurovision as we know..... not.

Georgia's Tornike Kipiani underlines the fact that even if your song isn't the best written or produced with borderline silly poor English lyrics it feels more real and authentic that all those well studied polished and over produced ones. I want to like this. And that's a lot to achieve. 

Last year she was all about Cleopatra, this time another female legend Mata Hari. This entry is the most shameless watered down rewriting of last year's popular entry having the same sounds and effects, and it even mentions Cleopatra and that's just about all I can remember. Add the mummy murmur that is done by herself this time and awful lot of awkward posing that comes across very unnatural to her. 

Tusse took a clear victory in Melodifestivalen 2021 final winning both jury and televotes against all wishes by the usual fandom that wanted Eric Saade or most of all Dotter simple because who they are, no matter what they sing. Readers of this blog know I'm not so fond of Mello finding it very overrated and in my opinion the best song won this time. It had some realness in it, a catchy melody and hook and Tusse sung better than most. And yes, Dotter was beaten by The Mamas again by one point! Why do I find that rather amusing? Full results: 1. Tusse - Voices (jury 79 + televote 96) 175 2. Eric Saade - Every minute (69 + 49) 118 3. The Mamas - In the middle (50 + 56) 106 4. Dotter - Little Tot (57 + 48) 105 5. Clara Klingenström - Behöver inte dig idag (39 + 52) 91 6. Klara hammarström - Beat of broken hearts (43 + 36) 79 7. Danny Saucedo - Dandi dansa (39 + 35) 74 8. Charlotte Perrelli - Still young (32 + 28) 60 9. Arvingarna - Tänker inte alls gå hem (22 + 22) 44 10. Alvaro Estr...

Daði og Gagnamagnið won the Icelandic national final last year earning the ticket to Rotterdam 2020 with Think about things that went viral on internet and became quite a phenomenon. Despite that Icelandic television took their time to confirm them also for 2021 instead of staging the national final again. If Daði sung about his newborn daughter last year with his wife and friends, this year he sings about the wife and their 10 years relationship. 

Samanta Tina won the Latvian national final last year after about a zillion attempts and was internally re-selected for this year's Eurovision represent. Tonight she revealed her entry The moon is rising . Not my cup of tea. 

Today's second release comes from North Macedonia and Vasil . Like most everyone also he was confirmed for 2021 after having been internally selected for 2020. Like James Newman for UK also he brings a different side of himself to the contest this year, a boombastic ballad Here I stand .

BBC took their time but confirmed James Newman , their internal choice for Eurovision 2020, also for 2021 and today he has released his new entry, Embers . Nicely different from last year's entry, but.... well....

Bulgaria is today's 4th country to reveal their entry, and internally selected Victoria for 2020 was the one for also 2021. For the final decision and release they had a bit more adventurous idea than staging an usual multi song national final: earlier this year she released an EP A little dramatic with five new songs and the decision was between those and one earlier released song after they asked and received feedback from fans and professionals alike. Tonight she performed all of them with the rest of her entire discography in a concert on a roof top in Sofia city center. In the end it was between Growing up is getting old and Imaginary friend , she told and the first one was then the chosen one. 

Third song release today comes from Greece, and yes, it's Stefania who was internally selected last year at it again this year. And it's with delight I see the lovely revisited 80s sound so much present in most national finals makes its way to Eurovision 2021 as well. This one, too, could be straight from Flashdance soundtrack. In my book it's a good thing.

Switzerland is one of those many countries sticking to its internal choice of 2020 aka Gjon's Tears and today he has presented his internally chosen entry for Eurovision 2021: Tout l'universe . Again in French - hooray for that! and at least with the first hearing the one with the most similar song to last year's, even if a lot more uptempo and rhythmic. But it has all his trademark sounds that made him one of the favorites to win it all last year. 

Today's first release comes from Austria. Vincent Bueno was internally chosen last year and also for this 2021 edition of Eurovision song contest. This year he brings something quite different from last year's entry Alive . Amen continues this year's minor semi  gospel/religious theme.....

Uku Suviste was indeed The Lucky One and secured a win in Eesti laul 2021, where he got a wild card to the semi-finals, qualuified and took home the victory becoming 26th artist from 2020 to be present also in 2021. Sissi came second and Juri Pootsmann third.  Full results: 1. Uku Suviste (televote 12 + jury 3) 15 2. Juri Pootsmann (8 + 7) 15 3. Sissi (3 + 12) 15 4. Koit Toome (10 + 4) 14 5. Andrej Zevakin & Pluuto (4 + 10) 14 6. Katri Voorand (5 + 5) 10 7. Suured tudrukud (6 + 2) 8 8. Karl Killing (0 + 8) 8 9. redel (7 + 0) 7 10. Hans Nayna (0 + 6) 6 11. Ivo Linna & co. (2 + 0) 2 12. Egert Milder (0 + 1) 1 Super final: 1. Uku Suviste   46,1% 2. Sissi   29,4% 3. Juri Pootsmann   24,5%