Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

Remember Breath easy by Blue? It was released in Italy with Italian lyrics by Tiziano Ferro and went to #1 in Italy holding that position for 8 consegutive weeks and in the Top-20 for six months! Now another Eurovision veteran Il Volo have recorded it for their Musica album. Enjoy!

Fausto Leali releases his first album in seven years and this time it's fashionable duets album. The lead single is A chi mi dice , originally adapted in Italian by Tiziano Ferro for Blue , originally Breathe easy . Leali belts it out with legendary Mina (last public concert in 1978, but has released dozens of top selling albums since, 1-2 per year generally), the only lady on the album while other duets are with Eurovision veterans Enrico Ruggeri and Umberto Tozzi , and Spandau Ballet's Tony Hadley , just to name a few.  Two years ago he released an autobiography Notti piene di stelle (Nights filled with stars) that celebrated his 50th anniversary in the business. The story continues now.....

Reigning Eurovision song contest champion and the host of the next contest in May 2016 in Stockholm Mäns Zelmerlöw bares it almost all in GT following some other Eurovision stars like Blue and Jedward ( see more here ) All for the good cause of course, prostate cancer - something this blogger can also relate having experienced it in my closest circle. Nothing to laugh about.  The annual Naked issue of GT or Gay Times features also several other celebrity men out of their designer fashion and stage or sports outfits. I guess Christmas came early to some fans when they can unwrap their most wished gift already now.... Maybe.  But it's not the first time he gets naked.... he did so when hosting the annual QX Gala some years ago. Who knows what he and Petra have in store for us in May?!

BBC has revealed more information on the selecting process for their 2016 entry for the Eurovision song contest and OGAE members have a key role (so, Brits and fans alike can only blame themselves is they don't hit success this year! Clever!) OGAE is the world's largest independant Eurovision fan club founded in Finland in 1984 (this blogger was the member no.15!). The UK branch alone has around 1.000 members while there are over 40 national clubs today.  The submission of anyone over 18 (and not 16 like in the Eurovision generic rules state) will be accepted until November 20, 2015. Then BBC will use the help of the OGAE UK to shortlist the songs. Also BASCA (The British Academy of songwriters, composers and authors) is called in to join the fun. The shortlisted demos will be then presented to a special panel that has the final say of those that will get to be the final group of songs that the puclic may choose their winner for Stockholm 2016. Hugh Goldsmith (linked to At...

Lee Ryan has entered the Celebrity Big Brother house in UK and is already been nominated for the first eviction so he might come out very quickly, too. He may want to stay longer as while he's been in his activities the night before entering the house have leaked all over the internet, a fact he might yet be unaware of! It seems the combination of Skype + horny has another victim and a video and photos of Lee having some quality time alone with his little brother in front of his laptop are all over the place ( here for example). Was he simply thinking I can. I will !?

Here again some new videos. UMK 2013 finalist Last Panda has released a new song and video, featuring... errr, panda! The girl's gone wild . It follows nicely the genre we already know and the intro feature their UMK entry.... Another link to UMK 2013 comes in POPUP 's video Ikuisuus , that features Mikael Saari . And not only, in the intro they joke that this cetain mentioned person "would be now in Malmö if he only kept his jumper".... Nice touch! This a cappella group features also beatboxer Felix Zenger . Spanish Eurovision veteram David Civera has released a new one, too. Me ha robado el corazon is a nice mix of summer dance music. Another Eurovision veteran, Blue , is back with a new song Without you . Will they manage to breathe some life into their career? Curiously the guys never feature together in this video but only separately. A nice song anyways.

Blue's Duncan James is showing his new polished muscles and inks in the cover and interview in GT. He also talks about Eurovision saying: "It was a good thing for us in Europe but a bad thing for us in the UK. We wanted to mark our tenth anniversary with something special and representing your country in the biggest music show in the world was pretty special but on the back of Eurovision we didn't even have a second single or album. It was like a big whoopie cusion that deflated. " Being GT, he also talks about sex:  “I still enjoy having sex with girls. I find women attractive. Over the years it’s been less and less relationships with girls. So I understand that saying, ‘Bi now, gay later.’ But it’s 2012 and there’s nothing wrong in being open with your sexuality." And yes, he's single again after two year relationship with a guy. Maybe Blue's most recent release Hurt lovers is inspired by that? Read the full story here . To see the pics w...

They are finally back, Blue. The new album Roulette will be released in the end of January 2013 and the first single is Hurt lovers , that's also on a German Schlussmacher movie soundtrack. The album includes collaborations with names like RedOne, Ne-Yo and Bruno Mars. Obviously it also includes their Eurovision song I can . This is band's fourth studio album and it's been ten years since the release of the previous one.

United Kingdom didn't have a national selection of any kind for the first time in history and send Blue with I can instead. It all promised well and sounded great on paper but fell flat on stage unfortunately.  Germany did have a selection where the reigning Eurovision queen sung all the songs. Uptempo and rather hypnotic Taken by a stranger won and got the home audience wild, Europe wasn't that impressed. What if she sung Push forward instead, the runner up? A ballad? Hard to say but maybe she would have been in top-10 with this one, too, but not any higher. Or?

The usual rumour mill is working also this summer. David Hasselhoff , Sasja Brouwers , System of a Down , Hari Mata Hari , Kate Ryan , Charlotte Perrelli are just some names that have been rumoured to be selected internally or planning to take part in the national selections. Falete has self candidated to represant Spain if selected internally... While Hasselhoff and System of a Down have already denayed any such plans today emerges a new rumour: Spice Girls want to reunite and represant the United Kingdom and do what the Blue boys couldn't: win. Or so thinks Geri Halliwell who accidently has a new album coming out..... When they will start talking about Dima Bilan again? Let the rumours run wild!

As an artist that is. This fall he will release his fifth album and the first after his coming out in Vanity Fair last year. The same magazine already featured him in the cover back in 2006 as "Tiziano Ferro is a lonely man", a fact that would become painfully evident in his autobiography Trent'anni e una chiaccherata con papà (Thirty years and one talk with dad) released also in 2010. He may have never been very comfortable with the fame but his is one real success story once it got going. After several refusals by producers and not being accepted for Sanremo festival 1998 and 1999 ( Quando ritornerai ) he finally gets his first single recorded and released. Xdono becomes a #1 hit in Italy and charts all over Europe and is the third most sold single in Europe in 2002. Versions in Spanish , French ,  English and Portuguese are also released. His debut album Rosso relativo sells over 400.000 copies in Italy and almost 2,5 million in the world producing other hits L...

I was watching the chart show on telly when Tinie Tempah's Written in the stars came on. I'd heard it before and kinda liked it and now I like it even more, but there was something that kept bothering me. And then it hit me! A little similarities in the video and most of all in the " oh oh oh boom " background with this . But that's not a bad thing at all. On the contrary. :-)

One gets almost emotional with a title like that! Italy back in Eurovision, and hosting a party! Che emozione!  Anyways, Raphael Gualazzi and the Italian delegation are hosting a party in Dusseldorf's Jazz Schmiede Club and of course Raphael will perform. One of the surprises is his version of Blue's UK entry I can that you can have a teaser here . Blue will be amogst the guests while the artists in the second semifinal are busy with their jury rehearsal...

So, not only the winner of Eurovision 2009 Alexander Rybak, also the winner of 2010 Lena announced Paradise Oskar is her favourite this year. Not when asked by a Finnish reporter out of courtesy but blurting it out in a press conference before no one had time to ask! Before she has expressed her teenage crush on the guys of Blue but maybe she has found a new sweetheart? :-) Her mind has been occupied with a problem as well: If she wins again how she will give the award to herself??!! Before tonight's semifinal and moment of truth you can watch a nice video of what to expect tonight  here . (eurovision.tv also features Finland in the photo for the story and also in the video's image it's the Finnish postcard.....)

The national OGAE clubs have been voting the past two months and finally all clubs have given their votes. The last ones were Malta, Germany and Albania and surprisingly Finland got votes from all of them. Or rather the only votes from them: 4 from Malta and Albania and  1 from Germany. Hungary, France, United Kingdom and Sweden were all on top most of the voting but Sweden was left behind in the end. Now let's see how the real results will turn out.... this voting hasn't been that reliable in the past years.... 1. Hungary 277 2. France  270 3. United Kingdom  253 4. Sweden 238 5. Estonia  183 6. Bosnia-Herzegovina  119 7. Azerbaijan  117 8. Denmark  56 9. Germany  50 10. Norway  43 11. Poland  34 12. Italy  28 13. Israel, Romania  27 15. Austria, Russia  26 17. Slovenia  23 18. Greece  19 19. Turkey  12 20. Switzerland, Croatia 11 22. Ireland  10 23. Finland  9 24. Belarus...

Blue and United Kingdom on stage next, this time in casual outfits giving a strong rehearsal. I'm not sure about those outfits they are supposed to wear - they looked a bit too stiff or something, this looks better in casual stuff they have been wearing when doing this song around Europe and UK the past month, why make it so serious for the big night? All looked and sounded fine to me but then it all can look so different on TV. Still my main contender for the victory. But I'm still not convinced with this new version.... Lena for Germany did a solid good performance and was vocally better today me thinks. The condom dancers are fabulous and Lena is such a little teaser and actress this will look great on telly for sure. Not a winner but a decent ending for the host country. She's wearing a all black trouser dress this time without the colorful belts and shoes, what's it going to be in the final? Spain 's Lucia has changed to her final dress it seems, pink with co...

One of the favourites next and my favourite to win, United Kingdom and Blue with I can  They have dropped the military aggressive choreography which might be a good thing as aggressiveness has never done weill in Eurovision and they have also remixed the song and it has some changes at least in the intro and even a full stop in the first part of the song that take some time to get used to. Besides that they have four LED walls on stage multipling themselves for the most part showing their faces, or them dancing, or details of the lyrics or simply the words "I can". Not as good as I expected but then this was just the first rehearsal. They still can. Here are the videos: AKOE , Escdaily , Official

Keith Mills, the Eurovision guru from All kinds of everything predicts Finland a top-5 placing along with United Kingdom, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Estonia and France! If you don't believe me watch yourself here .

Glen Vella has taken his bubbly personality to UK ESC party where she met Dana International and Nikki French amongst others and visited also Italy with a performance in Top of the Pops following Blue 's footsteps a few weeks ago. And before heading to D ü sseldorf he met his fans in Valletta signing his Cds.... Busy boy. But after all he's only got One life. ...

Some 200.000 people gathered in the main square of Kyiv to the farewell concert of Mika Newton before she heads to Düsseldorf. She had invited along Austria's Nadine Beiler , Moldova's Zdob si Zdub, Azerbaizan's Nikki and Eldar , Amaury Vassili from France and United Kingsom's Blue making this a real treat. The artists of course shared compliments and will meet again in Germany next week. Watch the artists perform in a beautiful city scenery here .