Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

I'm so excited. Why? That being one of my favourite songs of all time what an earth had it to do with Eurovision? They just may have destroyed that song for me. I am not going to see or hear that bit ever again, that's for sure.....Borrowing the Finnish commentator the Viennese waltz bit was the best interval act so far... Enough said! The quiz show for example is horrendous waste of time.  Tonight, Bulgaria indeed was boombastic, Armenia worked surprisingly well, too. Romania in the end was a bit meh, Cyprus too. Australia indeed dated and a bit overworked, even by Delta herself vocally and in manners. Sad. Albania was touching, I may have shed almost a tear when the glasses were gone.... Luxemburg had nice visuals but the song is what it is and I think Eva Marija performed a lot better in the national final. Aidan clearly gave it all to Bella but was the national final staging better anyways? And yes, I loved the UK, France wasn't staged as well as I expected but Austria ...

  First impressions and comments based on these short clips: Bulgaria ... what can I say? I can't stand the song and the staging, the bit we got to see, isn't anything special either. If I can choose this is a NQ. Azerbaijan has more Azeri in it? Not sure as I haven't listened it so much even if I think it's an ok song. I get more irritated by many others than this one, I kinda enjoy it. And more Azeri the better. Most likely NQ but I'd love to see it Q over Bulgaria or Cyprus or something just to see the chaos. :-) Romania has an idea, energy and potential to do well unless the angry aggressive woman syndrome hits again. Then this could even NQ. Or do nothing in the final. Or do Top-10. Hard to say. Luxemburg is just what it is. Not one of my favorites. NQ for me but most likely this will Q anyways.  Czechia uses long, loooong notes and mirrors. But is it still a bit dull? I certainly lose my attention somewhere half way of those long lines.... He's good tho...

  Norway - Jonas Lovv - Ya ya ya Malta - Aidan - Bella Albania - Alis - Nân Ukraine - Leléka - Ridnym Australia - Delta Goodrem - Eclipse Denmark - Søren Torpegaard Lund - Før Vi Går Hjem   Latvia - Atvara - Ēnā Cyprus - Antigoni - Jalla

Here it is, already traditional Blogilkar's Eurovision Home Jury results. This year we had a total of nine people in the jury from teenagers to 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s, most every one just people who do watch Eurovision but aren't any fanatic fans, just tv viewers who don't remember who won two years ago or sometimes even last year, don't have a clue about the polls and odds but just score the songs to their liking. We used 1 to 10 scores. Tie breaks were settled by highest marks and if still a tie by my preference. Here we go! 24. CYPRUS - ANTIGONI - JALLA    44 25. ROMANIA - ALEXANDRA CAPITANESCU - CHOKE ME    44 26. AZERBAIJAN - JIVA - JUST GO    39 27. ARMENIA - SIMÓN - PALOMA RUMBA    38

  I wasn't planning on doing personal reviews this year either but here we go after all. Truth to be said I have listened the entries 0-2 times before sitting down now to comment them. Let's go! The usual Blogilkar's home jury will reunite later and the results revealed in due time. meanwhile, my thoughts and comments on the entries of Eurovision song contest series is right here.  Cyprus - Antigoni - Jalla ** When this was released I was "on no another of those" but now that we have all the songs this is quite alone (with Germany) in the genre. Which makes it bop up a little. But she's no Eleni nor Chanel. But these always get some points so midtable result on higher part of the right hand scoreboard can be expected.  Denmark - Søren Torpegaard Lund - Før Vi Går Hjem ** This has went to #2 in odds when writing this and it's a mystery to me. For me this song is a bit mess and the staging a better and less horny version of Olly Alexander's. He does a gr...

Here comes the season's first confirmed artist. Cyprys and CyBc has internally chosen Antigoni Buxton for Eurovision song contest 2026. She lives in London, has Cypriot parents and is best known for her participation in Love Island UK in 2022. She's also doing radio show Crazy roommates.  Update: Her entry is called Jalla and will be published on February 8, 2026. She signed her first publishing deal at the age of 14 and has since been developing her style mixing hip hop, pop and bouzuki waiting for her big break through that might just happen next spring as her dream of Eurovision becomes reality.  Her entry for Vienna 2026 will be released later. meanwhile you can enjoy some of her previous songs below:

It's the time again: Blogilkar's home jury of Eurovision fans, non-fans and common viewers from teenagers to nearly 60 years old have watched and listened giving points from 1 to 10 plus a special 12 points to be awarded to the one favorite. In case of a tie the ranking was done by highest points received by any juror(s). And yes, the result is somewhat surprising here and there. Last year our winner was NQ Czechia but the winner Switzerland was 2nd and runner up Croatia 3rd.  The uptempo fan favorites didn't quite impress us.... 30. CYPRUS  43 Cyprus scored a solid string of 4s and 5s with one odd 8 in the mix 31. DENMARK 42 Same goes for Denmark. A lot of 4s and one odd 8 in the mix 32. BELGIUM 41 Belgium got one 7 and the rest is mix from 3 to 6 33. UNITED KINGDOM 38 A mix of votes from 1 to 7 Check out places 34. - 37. here

It's time to kick of the usual reviews. The opinions are all mine and if I don't like some song it's simply just not my cup of tea so to speak. If I like something you dislike or hate, it's fine, too. No stresso, no need to be depresso it's just music and tastes that re diverse and therefor beautiful! I also try to predict their success come May a little bit but as we know once the staging is out everything may change, remember Fuego and Rise like a phoenix for example? For this series I have grouped the songs in fours as usual as the songs may have similarities or something in common. Some fours came out beautifully, the others.... well not so well. Here comes the fourth part! DENMARK - Sissal - Hallucination I see this one's got some devoted fans out there but for me this does nothing much and have this at a borderline qualifier but more as NQ as Q but that's just me. Sissal deserves better song and most of all better staging and styling and if I have unde...

 It's September 2, 2024 and we have the first artist for Eurovision song contest 2025 in Basel, Switzerland. Cyprus announced that Theo Evan will be their entrant with a song that will be released in due time. I suspect it is based on choreography rather than vocals. Update: It took over six months but his entry was finally released on March 11: Theo Evan, yet another Berklee alum (Could someone do a list of all Berklee's Eurovision stars?). He has released songs on Spotify where he has 372 monthly listeners when writing this. The most listened song The Wall has just under 29.000 streams.  Born in Nicosia, Cyprus to a wealthy Greek-Cypriot family as Evangelos Theodorou (Ευάγγελος Θεοδώρου) he started dancing and singing at 7. After studies in Nicosia's English school he moved to the US to study in Boston's Berklee Collage of Music. His first single release The Wall was released in 2021. he has also starred as an extra in popular tv-series Euphoria.  In 202 he released S...

As Eurovision is nearing its 70th edition in 2026 we still have 25 countries, more or less active or existing that have never won the contest. Some have been close already like Croatia this year placing second, as well as other runner ups Cyprus, Bulgaria, Australia, Iceland, Malta, Poland and no longer existing Serbia & Montenegro. Moldova, Romania and Bosnia & Herzegovina have reached the third place getting a taste of the podium success, too.  Then we have poor Andorra that never reached the final being close to do so in Helsinki 2007's massacre mega big semi-final of 28 entries placing 12th. Some countries are yet to reach the Top-1o in the final: San Marino, Montenegro and no longer participating Slovakia and Morocco. This said let's hope they all come back one day! While at this let's enjoy those non winning countries best placed entries to show them some support, ok? 2024 CROATIA (2.) Baby Lasagna - Rim Tim Tagi Dim 2019 NORTH MACEDONIA (7.)   Tamara Todevs...

Another year, another Home Jury. And mind you, never ever before the results have been so surprising and I must honestly admit so not in line with my own likes and dislikes but what can I do, they have spoken. We voted with scores from 1 to 10 and this year also the scores are all time low and without a runaway winner. Ties were broken by highest individual scores. This year our unprofessional, mildly interested, regular Eurovision viewers included people in their teens, 20's, 30's, 40's and 50's. Both sexes, various locations in Finland added with our exotic Peruvian member to spice things up a little. I will count down the whole ranking in coming days from bottom to the top so please do follow up and comment if you like. Let's go! Here are places 26-31. Luxemburg is our lowest grand final qualifier, the other are out for us.  26. LUXEMBURG  4,50 27. LATVIA  4,34 28. CYRPUS  4,25 29. NORWAY  4,13 30. AZERBAIJAN 4,00 31. PORTUGAL  3,75

As there isn't much to blog when rehearsals are done with closed doors (and yes, I'm all for it!)  I will just do a feature with a couple of  photos from the rehearsals as published by Ebu.  Apparently all went by smoothly and most everyone gave a polished performance of their national final show if there was one. And many dancers from Cyprus to Lithuania, Ireland, Poland and Croatia.  Today, the first day of rehearsals we had the first technical rehearsals of 30 minutes by following countries: CYPRUS SERBIA LITHUANIA IRELAND UKRAINE POLAND CROATIA Follow more on eurovision.tv