Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

While the rehearsals for the grand final are going on in Vienna let's have a look at those ten who didn't make it to the end. In my personal order of preference. Latvia being the one I am most sad about.... Portugal ended its run of five consecutive finals Azerbaijan NQ'ed for the 4th in a row Switzerland NQ'ed after a win and a null points from the televote the year after. Georgia NQ's for the second year in a row Overall they have qualified only once in the past 10 years! Armenia NQ'd for the first time in 5 years San Marino NQ'ed for the 4th in 5 years Senhit NQ'd for the 2nd time Estonia NQ'd for the first time in 5 years and after last year's 3rd place Montenegro has qualifed only twice before: 2014 and 2015 Luxemburg NQ'd for the first time. Both ever and after its comeback in 2024.  Whichever way you want to count it. 

What can I say? Not much judging these short videos. But I say a few words anyways by the first impression that can be very misleading anyways. Moldova is a bit let down, not at all so powerful and energetic as I expected. Vocals seem to be off, too. Sweden . Same as Moldova. Which makes me think these vids are on purpose a mess. Croatia seems very busy and a bit too serious and angry. I have said before and I repeat myself: angry women don't do well in Eurovision . Greece .... Oh well, looks rather chaotic and his voice a bit weak. But then again it's a rehearsal. Need to see the whole package but doesn't look like a winner despite all. This said my favorite performance of them all is the Greek national final preview with only one hanging mic. That was fab and let Akylas show all his charm. Now he disappears into his visuals.  Portugal stands out with the pretty staging, calm song and good voices. They're so sailing to the final! Georgia was on my list to qualify b...

  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! 20. DENMARK -  SøREN TORPEGAARD LUND - FøR VI GÅR HJEM     46 21. POLAND - ALICJA - PRAY    46 22. GEORGIA - BZIKEBI - ON REPLAY   45 23. CZECHIA - DANIEL ZIZKA - CROSSROADS    45 With this set of songs we have settled out finalists as Czechia is the highest scoring song not to make it to the final. Our nn qualifiers from the first semi-final are San Marino, Croatia, Serbia, Belgium and Lithuania, and from the se...

    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.  Croatia - Lelek - Andromeda ** We have had similar entries in Eurovision before from Latvia and Poland with variable results. Great vocals and harmonies, good melody... but I am a bit tired of these. I would like to like this a lot more than I actually do. Right now I have it in final at the bottom five but we'll see.  Finland - Linda Lampenius x Pete Parkkonen - Liekinheitin ***** I guess I have said all already in previous posts about them and UMK. Seeing them #1 in the odds with a huge margin week after week is quite incredible. I guess I just sit back and enjoy the ride. Itäs going t...

It's no secret I'm not a big fan of Junior Eurovision but one song, one winner has left an everlasting mark in my books: Georgia's 2008 JESC winner Bzikebi with their Bzzz. It's just what I think Jesc should be: fun, a bit silly, childish and age appropriate. I don't know what they have been up to in between but last month they re-appeared in Jesc 2025 that was held in Tbilisi as interval act. And from that the step to Vienna was short! They have been interbally chosen by GPB. Their entry On replay was published March 11, 2026: The trio is made of Giorgi Shiolashvili ( გიორგი შიოლაშვილი), Mariam Kikuashvili ( მარიამ კიკუაშვილი) and Mariam Tatulashvili ( მარიამ თათულაშვილი). Back then they were all 10, now 27. Their entry for Vienna 2026 will be revealed later. Meanwhile enjoy some Bzzz 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.  Let's start with the bottom-4. Common to these four was no one really liked them that much for various reason be it monotony, poor vocals, annoying sound and lyrics or simply not feeling that resulted with many very low votes that left them in the bottom of the list this year.  34. CROATIA 36 Croatia's votes went from 1 to 7 with several 2s and 3s as well.  35. GEORGIA 35 Georgia scored between several 2s and one odd 7 as max. 36. LATVIA 35 Latvia scored between 2 and 6 with quite a few 3s.  37...

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 sixth part! SWITZERLAND -Zoë Më - Voyage This is one of those songs that haven't yet quite clicked with me. I have a feeling I should like this a lot more than I do right now. It's in theory just my cup of tea but something... I don't know. I get some Carla Bruni vibes (that are positive) but....

Last but not least Georgia finally revealed its card for Eurovision song contest: It's Mariam Shengelia with Freedom. Her name might be the second best kept secret of the season. Not. And surprise: Despite the name the first two minutes of the song is in Georgian! And somehow the act and look and staging recalls their first ever entry Visionary dream in Helsinki 2007! Mariam (22) is another artist that has gone by The Voice and The X Factor before Eurovision stage called her. She was chosen internally among the 18 submissions and the entry is  heavily fueled with Georgian culture and tradition. Apparently Eurovision has been her goal in life and career all along. It was about to happen already back in 2020 when she was supposed to be the backing singer for Georgian entry before the contest was cancelled. But now she's no longer a backing singer but the star in the spotlight.  She's also singing in group Mixtura.  Enjoy some of her other songs below:

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...

Already a week has gone by and today the rest of second semi-final acts conclude their 20 minutes rehearsals and next for them are already the dress rehearsals on Monday! How time flies! SAN MARINO GEORGIA BELGIUM ESTONIA ISRAEL NORWAY NETHERLANDS Photos from eurovision.tv as usual

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! 32. SPAIN  3,63 33. ARMENIA  3,25 34. ICELAND  3,25 35. GEORGIA  3,25 36. GREECE  3,00 37. MOLDOVA  3,00

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. Today we concluded the second semi-finals 30 minutes first technical rehearsal and there isn't much to say at this point. All looks good. Georgia went all fire as expected and also continued the girlie pop with male dancers, apparently these guys do not get bare chested by the end. Also Israeöl has dancers and most importantly both Israel and Latvia have a huge circle on stage! And not only. The circle motive seems to be dominant also in the backdrop of Georgia.  LATVIA SAN MARINO GEORGIA BELGIUM ESTONIA ISRAEL NORWAY NETHERLANDS All photos as always from eurovision.tv

Georgian GPB announced on January 12, 2024 that Nutsa Buzaladze has been internally selected for Eurovision song contest 2024 and at the same time launched an open call for song. They received around 300 submissions and March 11, 2024 they announced the song is Firefighter, written by Darko Dimitrov. This is his 13th Eurovision entry - for 4th country after several entreis for North Macedonia and Serbia, and one for Albania previously.  Nutsa (27) is a Georgian singer-songwriter born in Tbilisi but grew up in Turkey. She's been performing since she was 5, and learned piano since she was 8. Later she has lived also in Los Angeles and in Dubai. Her pop singer career started in Georgia's got talent in 2011, continued in Jurnala's New Wave festival in Latvia 2014 representing Georgia. Other talent shows followed like The Voice of Turkey (coached by Eurovision veteran Hadise), Two Stars Georgia, Georgian Your face sounds familiar and Dancing with stars. in 2017 she came 2nd in...

Here we are again. I took a risk combining my prediction and want list and it didn't pay off in the first semi-final as I scored 8/10. The semi-finals are quite different this year one featuring all the bangers and crazy stuff along with polls/odds favorites while the second one is a bit boring string of rather underwhelming songs. But I want to take some risks here, too, and see how it ends. Let's go: Denmark is a big question mark. Not my cup of tea but could it make it? For now I say OUT Armenia is interesting and quite original and I like it. Not sure about the dance break she seems to have just like Israel....  Anyways Armenia is IN Romania is OUT Estonia is a bit like Denmark, a real question mark. But I think I want to say OUT Belgium sticks out after those songs and should be IN Cyprus  is also IN helped by the Greek and Australian vote Iceland is a bit Pippi Longstocking gone wild and most likely OUT Greece is yet another question mark. Cypriot vote won't be enou...

Here comes the photo story from the Eurovision song contest 2023 Turquoise carpet from sunny Liverpool! I must say this was the best carpet event ever in sense of presenting the artists well and each getting their moment to shine. In previous years they have nearly missed some while showing the crowds and already passed artists taking selfies with fans and giving interviews. That was now kept in minimum and the focus was nearly 100% on only those artists entering the carpet. Well done BBC! POLAND ALBANIA AUSTRALIA AUSTRIA CYPRUS GEORGIA GREECE