Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

Here comes the last set of hits from the Finnish airwaves this summer for now. YLE might be keeping an ear for possible #UMK2019 and Eurovision song contest entrants. Or possibly not.... Ilta is a new Finnish-German artist, who started at the top being the featured artist in megastar Cheek's #1 Sillat . Another featuring followed with some Adele covers before she released her first solo effort Koukkuun that went streaming gold. Let's see if she can make it and battle out off the shadows to spotlight among all these new up and coming female artists.... If Antti Tuisku is the male #1 in most everyone's wish list, Jenni Vartiainen is a true wet dream. When YLE announced they go internal again in 2019 media and chatrooms shouted out for Jenni in unison. She' working on her 4th album at the moment (all previous ones have sold multiplatinum). Meanwhile she has released alresdy four singles off it, this Väärään suuntaan was a radioplay #1, and her latest Voulez...

The oldest OGAE fans organized contest, OGAE Song contest has come to its 30th edition this year and is doing better than ever. Wolrdclass acts like Adele, Delta Goodrem, Mariza and Enya battling it out along with Eurovision stars Anna Vissi, Dina Garipova, Sirusho, Amir, Kati Wolf, Eva Boto, Marija Serifovic, Lena Philipsson, Daniel Kajmakoski, Helena Paparizou and Softengine and all the others the local clubs have chosen to represent themselves. A total of 28 great songs to choose from - what would be a better past time? You can listen to all the entries here and have a look at the voting here .  The past few years the victories have all went to same nations: United Kingdom (2009, 2010, 2011), Spain (2013, 2016) and France (2014, 2015), only Italy breaking the trend in 2012. And these four countries do have the most wins ever in the contest anyways. At least the Big5 is ruling here.... One can only wish and hope Alvaro Soler would be one of the shortlisted and invited a...

Deborah Iurato won Amici two years ago but her career was maybe shadowed by the success of Dear Jack from the same edition. She debuted in Sanremo in duet with Giovanni Caccamo and they finished third earlier this year. This season the Sicilian won the most watched entertainment series in Italy, Tale e Quale show where she won the episodes imitating Adele and Aretha Franklin and generally finished always in top places proving her incredible singing talent and flexible voice. The other artists she imitated were Noemi, Anastacia , Katy Perry, Laura Pausini , Whitney Houston, Antonella Ruggiero, Lara Fabian and Beyoncé . It's been a good year 2016 for Deborah - how about making 2017 even better by winning Sanremo and going to Kyiv?

Another year has passed and it's time to look back who managed to score a #1 hit in the official Finnish charts.... Once again the chart is dominated by foreign DJs and Finnish rappers and most every act has "feat." in it. But hey, one Eurovision entry is one of the biggest hits of the year: Vicky Rosti's Sata salamaa covered by Antti Tuisku in Vain elämää series. Also another cover from that series made it to number one: VilleGalle and Sanni doing Pave Maijanen's classic Lähtisitkö . And another Eurovision link is UMK host Roope Salminen having one of the summer hits.  Only 18 songs made it, and Finnish ones beat the foreign ones 10-8 :-) Check all their videos after the jump.... Oops, I forgot there are 53 weeks in 2015! This one's the new number one 53/2015:

Adele has been dominating all the possible charts all over the globe but there's one country where she is beaten: Italy. Marco Mengoni's new album Le cose che non ho , part two of the project that saw the release of multiplatinum selling (over 100.000)  Parole in circolo earlier this year sold over 60.000 in its first week beating Adele's 25 clearly, she sold "only" 46.000 and has already dropped to number 3 as also Coldplay beats her. Another Eurovision star Emma is already dropping from #2 to #5 in it ssecond week in the charts but has sold 25.000 and certified gold already....  Yesterday he performed the smash hit Ti ho voluto bene veramente in Che tempo che fa, watch here . At 20 mins on he performs also Guerriero/Esseri umani . And there's Luciana Littizzetto! The video has been already viewed over 16 million times and the album includes a song written by Sia for him, Rock bottom .

Compromise. Not a pretty word. That's what BBC is doing. Add OGAE and you will end up a total mess. Ask YLE. Finland involved OGAE members and various juries in the selection and ended sending Edea in 1998 leaving Jari Sillanpää home and his song is an evergreen today while Edea? Or the song.... And again in 2000 Nina Åström won without being anyone's favorite and is today a totally forgotten one while Anna Eriksson  wnet on to win OGAE Second chance and is totday a megastar and what to say about  Nightwish ? A true missed chance.  So, good luck BBC and prepaire for the worst. Ok anyways, the procedure is that 45 OGAE UK members divided in five groups of nine will each review 60 song and pick up their personal top-5. Actually this might be the saving aspect of this method. As a smaller group of persons hear only a smaller group of songs. Then each groups top-5 is sent forward so there will be 25 most likely heavily compromised and melodifestivalized songs to dea...

Goodbye to yesterday, goodbye to holidays and the break. I'm back. Fresh and regenerated I hope. It's been a long break, the longest I ever had since starting this blog so many years ago. I have been a bit around, met friends, been checking out Globen for next year, crashed Elina Born & Stig Rästa's promo event (Sorry for that again and thanks for being so gracious!). Been to Turku, Stockholm, Tartu, Tallinn, Milan among other places....  sadly no San Marino or Rimini this summer, or Valentina Monetta's gig in a hot summer night over drinks.... It's the begining of a new season, Stockholm 2016 one and any song released after tomorrow could become an Eurovision entry..... It's time to put it all in the box of memories and start anew. With a great mash up of beforementioned Elina &Stig's entry mashed up with likes of Kelly Clarkson, Pink, Adele, Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth. Enjoy! Eurovision 2016 Globen style, here we come!

Another fantastic stripped down version of an iconic pop song comes from Amos Lee. He did Like a virgin for Grey's Anatomy and it surely fits in the mood when Cristina Yang is dealing with her past and future. Amos is a Philadelphia born singer-songwriter who has opened concerts for Norah Jones, Bob Dylan, Adele and Elvis Costello, just to name a few. His fourth album Mission Bell debuted at #1 in the Billboard Top-200. His voice has been described as "honeyed voice – light amber, mildly sweet, a touch of grain" (New York Times), " folksy, bluesy vibe, with a bit of country twang" (ABC News). On the other hand he has been also dismissed as male Norah Jones. No matter what they say, his version of Like a virgin gives the song a completely new meaning and depth you never thought it had at first place. Check out the original here .

It's 25 years since Celine Dion won Eurovision with Ne partez pas sans moi . Since then she's been having due different careers in French and in English; different productions, songs and even style, I'd say. Occasionally, but very rarely those two meet. This ads to the fact she was also a child star and when Eurovision came it was a bit of an ultimatum and deal breaker; or she wins or it's over.... She won, walked into Berlitz school of languages in Quebec and the rest is history as they. Over 200 million albums sold worldwide speak louder than she sings.  She's has just released her 11th studio album in English, Loved me back to life , the first one in six years. As usual for a global star of her caliber it's filled with collaborations (duets with Stevie Wonder and Ne-Yo to start with) and songs picked from the finest in the industry. The first single is the title track Loved me back to life , and other songs like Somebody loves somebody , and Water and a...

Bonnie Tyler has revealed she was asked back in 1983 to represent UK in the Eurovision. But she was having a worldwide success with Total eclipse of the hear t and was too busy in the USA where the song also topped the charts for four weeks to do it. Wrong timing. But now she proud and honored to do it and believes Believe in me has the right title and ingredients to do well. "I'm still having success in Europe. I expect some votes from Germany, France and Scandinavia to start with. I hope I can win it, at least I'm gonna give my best shot!" She is known for her leather outfits but for the Eurovision we won't be seeing leather pants, Welch designer Julien MacDonald will take care of that. Bonnie admits being a fan of reality shows like X Factor and also follows Eurovision. "I watched Eurovision last year from my place in Portugal. I think Engelbert had a bad night. I don’t think the song was the best for him. It didn’t have any oomph. " She counts...

Nina Zilli beats Adele and wins OGAE Song contest 2012 for Italy with her Sanremo song Per sempre , the song that was also maybe ment to be her Eurovision 2012 entry. So, Nina Zilli follows Mietta & Minghi, Laura Pausini and Alexia and taken the fourth win for Italy. And this was actually  her second try, in 2010 her L'Uomo che amava le donne came 7th. Here are all the Italian entries so far. And here you can follow the voting. And here you can have a look at all entries Nina beat.

The German Eurovision 2012 entrant Roman Lob has released his debut album Changes . A total of 13 tracks, including obviously Standing still (album version). It may be a hard task to follow Lena's footsteps Roman who looks forward for Baku experience with curiosity - and hopes to have some time off to go to the beach, too. He names before mentioned Lena and Lordi as his Eurovision favorites and tells his staging will be simple and fairly straight forward. He fell in love with his entry Standing still , written by Jamie Cullum, the first time he heard it. The song's about a couple who unfortunately split up and the guy has to come to terms with the fact the woman has left him.  This blogger thinks this is one of the most underrated entries this year and is a wonderful little tune that has something special from the first notes that make me always think about Adele for some reason.  Stay tuned for a Roman Lob competition coming up!

The 2012 season just got a bit weirder when BBC announced the nearly 76-year-old Engelbert Humperdinck will be their entrant in Baku 2012. Martin Terefe who has worked with Mary J. Blige has written the song with Sasha Skarbek who has worked with Adele, Lana Del Rey and James Blunt amongst others. Engelbert himself has a career going on for 45 years now, has sold over 150 million records, has received 63 gold and 24 platinum records, has won a Golden Globe and has stars on both Hollywood Walk of Fame and Las Vegas Walk of Fame. Now beat that! Who knows, maybe it's a goodie? And shame Lys Assia isn't going for Switzerland - they would have had a nostalgic small talk together!

Now this must be a rather historic affair in the chart history: Adele keeps the top-2 but now Rolling in the deep moves to #1 - in its 41st week! - and Someone like you drops to #2. She's still #1 in the albums and Set fire to the rain is at #11. And right behind her Chisu in both singles and albums.

Finland has gone Adele crazy as Someone like you climbs to #1 again in its 14th week in top-40.And that's not all! Rolling in deep climbs to #2 in its 40th week! And even that's not enough: her album 21 stys at #1 in its 50th week. Chisu is runner up to her in both albums and singles.

Vuosi vaihtuu (Year changes) hit the number one spot as expected and Lord Est gets another hit. Adele takes the lead in the album charts.... and has three singles in the top-20!

UK took its third win in a row in this year's OGAE Song contest when Adele scored high most everywhere with Someone like you . Italy's run of runner up places continues here when Modà's La notte scores second place before Spain's Malu and Blanco y negro . France, Andorra, Finland and Germany secure the western European leadership on the scoreboard. I'm very pleased with Kaija Koo's good solid 6th place with Vapaa . Re sults: 1. Someone like you - Adele (United Kingdom) 189 2. La notte - Modà (Italy) 146 3. Blanco y negro - Malù (Spain) 127 4. Je veux - Zaz (France) 117 5. Males experiences - Rocio Rivas (Andorra) 107 6. Vapaa - Kaija Koo (Finland) 99 7. Nackt - Jay Khan (Germany) 87 8. Den' bez tebya - Nu Virgos (Russia) 77 9. Klista ta stomata - Antonis Remos (Greece) 72 10. You'll be mine -The Pierces (Rest of the world/USA) 70 11. Mistakes - Brian Mcfadden (Ireland) 61 12. Perje - Milan Stankovic (Serbia) 46 13. vVorbij - Udo (Belgium) ...