Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

  Anna Oxa debuted in Sanremo 1978 with a true evergreen Un'emozione da poco with rather revolutionary look and sound for the times. She placed 2nd and would return to Sanremo another 14 times holding the record with Toto Cutugno, Al Bano, Milva and Peppino Di Capri. Should she return one more time..... She has scored two wins (1989 with Fausto Leali, and 1999) and another 2nd place (1997).

After the list of those who made it to the festival the media is announcing the ones who didn't make it this time around, among them Eurovision veterans Jalisse who were not taken for the 26th year in a row! Now that's a record to beat. But they are not alone. The list of excluded ones includes names like Mietta, Paola Turci, Syria, Dolcenera and Marcella Bella, for the zillionth time. But also names like Elettra Lamborghini, Francesca Michielin, Michele Bravi, Annalisa and Eurovision veterans Francesco Gabbani, Raf, Fausto Leali, Ricchi e Poveri, Alan Sorrenti and Albano. Add names like Eiffel 65, that would have filled the nostalgy slot nicely. Without further notes here's the list combined from various sources of names that didn't make it this year: Alan Sorrenti, Albano, Alex Wyse, Andrea Sannino, Annalisa, Antonino, Auroro Boreolo, Baby K, Beba, Bresh, Bugo, Chadia Rodriguez, Clementino, Daniele Silvestri,  Ditonellapiaga, Dolcenera, Drusilla Foer, Eiffel 65, Elett...

"After a heart attack, an ischemia, a vocal edema already defeated, I don't need only this unnecessary war, disgusting and shameful!" This is what Albano declares and announces his leaving from all social medias due to "Absurd and unacceptable daily reactions full of hate, brutality and violence against me and my loved ones" Well, after his homophobic comments, egoism, ignorance and beating up a journalist or two along the way (check the videos below).... maybe he should have had a long look at the mirror first? No further comment. Be clear: I don't support any form of cyber bullism. Sadly, in today's world being a public figure one must stand some harsh comments etc as long as people learn to behave and stop being nasty behind nicks. That's like.... never, isn't it?

One month to go before RAI and Carlo Conti will publish the list of the artists and songs for the 2015 Sanremo festival and the rumour mill running wilder than ever. Some interesting new names have emerged among the possible ones. First of all Nina Zilli who is currently one of the judges in Italy's Got Talent and has recently given final touch to her new album to be released. It would be only logical she would try to launch it with Sanremo. Amici winner Deborah Iurato is about to fight it again against Dear Jack , this time in Teatro Ariston's stage. Malika Ayane may be in the list again seeking revenge for her previous attempts when Sanremo didn't treat her as well as she deserved. Francesca Michielin is in the list as well now. Recently she has collaboratd with Alice and Franco Battiato. Then we have Tiromancino as a big maybe, as well as Sanremo newcomer's winner 2014 Rocco Hunt . As for the old glories - so fond for Carlo Conti's team in their attempt t...

Lys Assia, Stephy Tang & Therese Fu, Albano, Monica Hill.... The gossiping has been running wild in San Marino also this year but today they will reveal the real name. And other details but the song apparently isn't yet ready to be presented so we won't hear it yet. Stay tuned....

Fabio Fazio has announced today that the old legends Toto Cutugno, Albano and Ricchi e Poveri will be his guests on three nights of Sanremo festival. This comes as no surprise as the official Sanremo website has a voting to about the songs of all these artists. This has already caused some controversy in Italy as the critics wonder why these dinosaurs of the past must be dragged to the stage once again.... This blogger likes the idea. I adore Ricchi e Poveri and on the other hand I am just happy Toto and Albano are NOT in the competition!  As for the international guests only Penelope Cruz and Israeli Asaf Avidan seem to be certain at this point. The latter has had a hit with One day .

The Sanremo procedure will be mainly the usual one. First nights mixing the young ones with the big ones, one night for celebration of some kind and then the final. But let's have a better look! Tuesday February 12, 2013 Fabio Fazio will open the festival with Luciana Littizzetto next to him. All the eight newcomers will perform their songs without voting. Their songs are already online here . Seven out of the 14 Big artists will perform both of their songs (remember, they all have two songs this year!) and there will be 50-50 televote and jury (the journalists present) to choose only one song for them to go on. As always their songs will be only heard the night itself for the very first time. Wednesday February 13, 2013 the other seven Big will perform and the voting for them is the same. Four out of the eight newcomers will perform again and face the same 50-50 televote-jury. Only two of them will go on. Thursday February 14, 2013 the remaining four newcomers w...

Romina Power has released a new album, her first solo album since.... 1974! Even her latest album with ex-husband Al Bano is from 1996. The couple divorced in 1999, five years after their daughter Ylenia went missing in New Orleans in 1994. The mystery of Ylenia that still has not been solved apparently was a main factor that the lovebirds in the end lost their connection and separated. Romina still firmly believes Ylenia is alive while Al Bano has lost his hope. Al Bano and Romina Power represented Italy twice in the Eurovision song contest. First in 1976 with We live it all again and then again in 1985 with Magic oh magic and finished 7th in both occasions. In 1985 Ylenia was one of the backing singers. They won Sanremo 1984 with Ci sarà and one of their biggest hits is Felicità .  These songs have been recorded already in 1998 when Romina was planning to go on as a singer but eventually were left in the studio when she ventured to other projects; she has written several ...

Ex-Eurovision star Gianni Morandi will do a bis and host also Sanremo 2012 as he did with success in 2011. Not else is known about next year's edition so far as only recently RAI and the city of Sanremo managed to make a deal hosting the contest once again in the beforementioned city. An argument that seems to go on every year... Could you have Sanremo somewhere else but Sanremo really? Perche Sanremo è Sanremo! Sanremo 2011 was won by veteran Roberto Vecchioni followed by Modà with Emma and another veteran and Eurovision veteran as well, Albano .

Roberto Vecchioni aka Il Professore (67) or the poet wins the 61st Sanremo festival with his beautiful Chiamami ancora amore . Quite a change after the last two editions won by reality-TV stars Marco Carta (26) and Valerio Scanu (21) - a needed change to restore the credibility of the contest. He also won the critic's Mia Martini award Roberto Vecchioni released his first album in 1971 and his latest, 31st this week. He has also released 8 books so far and written songs for other artists since the 1960's. He is of Napoletan origin but grew up in Milan. He hit it big in mid 1970's with Samarcanda . In Sanremo he participated only once before as an artist, in 1973 with L'uomo che si gioca il cielo a dadi (7th) but he has written two other entries: in 1968 Sera for Gigliola Cinqueti (8th) and in 1985 A lei for Anna Oxa (7th) He won with 48% of the televotes against 40% of Arriverá by Modá and Emma. Albano came third with 12% for his Amanda è libera . The final night sco...

Not is Italy only a returnee as a country (making returns after absenses in 1983, 1987, 1997 and 2011) also its artists seem to be returning. I have no statistics but my wild guess is they have more returning artists than any other country! Domenico Modugno first entered in 1958 with Nel blú, dipinto di blú, better known as Volare . It only scored third place but later became a world hit and is the most sold and covered Eurovision song in the history. He returned next year to score another megahit Piove , better known as Ciao, ciao bambina . Only 6th. Despite all he returned for the third time in 1966 with Dio, come ti amo sung also by Gigliola Cinquett i in Sanremo. A flat zero points and last place! Italy's only null pointer.... Another Italian legend Claudio Villa also did Eurovision twice. In 1962 with Addio, addio (9th) and in 1967 with Non andare piú lontano (11th). Like with Modugno the international jurors didn't quite get them. Then came wonderful Gigliola Cinque...

esctoday.com has made a list of best selling Eurovision artists. No surprise ABBA tops the list but there are some surprises, who would have thought Nana Mouskouri at the top? But she has been extremely popular at her day. Some names are not in the top-10 like Lara Fabian who might be the 11th. Bucks Fizz might be 12th and Lulu have also sold a lot, including the single To Sir with love , that was the most sold single in the US in 1967. Then we have the outsiders Ajda Pekkan , Samira Bensaid and Albano . Ajda Pekkan is said to have sold some 50 million records but there's no official proof of that. Samira Bensaid is one of the best sellers in the Arabic world and her record sales are said to be anything between 20 to 200 million. But there's no proof either. Albano claims to have sold something like 160 million records but that most likely includes his solo mefferts and the records sold with Romina Power, so... excluded. But then we have also Ricchi e Poveri with record sal...

Back to normal. Or two categories that is but with a surprise winner. Last year's runner up in Newcomers Simone Cristicchi  takes revenge in Big and wins with Ti regaleró una rosa , followed by veteran Albano with Nel perdono and another practically unknown, Piero Mazzocchetti and his Schiavo d'amore . Paolo Meneguzzi is only 6th with his masterpiece Musica that maybe was the moral and the commercial winner of this festival. Antonella Ruggiero is there once again but scores a last place in the final (10th). Elsa Lila tries for the second time to break through in Italy in Newcomers with Il senso della vita but doesn't reach top-3 but a place in the final only. For me this is a poor and weird year and Paolo Meneguzzi deserved so much more, snobbed by the so called Jury of quality - of course!

Well, I'm not sure if Ron & Tosca's duet Vorrei incontrarti fra cent'anni would have done well in Eurovision but it's a lovely little song anyways. The craziness of the runner ups Elio e le storie tese would have been a no-no  but then we have again Giorgia scoring a respectable third place right after her victory a year before and again Ivana Spagna with Strano il mio destino and E io penso a te , both would have been perfect entries. The previous Eurovision stars didn't do so well again: Al Bano 7th, Luca Barbarossa 12th, Enrico Ruggeri 15th and Riccardo Fogli 20th.

Riccardo Fogli won the 1982 edition of Sanremo with Storie di tutti i giorni and even if he missed the chance that year he would be called in to replace the 1983 winner Tiziana Rivale and Sará quel che sará in the last minute in Eurovision. Tiziana was caught in some sort of "buying the votes" situation in Sanremo and Riccardo was already in Germany to record his new album so... or so the story goes! Albano e Romina Power were the runners up with Felicitá and considering its success abroad it would have been a good choise as well. Mia Martini didn't make the top-3 with her now evergreen E non finisce mica il cielo . I think Riccardo would have done better with this one than with Per Lucia a year later, even if I like them both. And thinking these three songs, Per Elisa, Storie di tutti i giorni and Sará quel che sará - they would have really added something different to Eurovision, don't you agree?

The 4th annual Venice Music Awards, awarded by Italian music experts were held in PalaGalileo, Lido di Venezia's music hall. Here are the winners in various categories: Albano (SIAE Award), Marco Carta (Male singer of the year), Audio 2 (Musical production of the year), Arisa (New comer from Sanremo), Michele Zarrillo (Social awareness), Dolcenera (Female artist of the year, RTL 12.5 radio award), Lelio Luttazzi (for the career) Alice (Province of Venice award), Donatella Rettore (Veneto region award), Marco Masini (Singer-songwriter). Some of the awards are rather strange but never mind, it's always nice when someone worthy gets any award, like Alice! http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=hx9Xt34g13o

Last night in Sanremo the newcomers sung their duets with the big names. After that the six Big or Artisti performed again their songs and two of them were voted back to final on Saturday night.... but how many were still up at 00.45 when the last one sung? Anyways, as it was televote no wonder the southern boys Albano and Sal Da Vinci made it to the final. Tonight in Sanremo the newcomers final.... and the Playboy playmates. Dozens of them....

The second night in Sanremo saw the elimination of Albano, Sal Da Vinci and Nicky Nikolai & co but they all will have a second chance tonight along with Afterhours. Tricarico and Iva Zanicchi to join the remaining 9 in the final on Saturday night. Otherwise the main focus last night was on the newcomers or Proposte. The average audience was again around 14 million or 47% share so RAI must be happy. Tonight besides the second chance round the duets, including Marco Masini with Lara Fabian...

Well, I don't usually want to write about negative things but this recent declaration by Albano just made me think I have to publish this: "I'm a practicing Catholic and I say only this to homosexuals: I'm not in favor of ghettos, but don't make such a show, do your things in private. I don't like gay pride demonstrations, where they parade undisguised ". And that's not all: "To someone like me inoculated against [homosexual rights demonstrations], it might seem funny, unfortunately, but if I were to see it in my little daughter it would brother me. It seems to me to be an exposition of Sodom and Gomorrah. If they question themselves thoroughly and want to be cured from this imperfection, they're doing well." No comment. Albano will participate in Sanremo 2009 and has represanted Italy in Eurovision twice.

Another Eurovision veteran is taking part in Sanremo, too. Al Bano or Albano Carrisi returns for the 12th time. He started as solo, then did several festivals with then wife Romina Power and they also did Eurovision twice (in 1976 and in 1985). Hel also backed Jane Bogaert for Switzerland in 2000. Since 1996 he has been to Sanremo as soloist again. Two years ago he took a surprise 2nd place in the final. Here are his participations: 1968 La siepe (9th) 1971 13 storia d'oggi (8th) 1982 Felicitá - with Romina (2nd) 1984 Ci sará - with Romina (1st) 1987 Nostalgia canaglia - with Romina (3rd) 1989 Cara terra mia - with Romina (3rd) 1991 Oggi sposi - with Romina (-) 1996 È la mia vita (7th) 1997 Verso il sole (14th) 1999 Ancora in volo (6th) 2007 Nel perdono (2nd) 2009 L'amore é sempre amore http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4HoYexCkA0 , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foJCSqAda-8