Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

End of the year, time to wrap up some lists. I sat down, tried to get sorted out the albums I have loved, listened, admired the most in 2013... #1. No doubt about the first one: Marco Mengoni's #prontoacorrere . It played on repeat from its release to late summer. The singles L'Essenziale , Pronto a correre and Non passerai are all fabulous but I adore also Non me ne accorgo, La vita non ascolta, La valle dei re, Una parola ... in fact I like all the songs on the album! And know most of them by heart by now. My love and adoration for this album is well documented in this blog so let's move on.... #2. The second one, Rafael De Alba's debut album En s ueño maybe a late addition, but since I got it in early December I haven't stopped listening it. Also, whoever I have played it, likes it, too! Are you still asking who is he? He's the one who wrote Melissa's Point of no return and Rebecca's Let's try again for the Swiss national selecti...

Let's try again he said after giving us this / this and this . And even this . This blogger loves though this one and he has even recorded Antti Kleemola's Euroviisut entry Sun puolella to his worthcoming album. But before all that it's all about Rebecca . She sings Let's try again and it's a beautiful song with fantastic arrangements and her voice fits it perfectly. This could be off Celine Dion album, isn't it? Will he be third time lucky with her after Auryn (7th in Spain 2011) and Melissa (4th in Switzerland 2013)...

The European MTV Music award nominations are out and four names familiar from Eurovision are running for the Best European Act this time. Marco Mengoni is nominated in Italy (along with Fedez, Salmo, Emma and Max Pezzali). He already won this award in 2010. In Greece it's a battle among others between Greek Sakis Rouvas and Cypriot Mihalis Hadzigiannis while in Germany Lena is among the nominees. She won this award already in 2011. We also have Auryn in Spain against Pablo Alboran . Auryn was the runner up in the Spanish selection 2011 and Alboran was heavily tipped to do Eurovision this year....  In recent year the Eurovision stars of the past (or the near future) has often been featured also in this MTV affair proving Eurovision is up to date, at least in some cases :-) But one question comes to mind.... where's Dima Bilan ? Have Russian abandoned him? Or maybe after 7 national nominations and winning last year the Best European Act it's time to give away to oth...

We have spent the month of September with looking back the national selections and last but not least we have Spain. Once again they had a rather weird selection that surely didn't bring out the best songs nor singers, especially when you had to mix and match them together in the end. A match made in heaven never materialized this time either, when will they learn?  I never liked the winning song. Spain could do so much better. There is great music and fantastic artists and in Eurovision ... well, things could be so different! Anyways, the best offering was the boygroup Auryn - that still needed a lot of work but that could have been done - with Volver and El sol brillerà . In the end my choice is Volver . Nothing extraordinary but a rather catchy standard pop ballad by a boygroup that no one dislikes and most like at least a little. But would they have voted for it? Propably not. The sun will shine by it's writer Rafael de Alba is much better than Auryn's effort by the ...

Daniel Motiño Camúñez reports: The last show from Destino Eurovisión ended up with 1.6 million viewers and a share of 9%, it was the 4th option in a country with no more than 7 decents channels. 12 monhts ago 2.6 million viewers with a 15.2% of share watched Daniel Digés getting his ticket to Oslo. I seriously think TVE need to re-think (again) the format as nor the result neither the viewers seem satisfying. (Considering RAI got an average share of nearly 50% for the 5 Sanremo nights with the peak of over 19 million.... Ed.note ) Leaving behing the flop, Lucía came back to her house in O Inco, Galicia seized with emotions and wordless. She was received by hundreds of people, with fireworks and the Mayor screaming "We are going to Germany". Lucía is the first singer coming from Galicia representing Spain in Eurovision, but she wont be the first singing "Uouououo", aren't the opening lyrics of Que me quiten lo bailao exactly  the ones of  Algo Pe...

The endless karaoke show climaxes tonight in Spain. And finally we hear some new materail. Each of the acts that got that far perform three songs, or rather snippets of them and the jury will kick them out one by one. Unfortunately the chosen songs - 9 out of 20 preselected songs - sound rather toothless and bland mediocre but my hope it is just because of the rough making of videos published by RTVE here. But frankly I don't like any of the songs by the girls as we hear in the preview, Auryn has then two good ones, Volver and El sol brillerá . Auryn - Volver (Away), Evangeline, El sol brillerá Lucia Pérez - Abrázame, C'est la vie! It's alright!, Que me quiten lo bailao Melissa - Eos, Sueños rotos, Diamonds