Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

The allocation draw has taken place in Buta Palace in Baku. And they are really dragging on "the show". And I sincerely hope these two aren't the hosts for the main events come May! And for sure we did hear Running scared a few times... on the other hand, who has heard it since last May? The Azeris seem to have also major problems with certain flags! Strangely Armenian one is ok though. :-) But the touristic spots of Azerbaijan are beautiful, maybe they are showing it all now as in May the available slots are rather limited these days. And the comments by the youngters on twitter make an old fart like me laugh aloud. How limited the youth of today is? Really??!! I'm ashamed of you.... Total ignorance, zero pantience and respect for other cultures.... And for your information: there's no "audience"; they are the delegations from the 43 countries having a meeting... But now we are having Ruslana on stage (2 hrs to the show). And Aysel. And Alexander Ryb...

The Danish are determined to do well and win Eurovision after a string of top placings. So there are changes in the selection procedure next Saturday January 21, 2012. A jury will be added and it will count 50% of the final result. And part of the jury is made of international Eurovision stars including the winners Ell/Nikki from Azerbaijan and Alexander Rybak from Norway. Azeri Aysel , German Roger Cicero and Russian Alexej Vorobjev is added for further flavour with other music professionals. Will this bring the trophy back to Denmark? Nine songs are in the running after one disqualification, amongst them Finnish Emilia :-)

Rumours. AySel who with Arash took Azerbaijan to the third place in Eurovision 2009 with Always could be the Eurovision 2012 hostess? Time will tell but she has recently released a new song called Tonight . That follows Sen , Don't let the morning come , Yanaram ( Fallin ) and Azerbaycan . The album that was announced to be released in 2010 seems to be still in the works..... maybe she needs the hosting boost to release it?

  Aysel and Arash sung Always for Azerbaijan in 2009 reaching 3rd place. Now the song gets a Neapoletan treatment by Luca De Vivo and Teresa Langella. Amami cosi here . What is rather curious - or simply Neapoletan? - that the video names as writers L.De Vivo, P.Maisto and P.De Chiara!? What happened to the original writing team? Everything's different in Naples....

How would you feel if you were interrogated for your simple vote in a song contest and accused of putting in danger the national security? Absurd as it seems it has happened in Azerbaijan! Some folks seem to forget its just a simple song contest and politics should be left out (even if Putin did go and meet the Azeri artists in Moscow as pictured above) . Even Turkey, Greece and Cyprus vote each other these days but further east things aren't so simple with the new comers it seems. Armenia debuted in 2006 and Azerbaijan 2008. "Rovshan Nasirli, a young Eurovision fan living in the Azerbaijani capital Baku, says he was summoned this week to the country's National Security Ministry -- to explain why he had voted for Armenia during this year's competition in May. "They wanted an explanation for why I voted for Armenia. They said it was a matter of national security,” Nasirli said. “They were trying to put psychological pressure on me, saying things like, 'You have...

Waldo's People re-enter the European Top-100 at #39. Alexander Rybak climbs to #4 and enter with his follow up at #57. Besides that six other Eurovision entries are in Top-100 this week: 04. (33) Alexander Rybak - Fairytale 39. (re) Waldo's People - Lose control 40. (new) Yohanna - Is it true? 41. (71) Hadise - Dum tek tek 50. (new) Aysel & Arash - Always 57. (new) Alexander Rybak - Funny little world 60. (new) Svetlana Loboda - Be my Valentine 66. (re) Malena Ernman - La voix 72. (new) Sinead Mulvey & Black Daisy - Et cetera

The Azerbaijani artists who will be fighting their way to the final on Thursday will be following tonight's first semifinal in commentator's boxes. Arash, who lives in Sweden will be the guest commentator for Swedish TV while AySel will do the same for Azeri TV. Hopefully they will tell all sort of interesting things and honest opinions on their fellow competitors, most of them that they have met during these past two weeks.... :-)

Azerbaijan surpassed Norway in the OGAE's precontest poll yesterday and truly shines on stage. As I have written before the song comes alive on stage and AySel and Arash make a good job with it and they seem to genuinly like performing this song. I thought previously this might be too bland and unoriginal to hit it big but it's a contender even for victory now. Especially after Saint Vladimir's blessing today. We all know were the 12s from the ex-USSR countries will go now. And I guess they deserve them. http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1BxW1Q-BPQ

Prime minister Vladimir Putin made a surprise visit to the Arena and followed the Azerbaijan rehearsal. Later he got up on stage with Svante and greeted the singers AySel and Arash before making an exit. I suspect we will be seeing more of him in coming days...

Azerbaijan is doing well in the polls and delivered on stage. A lot of fire both on stage and backscreen, good vocals and genuinly they seemed to be having a good time. If all that comes across the TV-screens... The song itself comes alive on stage. On record it's just a rip off of any Ace of Base hit from the 1990's spiced up with some exotic Azeri sounds, and in pictures they look like Al Bano & Romina Power of the southeast. Easy and adorable. One of the best on stage so far and a sure qualifier. http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=wM1hUB8frRg

Birthday time in Azeri team: Arash has his birthday on April 23 and AySel on April 25. As a little birthday gift they have a new website here. They have also visiting Moscow with a secret visit to Olimpiysky... Happy birthday to both of you!

We know the promotours have become rather common amongst the Eurovision participants the past few years. This year Jade from UK for example has been to over 20 countries doing promo - and will be in Finland next week - in the most traditional way: performing in national finals and such. In 2006 Lordi managed to mobilite its fans all over Europe through internet. Now the Azeri duo AySel and Arash are trying to get the various TV-stations to air their trailers besides the more traditional promo trips and visits. Watch the first trailer on their YouTube channel http://www.youtube.com/ayselarash

Here it is: one of the most waited ones. Azerbaijan has published its song performed by AySel and Arash, the song's writer. Etnopop as expected, very Swedish in its Europop theme, spiced up with some Azeri sounds. Summer bubblegum pop... how it will feature against Turkey in Moscow 2009? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeVECieA8J8

A ysel will sing A lways for A zerbaijan, a song written by A rash. Wikipedia says Arash is Iranian-Swedish, but he claims he is Azeri. Anyways, he has had a hit or two here and there and has written a romantic song for Aysel. I must admit I have never heard of Arash or know any of his songs.... Time to do a little YouTube study I guess...