Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

  "Here we are back in Sweden. I know, don't blame me, I voted for Finland as well." That's how Petra Mede and Edward af Sillén the scriptwriter decided to open the 2024 Eurovision song contest in Malmö. Just gotta love them both. And yes, today's news is Käärijä will perform in tomorrow's second semi-final besides giving the Finnish jury's votes in Saturday's final.  Another fun moment was the Grindr joke. If there's something good in Sweden's Eurovision it's Petra and Edward. This is Petra's third time (Edward has quite a few more) as host of the show. First alone in 2013 after Loreen won and the contest was in Malmö, sounds familiar? Then she did 2016 in Stockholm with Måns Zelmerlöf and after solo, with a man she's now trying a woman, actress Malin Åkerman and it works beautifully. Petra keeps delivering those little jokes here  and there with stoned face and Malin plays the more serious role. The scandal 1 of the evening is Eri...

Let's continue the series and kill some time having a look at the last decade and see who were the Top-10 best scoring countries in the Eurovision song contest in the past ten years. The ways to calculate are many and here I have used the simple average placement method (and it's not all so serious). Number one is of course Sweden. Two wins, two bronzes and four additional top-7 finishes makes Sweden the most succesful Eurovision country in the 2010's, the only odd one out being the home entry in 2013 (14th). But let's see how long this will last; fandom isn't anymore equally mesmerized by Melodifestivalen and the Swedish entries, and certainly not the televoters in the recent years while the juries still back them up no matter what. This blogger has pretty much lost interest in Melodifestivalen the past few years to be honest, and think Sweden's been overrated for way too long. But times are changing, let's see how their 2020's will be. I persona...

New music from old familiar Eurovision voices again. Rasmussen continues with the Viking pop as his Go beyond is pretty much the same sound as his Eurovision entry. Why change it if it works and no one else dos it?  Benjamin Ingrosso goes from success to another, like her mom in the 1980's. Behave . Why am I thinking of some early Madonna? Musically and as a person: not the best of singers nor dancers he somehow makes it work... Sevak Khanagyan keeps building his Russian career.  Океан Внутри Тебя (Ocan within you) is another typical Russian pop song he wrote himself but it could be Dima Bilan's latest.  Spanish sweethearts broke up after Eurovision and their solo efforts haven't been that convincing, but here's Alfred and his De la tierra hasta Marte .

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Once upon a time we had Eric Saade and Danny Saucedo competing against each, kissing it good  and also shared girlfriend Molly Sanden - separate times thankfully!  These days we have younger version of them in Benjamin Ingrosso and Felix Sandman. Also they scored the top-2 in Melodifestivalen, became kissing good friends and are now touring Sweden together. No Molly in between them but a lot of bromance. They even released a song together, Tror du att han bryr sig . Now they both have a new song out....  Meanwhile Danny is out with a Latin flavored number Undantag that fits his Bolivian roots,  while Eric's latest offering is from last summer, Another week . 

LATVIA - LAURA RIZZOTTO - FUNNY GIRL What was I thinking? I’m just the funny girl to you Vocals **** Staging *** Song ** Overall *** Non qualifier SWEDEN - BENJAMIN INGROSSO - DANCE YOU OFF Just wanna da da dance you off So, don’t you da da dare wait up Vocals *** Staging **** Song *** Overall *** Qualifier MONTENEGRO - VANJA RADOVANOVIC - INJE Me and life - like dog and cat The heart the most treasured pet Vocals *** Staging ** Song ** Overall ** Non qualifier SLOVENIA - LEA SIRK - HVALA, NE! Hvala, ne, ne! Hvala, ne Hvala, ne, ne Hvala, hvala, ne Vocals **** Staging **** Song *** Overall *** Borderline qualifier UKRAINE - MÉLOVIN - UNDER THE LADDER (Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh, yeah) (Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh, yeah) Vocals **** Staging **** Song **** Overall **** Qualifier

Hungary - AWS - Viszlát Nyár Hungary is in the league of their own this year, and the staging is pretty much what was expected. You like it or you don't. The singer uses both bridge and the catwalk to run around barefoot and scream away his song with an energy of a little village. The guitarist crowd-surfs. This is heavy rock'n roll baby! Keep moshing. This is yelling its way to the final. Blue and golden lights with strobos. Pyros and smoke.  "A little dizzy visually", "Hate it or love it", "Flashy", "In your face", "Loud" Latvia - Laura Rizzotto - Funny girl Surprise! It's red. From lighting to her Victoria Secret inspired revealing dress. She stands with her microphone until she's had enough and throws the stand away. The focus on her and her vocals - described by some as powerful, the other as weak - and emotions. Interesting camera angles and tricks including her hair? After Eleni and Romania...

  Ukraine - Mélovin - Under the ladder Mélovin (21), X Factor Ukraine winner (after three unsuccesful auditions!) and last year's televoting winner in the national final for Eurovision (but placing only 3rd) took revenge this year with self composed  Under the ladder . The song is catchy and keeps building towards the burning end, he's got a gimmick in his look that makes him memorable, as is the staging. I don't remember seeing an artist start the perform mid stage ending up by the piano in the end - isn't it always the other way around? He seems also very secure on stage and the end of the performance is on fire. He will be a certain qualifier but how far he will go in the final? Hmmm ... 7/10 Czech Republic - Mikolas Josef - Lie to me Mikolas (22) is the first Czech with a real possibility. He was asked by the local tv already last year but turned down the song not feeling it suitable for him. Smart choice as now he's back with a jackpot. A sur...

Every now and then Eurovision song contest winners come back to the contest and looking back quite often it hasn't been such a good idea. A total of 14 previous winners have managed to return (and even more have tried but failed to win the national final. Latest of them is Swedish Loreen last year). In this series I have a brief look at them and how did it go..... If Dana International became the first Eurovision winner not to make the final again, it was a close call for Charlotte Perrelli. To her luck in 2008-2009 there was the jury wildcard rule or only the top-9 of the semifinalists qualified for the final and the jury chose the 10th one. In 1999 Charlotte Nilsson won Melodifestivalen with Tusen och en natt , and thanks to the new rule of free language it became Take me to your heaven in Jerusalem and she beat Iceland's Selma with 17 points taking a somewhat surprise win. Conflicts with SVT caused her to stay out of Eurovision song contest in 2000, breaking ...

Now that Benjamin Ingrosso has won Melodifestivalen, let's not forget his mother Pernilla Wahlgren, a Mello royalty who sadly hasn't managed to win it - yet. Pernilla comes from a well known family of actors, and she has won theater awards herself. Her parents are famous actors Hans Wahlgren and Christina Schollin. Her brothers Niclas and Linus are also actors. Pernilla herself started her career at 4 in television with her mom and later moved to theater and music. The ex couple was seen in public oveerjoyed for the success of their son. Those are tears of joy! She was married to Emilio Ingrosso between 1993 and 2002 and they had three children (besides recording song like Paradise , Only your heart together) : Oliver, Bianca and Benjamin. Bianca is also a wellknown celebrity via blogging and reality tv.  Pernilla also a television host, and has her own reality show Wahlgrens värld where Benjamin is part of. Obviously.  Benjamin started his musical career at 9...

  Benjamin Ingrosso has won the Swedish national selection Melodifestivalen with his Dance you off. He won both international jury vote and the televote. It was the usual Mello show but for the first time someone had to sing again because of some technical problems, that was Renaida. I also realized heer song is like any Alma song minus Alma's voice. Finnish Alma, not French. I also realized Lundvik would be veery similar to Austria's entry, so...  Jessica wasn't at her best tonight but LIamoo really seemed to enjoy his time onstage. I wasn't feeling neither Felix nor Benjamin and now that Benjamin won, I'm veery, very curious to see how it sounds live. And how they recreate that staging in Lisbon... will they drag the whole lightning system over there? Benjamin Ingrosso - Dance You Off (jury 114 + televote 67) 181 Felix Sandman - Every Single Day (94 + 64) 158 John Lundvik - My Turn (66 + 62) 128 Samir & Viktor - Shuffla (54 + 60) 114 Mari...

  Sweden has been selecting its entry for Lisbon 2018 Eurovision song contest the past five weeks around Sweden but tonight the show moves to Stockholm for its grand final. The viewing figures may have been dropping along the way as well as number of voters, and more and more international fans have woken up to the fact Mello isn't all that great it used to be. Haven't been for years now but in the end, like in all the national finals, all that matters is the one song. The one that will go to Eurovision and as Björkman and Swedes hope would continue Sweden's incredible success in the past seven years: two wins, two third places and two 5th places. And of course getting the 7th victory and thus making Ireland tremble. But do we have Eurovision winner among these entries? Most likely not, but a few that could sneak into the top-5 again. Two songs seem above the others in early polls, Jessica and Benjamin, but Jessica seems to have lost some of it's popularity along...

  Oh dear. What can I say I haven't said before? If I thought last year some Mello semi did the rock bottom and was the worst ever, forget it. Because this one beat them all. I'm talking about the songs, not the show. In from ear and out from the other leaving no trace whatsover. If I have to save one it's John Lundvik. Benjamin Ingrosso's song isn't much to talk about either but thumps up for his stage show that reminded nicely of his mom's Piccadilly Circus back in 1985 - at least for the leather jackets and showing some skin between shoulder shakes. Then again, John brings back memories of Celine Dion's jacket back in 1988.... Is 80's back in fashion? This said, I'd love Sweden went nuts and sent something like Edward Blom just to see if the Eiroboys still backed Sweden unconditionally in some common euphoria.... :-) To the final: John Lundvik - My turn Benjamin Ingrosso - Dance you off To the Second chance: Renaida - All th...

Gaia Gozzi is the latest Italian X Factor runner up. She's half Brazilian so no wonder her song Fotogramas is sung in Portuguese/English and is filled with sunshine! Bloody from Albania delivers Me ty and it's not short of the tropical rhythms in the charts this summer. Great track! Mahmut Orhan from Turkey comes every summer with a hit. This year it's Save me , featuring Eneli in vocals. And the video is filled with awesome sceneries from Turkey just like the good old days Eurovision preview videos..... Benjamin Ingrosso is making mama Pernilla proud with his latest, Do you think about me? A laid back groovy song that feels like the one after summer, after summer fling......

Melodifestivalen continues tonight with the second semifinal. As always two will make the final, two wil make the andra chansen and three will say adjö to Eurovision dreams and rush to the charts. Or so they hope. Mariette returns and even if I never was a fan of hers she sounds pretty good! Then we move from Pontare's mysstic sounds to Etzia's very Swedish rhythms, you know. Sweden is in the Caribian tropics for all I know. Some useless hiphop follows with some androgyneus poprock that was born old. Then enters Lisa Ajax with a lot of f*cks all over the place. Finally Pernilla's son and a relative to Swedish House Mafia offers some anonymous pop. All this said this is an improvement from last weeks all time low.  Semifinal 2: 11 February, Malmö Mariette – A million years -> FINAL Roger Pontare – Himmel och hav Etzia – Up Allyawan – Vart haru varit Dismissed – Hearts align -> Andra chansen Lisa Ajax – I don’t give a - > Andra chansen Benjamin ...