Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

If all eyes were on Russia for the Irish perfomance - earlier this week there was a rumor they weren't broadcasting Irish performance because of the dancing boys and their LGBT laws - China took us by surprise. They didn't only censor the Irish performance altogether but even bits of the Swiss performance where some rainbow flags were visible in the audience shots (they pixeled them...), but they also censored Albania, because of Eugent Bushpepa's tattoos. Same faith will be then for Italy I suppose unless Fabrizio Moro covers up his arms and hands, which he does not of course.....  Weeirdly they did show both artists when they qualified for the final - maybe that was inoffensive then? What is it all about? Read here . It's wildly bizarre, but then again don't forget Japan and their thoughts about tattoos.... Update: Mango tv is no more. EBU has terminateed th collaboration and banned them broadcasting tonight's seecond semi-final and the final. At lea...

Saara Aalto has been around forever but international debut comes in a form of Wild wild wonderland album today. The album's cover is pure 80's Stock-Aitken-Waterman! (And not only the cover...) Thirteen songs in total, including all her UMK2018 entries Monsters , Queens and Domino , as well as her UMK16 runner up No fear as a bonus track. One song has curiously Finnish title, HÄN .  After being the runner up in Talent Suomi, The Voice of Finland, twice in the national final for Eurovision and X Factor UK she was internally chosen by YLE to represent Finland this year. This is her her fifth album following Blessed with love (2011), Christmas album Enkeleitä - Angels (2011), You had my heart (2013) and Chinese language compilation album  Ai De Zhu Fu (2013). Her only sales chart appearances so far are the You had my heart 's one week at #43 in album charts, and Monsters peaking at #14 in the singles' chart and dropping to #15 the week after before vani...

Not only the spokesperson is a job for the previous Eurovision stars but some of them also end up as commentators. This year we have at least four. Freddie from last year returns for Hungary from stage to commentator box. Same goes for France as Amir is in the box wishing well and commenting the success of his friend Alma. Sebalter from Switzerland sung for the country in 2014, he was the spokesperson last year and this year he does the commentary for the Italian speaking television. And finally Måns Zelmerlöw, he has done it all: participant, winner, spokesperson, host. Now he's commenting. What next? Producing? Besodes the participating countries at least China, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, United States and Greenland are broadcasting the show. 

Il Volo hasn't really stopped since their Sanremo 2015 win and Eurovision song contest in Vienna. Last month they released their latest live album+DVD Notte magica - A tribute to the three tenors recorded live last summer in Florence. The album entered the Italian charts at #2. Next they are taking the show all over the world.  Below are the confirmed dates so far starting from New York's legendary Radio City Music Hall. Next is some concerts in Italy, followed by an European leg of the tour in April-June  (dates and venues yet to be confirmed). Then it's time for Latin America (July-August) before Australia, China and Japan later in 2017. 

SBS is in charge and it seems the very first Asian-Pacific Asiavision song contest will take place in Sydney in March 2017, just in time that the winner could possibly maybe in theory take part at the 2017 Eurovision song contest as well. This blogger thinks it's an interesting idea and won't say No right away. The original plan may have been 2018 kick off but Dami Im's 2nd place this year has caused the speed up in the process. Let's see how this will turn out.... They are hoping to get at least 12 countries taking part (out of 68 possible). Australia is set to form the reference group with China, Japan, South Korea and India. And yes, an European country could be also invited to take part at the Asiavision.... Turkey is also a member of ABU, will they make a comeback here? And so is Azerbaijan. And Kazakhstan. Associate members include France and Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Switzerland and United Kingdom.  Lots of ideas and a lot of talk. This blo...

We already knew for some time that China's Hunan TV or  湖南卫视  will be once again broadcasting Eurovision live. Last year it was only online (following delayed broadcast earlier) but this year the Chinese fans will be able to watch it live as it happens on television. Chinas has also send again a delegation to follow the contest on the spot. Hunan TV is among China's most watched channels. Today's news is the contest will be aired live for the very first time in the USA as well. It's Viacom's Logo TV doing the job. It's part of Viacom's Music and Entertainment Group that includes also VH1, MTV and Comedy Central. Logo is Unites States' LBGT cable network available in nearly 50 million homes. Eurovision will be also streamed on their website and mobile app. China and USA coming together with Europe and Australia..... that's quite a few million viewers. Can we hit 300.000.000 again?

The lights have hardly been turned off in Wiener Stadthalle and here we have news for the next edition in Sweden, most likely Stockholm. Ukraine is ready for a comeback after this year's absense, according General Diretor of NTU.  Wouldn't it be great to have one of those spectacular unforgettabe stagings again?  Turkey has stayed away already three years but rumours from Ankara tell they may have had a change of heart and return. Hopefully! And who knows we will have Australia competing again, and what about China ? Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Malta, Netherlands and of course Sweden have so far confirmed their participation in 2016.

As we all know Australia is taking part in the Eurovision 2015 in Vienna as a special guest thanks to the 60th anniversary. It has been said this is a one off situation and they are to enter again in 2016 only if they win, and will host the show in that case together with an European broadcaster - Germany being leaked and then quickly denied by both EBU and ARD that in my books only makes it more suspicious... Anyways, I would welcome these special guests in the coming years, too. One per year. For one year. We have countries like USA, Canada, several South American ones like Argentina, Mexico that would be propably interested. And then we have Eurovision crazy South Africa....  And why not China? Chinese broadcaster Hunan TV will broadcast Eurovision 2015, all three shows..... Just wondering....

It was big news a few days ago when eurovision.tv announced the the Eurovision song contest 2013 would be broadcasted in China by CCTV for all those billions of people on October 5,6 and 7. All fine here, but the Chinese fans were outraged to see that Finland's Krista Siegfrids and Marry me were censored, or rather the final of the song when she has that infamous "lesbian kiss". Read the full story on CHINAESCFANS . krista commented the incident on her Twitter: "The world keeps on censoring the "lesbian kiss" in ESC. Can't believe how much this world is living in denial" Ding dong, wake up world!

Remember Saara Aalto who was the runner up behind Paradise Oskar with her Blessed with love ?  Since then she has been busy with her career in Finland and also in Asia, mainly in China of all places. Now her latest album will be released in China titled Ai De Zhu Fu 爱的祝福 . The album includes 13 songs: 1. 前进的脚步 （Qianjin de jiaobu） 2. 宽恕 （Kuanshu） 3. My Love 4. 来呀来呀飞起来 （Laiya laiya feiqilai） 5. 你让我无助 (Ai ni rang wo wuzhu) 6. 十点 （Shi dian） 7. 爱的祝福 (Ai De Zhu Fu) 8. 受伤的心 （Shou shang de xin） 9. 我心慢慢沉 （Wo xin manman chen） 10. Out of Sight, Out of Mind 11. You Gotta Go 12. My Bird 13. Je Suis Malade The lead single is the very Bond-esque 受伤的心 （Shou shang de xin） , that is the Chinese version of You had my heart .  But she's also singing in Japanese, like in Blessed with love . She's been the runner up in Talent, Voice and Euroviisut, will she finally make it - in China? She's gaining success there also with  Out of sight, out of mind . The album releas...

Saara Aalto, who has tried her luck in several national Tv programmes including Talent 2007 (2nd), Euroviisut 2011 (2nd with Blessed with love ) and The Voice of Finland 2012 (2nd) is aiming for the Chinese and far East markets. She performed in China last November and apparently charmed the local promoters and now she's secured a gig with José Carreras there singing the Phantom of the Opera in Shanghai in May. Previous time she duetet with local star Jie Ruhan. She is currently finishing her new video You had my heart, that will be released in three versions: English, Chinese and Japanese. And guess what? It's not the first time as she already released Blessed with love in both Japanese and Chinese already! How many times a national final song has been recorded in those languages? Not many I bet. It is said her image and style fits those markets.... and indeed if you didn't know better.....

San Marino, the master of making fans talk about itself has hinted a new possibility with the usual Twitter messages and similar. The rumor is Theresa Fu (傅穎) and Stephy Tang (鄧麗欣) from the early 2000's superpopular Hong Kong based girlband Cookies are supposed to be their entrants. This is rather curious as apparently the two girls aren't in such good terms after the band's breakup. Stephy has emerged also as a writer, actress and TV personality besides her solo career after the band. As has Theresa. But what do they have to do with San Marino, or even Europe? Or Eurovision? Well, maybe it's just another wild rumor but being a rumor it's so far away and strange it could be also true? We will know in a couple of weeks.... Meanwhile we can enjoy some Chinese pop: 親朋勿友, 鄧麗欣金曲串燒 , 花吃了這女孩 , 金曲串燒 and 派對動物.

This year's Eurovision is a very international affair in many ways. Not only are 42 countries taking part with many songs written by authors from another country and the various groups on stage featuring for example dancers from countries other than they represent. Also among the featured artists we have some nice mixes; Joan Franka from the Netherlands is half Turkish, Gaitana from Ukraine is half-Congolese. Finnish Pernilla is of the Swedish speaking minority in Finland and Bulgaria's Sofi Marinova of the Romani minority. Can Bonomo is Sephardian Jew, a minority in Turkey. And we can add Albanian Rona Nishliu to that lot as well being from Kosovo. The Russian grannies represent the Udmurts, a small Finno-Ugric tribe while the Romanian Mandinga makes its own tribe by featuring artists from Cuba, Chile, Romania and who knows where else, too. Then we have singers born in Guatemala and Indonesia representing their new home countries Denmark and France, ...

Saara Aalto's Euroviisut 2011 runner up Blessed with love turns into Chinese when she belts it out as Ai de Zhu fu as part of the Santa Claus promotion in China. She's one of the Finnish artists (the others being Negative and Semmarit) that will promote Finland and the one and only real Santa Claus in 22 Chinese cities and their shopping malls. She has studied Chinese since this spring but she has studied Japanese for 8 years and says it was a big help. You can see the English/Chinese video here but the full Chinese video will be out next week.