Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

Italy took its well deserved third victory - finally! - at the Eurovision song contest 2021. Over the years several other Italian entries would have been worthy winners. In this series I will go through all of them from the worst ranking to the win ners. Sergio Endrigo (1933-2005) won Sanremo 1968 with Canzone per te (with Roberto Carlos ) but went to Eurovision with Marianne . He placed only 10th out of 17, but for example the runner up Cliff Richard made his own version of Marianne a bit later.  Endrigo surely left his mark in the Italian (and Latin America) music business with songs like Io che amo solo te and beforementioned Canzone per te and his songs are still today often covered by other big names. He did nine Sanremos, placing first, second and third among others, recorded 23 studio albums and countless compilations, over 70 singles and one soundtrack and starred in a couple of films. And talking about films, Luis Bacalov wins Oscar for Il Postino soundtrack and there's...

Grand Théatre Luxembourg hosted the 18th Eurovision song contest and Luxembourg managed to score its second win a row. Cliff Richard from UK was beaten again with his Power to all our friends , this time he was left 3rd as even Spain's Mocedades passed him with Eres tù and went on to score a worldwide hit. It was a close call however, the top 3 was within six points (129, 125, 123). Israel debuted - with heavy security and rumour is Ilanit sung with a protective vest under her dress.... Once again 17 countries took part when Austria withdraw, and so did Malta having again initially intended to participate and perform as number six. As said Cliff Richard returned for UK, as did Marion Rung for Finland and scored one place better this time, 6th. That would remain Finland's best showing for the next 33 years! (And still is the second best....). Italy's Massimo Ranieri's showing dropped from 5th (1971) to 13th.... That year's drama was provided by Ireland. Thei...

Royal Albert Hall in London hosted the 13th Eurovision song contest on April 6, 1968. That year Eurovision was broadcasted in color for the very first time! Strangely there were no new countries debuting, no countries withdrawing nor returning.  Spanish Massiel ended winning with La la la . There have been talk about vote rigging ever since. Spanish dictator Franco would have bought votes all over Europe and thus finished above UK's own Cliff Richard by one vote. One should remember also that Massiel was not to sing the song originally but Joan Manuel Serrat . He insisted on singing it in Catalan, and was replaced by Franco's regime.  After winning Massiel released the song in four languages, and quite a few cover versions were made in other languages. She continued her career until mid 1990's and have done some occasional recordings even after her retirement announcement in 1996, like this remake of La la la As said, Cliff Richard came second with evergreen Congra...

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...