Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

Ha ha! I was just remembering the other day the horrendous vodka bottle Dima Koldun's gave out in Helsinki 2007 when talking about the promo material. And here it was, in Gina Dirawi's pre-show on right now. Right here . Besides that bottle Christer Björkman, Emmelie De Forest, Robin Stjernberg, Linda Martin and Ryan Dolan made an appearance. Ryan's brought the 50 closest family members and friends along. Talk about an entourage! And Emil Ramsauer. "Extremely interesting!" he said with the wisdom of his 95 years. And then the oldest Eurovision fan, a lady at 103. Her first ESC was in 1960. "Schweden leiben mich! Ja ja. Then Edward af Sillén, Eurovision's George Clooney made an appearance live directly from  Malmö Arena. The songs with Swedish songwriters were also presented, and they are of course Azerbaijan, Georgia, Russia, Finland, Norway and the Netherlands. Linda Martin performed a rather interesting gipsy version of Euphoria, and...

Always trust Belarus for the promotional items and stuff. (I still have the kitchiest thing ever, hidden in the back corner of my wardrobe hidden from the world: Dima Koldun's vodka bottle!) Here's a sample of what they have come up this year. Better than the song? Cha cha cha!

So, the Belarusian final is over and we have a winner tonight. Alena Lanskaya won it again, time will tell if she gets to Malmö 2013. (Sorry if I'm a bit sceptical, but....). Is Belarusian Kylie what Europe wants? Anyways her Rhythm of love will be a fan favourite for sure and come in abbout a zillion remixes most likely.  The show itself was ok, but were some acts play-back? And the applause at parts? Many songs were ruined anyways by the Eurrovision curse: bad English. The performances mostly were nice, and they had put some effort in them and some were even rather effective, like Satsura, Nuteki and Alena. In the end I was still for Alex and surprisingly Satsura. His macho Rammstein-ish performance might have done well in Malmö 2013, me thinks!  Vitaly Voronko, Max Lorens, Yankey Beaver Band, Daria, Alexei Gross Uzari , Nuteki , Satsura But somehow the best songs were by the previous winners Alexandra & Konstantin, Gunesh and Dima Koldun!  S...

Remember Koldun? He worked his magic in Helsinki 2007 and gained the best placing for Belarus to date. He has released his second album  Ночной пилот (Night pilot) earlier this year and has just released a fourth single off it,  Облака-бродяги that follows  Ничего ,  Корабли and title track  Ночной пилот . Nice pop music from this Lady Di lookalike. 

Belarus is planning big for their Eurofest final. There are only five names left to represant Belarus in Baku 2012 - Alena Lanskaya, Gunesh, Viktoria Aleshko, Litesound and Uzari - but the guest list is impressive: Eurovision 1956 winner Lys Assia , 2004 winner Ruslana , 2007 winner Marija Serifovic , 2009 winner Alexander Rybak , 2010 winner Lena and 2011 winners Ell/Nikki along with Koldun , Belarus best placed artist so far (6th in Helsinki 2007), fan favourite Sakis Rouvas and Switzerland's this year's represant Sinplus . The Eurofest final will be held next week, February 14, 2012.

Dima Koldun worked his magic in Helsinki 2007 scoring Belarus its best result so far, sixth. He was so hot in his native Belarus after that and winning the local Star Factory the year before that various producers were fighting to produce his debut album, amongst them Philipp Kirkorov, Viktor Drobysh and Alexander Lunev that eventually got the job. That collaboration ended soon enough when Viktor refused to consider including Dima's self penned songs on the album... The album came out finally in September 2009 and I bought it in Vilnius for some 4 euros last week. It's a decent album including his original Eurovision entry Angel mechti , a new version of Work your magic in Russian, Dai me silu 2009 and a couple of pop songs in English, I surrender and Somebody's loving you . As bonus tracks two dance versions of  Nastroysya na menya and Ya lyublyu tebya . Unfortunately the album does not include his fabulous single Tsarevna ! Since then he has released excellent single...

Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko hopes his country will win the next Eurovision song contest to be held in Baku, Azerbaijan in May 2012. He believes the Azerbaijan's success and next year's hosting will open the way to the first and long awaited win for Belarus. So he states in the congratulation message to the Azerbaijan president Ilham Aliyev.  Lukashenko has been in the lead of Belarus since 1994. Under Lukashenko's rule, Belarus has emerged to be viewed as a state whose conduct is out of line with international laws and whose regime is considered to grossly violate human rights.Condoleezza Rice described Belarus as “the last true remaining dictatorship in the heart of Europe”. Belarus has been participating in Eurovision since 2004 with rather variable results. They have made the final only twice, in Helsinki 2007 with Dmitry Koldun's Work your magic and last year with 3-2's Butterflies . The national selection has been often questionable with changes of ...

It won't get me for sure. Rather dull and boring song I must say. Nothing special in any way. Alexey Vorobyov is no Dima - Bilan or Koldun whatever you prefer, nor Sergey Lazarev. A perfect match for a song that lacks all personality and is totally uninteresting.... But here it is.

The rumour is Belarus would send Dima Koldun again to Eurovision. He worked his magic in Helsinki 2007 and remains the best placing for Belarus ever since, 6th. He is "able and willing" to do it again and expressed his will to participate again already last year. Despite releasing fancy videos like this , this and this he really haven't made it since, it seems. And here's a teaser of Out of the blue , featuring Jacqueline, the possible entry?

A real reunion of the Eurovision artists has been on in Belarus where Slavianski Bazaar 2008 contest/festival/whatever has been taking place: Sirusho from Armenia , Pirates of the Sea from Latvia , Boaz Mauda from Israel , Mor Ve Ötesi from Turkey , Ani Lorak from Ukraine , Ruslan Alehno from Belarus and Dima Bilan from Russia were all there from Eurovision 2008. Add Dima Koldun from Belarus 2007, Ruslana from Ukraine 2004 and Kostas Martakis from Greece 2009 to the list and you have so much Eurovision goodies you feel sick. Greece 2009? Well, I think, predict and hope it's Kostas instead of Sakis next year after all... :-) Have a look what he could offer here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwDH__8IlD8 and here why he should have won already in 2008: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jPsTGYpE8I

Bulgaria entered the Eurovision family in 2005 and their two first entries didn't make it to the final but last year in Helsinki Elitsa Todorova & Stoyan Yankulov's Water made it to 6th place in semifinal and even better 5th place in the final. The stage show was impressive and in my personal opinion the stage looked the best of them all in the Bulgarian entry. Talk about a great opener for the contest, as they performed first in the semifinal! This year again Bulgaria should make it to the final easily... This time Bulgaria has made yet another different choice by sending a club anthem that includes diffferent music styles - all in 3 minutes. Favourite by many, misunderstood by some DJ, take me away will surely not pass unnoticed in Belgrade! Deep Zone Project was formed in 2000 by three musicians, DJ's and studio engineers: DJ Dian, Rossko and Luybomir Savov with Joanna. Their debut album Ela Izgei in 2002 earned them 5 MMTV Music Award nominations: Album of the y...