Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

As Mahmood has been announced as one of the co-hosts for the Sanremo 2025 fourth night this is as good as any excuse to have a some Friday night nostalgia and a closer look to his Sanremo participation history that is quite remarkable indeed. 2016 Placed 4th in Newcomer's with Dimentica  (behind certain Francesco Gabbani and Ermal Meta) 2018 Winner of Sanremo Giovani with Gioventú bruciata (won Critic's award) 2019 Winner of Sanremo with Soldi  (won awards for best performance and was voted the best by other artists) 2020 Author for Elodie's Andromeda (7th) 2021 Guest appearance           Author for Francesca Michielin & Fedez's Chiamami per nome (2nd)          Author for Noemi's Glicine (14th) 2022 Winner of Sanremo with Brividi together with Blanco          Author for Noemi's Ti amo non lo so dire (15th) 2023 Guest appearance 2024 Placed 6th with Tuta gold but had the biggest hit of the fe...

  Mahmood first tried his luck in Sanremo in 2016 placing fourth with Dimentica among the Newcomers. The ones doing better (and I say being understood easier) were certain Francesco Gabbani, and a certain Ermal Meta, and err... Chiara Dello Iacovo who we haven't heard ever since. But he did beat a certain Irama though, what a cast that year!!! This blogger loved Dimentica from the first hearing and also got very interested in Mahmood and certainly I haven't been disappointed the past few years when he's been belting out hits in steady stream and has won two Sanremo along the way, and almost won Eurovision, too. What a find!

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 winner s. Alessandro Mahmoud aka Mahmood caused quite an outcry in Italy after winning Sanremo, mostly a very racistic one. Nut Europe loved his clap clap Soldi and he missed the Eurovision victory only by 26 points, that's just a bit over 5% Duncan Laurence's winning points. This said he placed 2nd out of 41. This Egyptian-Sardinian Milan based tried his luck first at X Factor 2012 and made it all the way to the judge's houses but didn't make it until he made a comeback as a wildcard and lasted three episodes. In 2013 he released first song Falling rain and in 2016 he was in Sanremo's Newcomers with Dimentica , placing 4th with Francesco Gabbani and Ermal Meta ahead of him. He soon became a hitmaker for other artists like ...