Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

The national broadcasting network in Bosnia & Herzegovina is close to collapse, states EBU in a statement that you can read here . This network includes BHRT, that has been responsable for the country's Eurovision song contest participations. In this light it's very unlikely we will see Bosnia & Herzegovina in Sweden 2016. Shame.  The country has been last seen on Eurovision stage back in 2012, when Maya Sar placed 18th. They debuted back in 1993 with the legendary voting call from the war zone and we finally heard "This is Sarajevo calling" to a spontaneous applause in the arena. They also survived every semifinal and were always present in the final scoring six top-10 places and 3rd at best, with Hari Mata Hari's Lejla in 2006. After a shaky start they gave us some great entries the lst few years. You can check them all below...

The Balcan region is early this year with their Eurovision artists and now Rambo Amadeus (Montenegro), Kaliopi (FYR Macedonia) and Zeljko Joksimovic (Serbia) get company from Maya Sar from Bosnia & Herzegovina. She's no stranger to Eurovision as she has been backing singer already twice, most recently this year with Dino Merlin. She has also toured with Toni Cetinski. She got her first solo hit with Nespretno all over Balcans and is yet to release her debut album.

Bosnia-Herzegovina selected internally one of the best songs of the season, Dino Merlin's Love in rewind . But in Austria they did have a national selection and pretty good it was, too, to mark country's welcome return to Eurovision. Nadine Beiler's The secret is love charmed many and sailed to the final and we were all happy for them. Another good choice might have been Paris, Paris by Klimmstein ft. Joe Sumner. It may have been labelled as novelty act but it is a fun song, a bit like L'amour à la Francaise in Helsinki 2007. And the fact Sting's son Joe Sumner was doing most of the singing would have created a media buzz. Besides, they have one of the best videos of the season!

The first semifinal countries have finished their technical rehearsals and we go on with the second semifinal and first is of course Bosnia-Herzegovina . And it's a perfect start, all looks and sounds great. The back screen looks pretty in red velvet that turns into the children's carousel and some hearts every now wand then. They have further polished their act dropping more of the weird steps and stuff and it sure does look like a winner. All is fine. If there will be a close run and several countries in the running for victory like in 2003 this will be one of them. And may end up doing Turkey at the last vote.  Austria follows with another strong contender. The Austrian Mireille Mathieu surely can fill the arena with her voice and carry this tune that may not be the greatest to the final just by the power of it. Beautiful. Austria is back with a bang and in final. From one great voice to another when the Netherlands take the stage. They are wearing their mafia suits to the...

They have tuned down the jumping and waving but otherwise it's quite similar to the performance we knew already. And with that, folks, this sounds and looks like a winner! I never had doubts this wouldn't be a top-3 material but time will tell how close the run will be in the voting and in the end it could be just that we are all off to Sarajevo next year. But this said, it's way too early to say such things. Dino sings well as expected, the song is catchy and the backing group does a solid job. The background is a children's carousel, going in rewind of course! Great job! Here are the videos: Escdaily , AKOE , Official

Keith Mills, the Eurovision guru from All kinds of everything predicts Finland a top-5 placing along with United Kingdom, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Estonia and France! If you don't believe me watch yourself here .

It's 34 days to go for the Eurovision 2011 final and fans are doing their lists, the betting odds are flying but all this will turn around once the rehearsals kick in - who will shine and who will ruin it all with some insane staging? Anyways, my current top-10 is as follows. Meaning the songs I like the most and listen the most, not the songs I predict to make it to the top-10.... Some of them will stay in my list for sure but some will propably drop out and be replaced by something else in the next four weeks... 1. Hungary - Kati Wolf - What about my dreams? 2. United KIngdom - Blue - I can 3. Bosnia-Herzegovina - Dino Merlin - Love in rewind 4. Israel - Dana International - Ding dong 5. Finland - Paradise Oskar - Da da dam 6. Latvia - Musiqq - Angel in disguise 7. Italy - Raphael Gualazzi - Madness of love 8. Sweden - Eric Saade - Popular 9. Azerbaijan -Eldar & Nigar - Running scared 10. San Marino - Senit - Stand by

Bosnia-Herzegovina - Dino Merlin - Love in rewind ***** When I heard this for the first time I thought this is it, a possible winner. But Bosnia hasn't managed to win yet even if they have had some great songs. Could it be this time they have got it right: not too weird, not too ethnic but the right ingredients to be liked by everybody even if not the one that takes a lot of 12s but many 10s and 8s, enough to take it home in the end? Dino is a charismatic performer and there's enough of sing-a-long and a touch of weirdness to make this memorable. And he is wellknown in the Balcans to secure votes from all the neighbours - and don't talk about voting blocks this time when it is well deserved (just like Serbia 2007). It could just be so in the end. Qualifier: Sure . Russia - Alexej Vorobjov - Get you ** Such a let down from Russia. This is propably the worst Russian entry since... well, last year excluding, 1995. The song's like a Melodifestivalen reject and Alexej is n...

Thank you Dino! Thank you Bosnia-Herzegovina! You have restored my faith in Eurovision for today at least. Adter 15 rather mediocre entries chosen this year so far here comes Love in rewind that I cannot help but listen and rewind all over again. Great track! At this point I say Sarajevo 2012 but let's wait and see....  We have songs from Bulgaria coming up tomorrow, Lithuania on Thursday, Austria and Turkey on Friday and then Moldova, Serbia, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia and Ukraine on Saturday, Slovenia and FYR Macedonia on Sunday! You can click the ESC 2011 logo on right hand side on top to listen to all selected songs so far. 

Tonight the Bosnia-Herzegovina's entry will be presented in a show that besides Dino features last year's Vukasin Brajic and Italy's "no-longer-the-last-Italian-entry" Jalisse. Dino will also sing other songs and duets, one of the with Beatrice and their 1999 entry I putnici . The show starts at 21.00 CET. If the show goes like last year the Bosnian version will be first heard and then the English version. UPDATE: Love in rewind it is. And I like it! 

Remember the Bosnia-Herzegovinan entry 1999 Starac i more by Hari Mata Hari that was disqualified because the song had been released by Finnish Janne Hurme as Sydänveri already in 1998? Apparently they didn't know about that - nor did Finns unless Janne Hurme fans - so one can't blame them. Anyways, it might have been a very lucky strike to them as second placed Dino was sent to Jerusalem instead with Beatrice and I putnici scoring an excellent 7th place. Hari Mata Hari got his chance, with much better song Lejla in 2006 scoring Bosnia-Herzegovina's best placing so far, 3rd. And now in 2011 Dino is coming back. Can he outdo 1999? Or Hari Mata Hari? I hope he brings something like this duet with Supermen with Zeljko Joksimovic, who wrote Lejla . But I like his other songs, too, like this . Or this . Dino's song for 2011 will be published on February 20, 2011.

Dino Merlin returns in Eurovision and this blogger thinks it's quite fabulous. He already did 1999 with Beatrice and fantastic I putnici and has dueted with Zeljko Joksimovic in fabulous Supermen . At 48 he is a real superman in the region himself and this looks very promising for Bosnia-Herzegovina! Me likes! The song will be premiered on February 20, 2011.