Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

  This week Italian tormentoni goes tropical with Boomdabash featuring Annalisa, Elisa jojns Matilda,  Loredana Bertè joins Franco123 and finally Giuni Russo delivers the summer banger of bangers, written by Franco Battiato 40 summers ago and hit ever since every year. Boomdabash / Annalisa - Tropicana Elisa / matilda de Angelis - Litoranea Franco123 / Loredana Bertè - Mare malinconia Giuni Russo - Un'estate al mare

Last night's fourth night was a..... yes, you guessed it, a record breaking fourth night. With a share of 60,5%!!! and nearly 11,4 million viewers it is the most watched since 1995, and only third time the magic 60% has been broken. Streaming on RaiPlay has grown 90% (well, that's what you get when you lift the geoblock!), 7,4 million contacts on social medias and 4,4 million plays on demand.  But let's leave all those figures behind and concentrate on tonight's final and a few comments on last night's karaoke night.  As much as I am not a fan of that covers night last night it was rather enjoyable. Some covers were far from good, some were nice, some were prettygood. The most talked one was of course Gianni Morandi enrolling Jovanotti next to him to belt out their biggest hits. Or not quite as they started of with Morandi's Euroviison entru Occhi di ragazza, not exactly a major hit for him. The controversies aside if that was fair or not as Jovanotti is a megas...

  Amadeus seems to be aiming even higher with his third consecutive year as the Mr Sanremo. First he has changed the Newcomers and Big system by opening the door to a newcomer to win it all, something that Claudio Baglioni already did once resulting in the win of Mahmood against all odds. He is also maybe managing to bring some big guns back to Sanremo, like Elisa whose one and only participation resulted in a win (with fantastic Luce, what an Eurovision entry that would have been!) and launch of her career in Italian. Also Jovanotti could be making a comeback. Add Carmen Consoli and quite a few big names. On the other hand he's willing to bring even more young and fresh rappers etc to Teatro Ariston that will surely not please so much the purists. And that may be one of the reasons for the Newcomers/Big change as well. An artist who has streamed millions but is pretty much unknown to typical Sanremo audience is Big or not? Or even to this blogger, to be honest. Anyways, this is ju...

Portugal - Elisa - Medo de sentir When the Portuguese songs were out this was instantly one of my favourites in its studio version. Live it somehow falls flat, don't know why. I want to like this a lot more than I actually do. Always a plus for the language. But... I don't know quite what to say. I am always pleased when this plays on Spotify playlist but otherwise I hardly remember it.... Sadly only 5/10 Cyprus - Sandro - Running Another song that goes nowhere. The first 45 second are kinda interesting and the last 30 seconds but all that in between feels very long and repetitive. Sandro can't save the song that's not there. Simply not effective and interesting enough, back to studio and come up with better ideas to fix the whole thing... ah, too late now. 4/10 Malta - Destiny - All of my love Destiny is the big fan favorite person. But why they have made her look twice (or more) her age like if she was some big soul diva? She's still a teena...

After disappointing Nordic finals last night it was worth staying up for Festival da Canção and see one of my favorites Elisa win it with beautiful Medo de sentir, while for a moment it looked by other favorite I thought had no chance whatsoever taking the price, namely Filipe Sambado when he won easily the regional juries vote with his song that echoes Franco Battiato. Then the votes were transformed into Eurovision points and he got 12 from them while the televoters placed him only seventh gaining 4 points and the job was done. Fan favorite Bárbara won the televote but the juries left her fifth so the runner up with both juries or Elisa won. Good. Elisa Silva (20) is a fairly unknown singer-songwriter so far, picked up by Marta Carvalho to perform her song.  1. Elisa - Medo de sentir (jury 10 + televotes 10) 20 2. Bárbara Tinoco - Passe-partout (6 + 12) 18 3. Filipe Sambado - Gerbera amarela so sul (12 + 4) 16 4. Kady - Diz só (8 + 7) 15 5. Jimmy P...

Portugal has had a quite an Eurovision ride lately: after string of non qualifications a year off only to come back and win it for the first time in over 50 years. Then coming last at home and last year non qualification again. But RTP didn't change a thing. For Festival da Canção 2020 they again invited composers who got free hands to create the songs and pick up the artists. Two semi-finals where 16 entries became 8 for the final. There will be 50/50 televote/jury vote to determinate the winner. Festival da Canção that used to be stuck in the past has got a real make over after their win and every year some visually or musically stunning original and bold performances come up - like last year's winner Conan Osiris. This time we have Filipe Sambado. And finally an enjoyable rap by Jimmy P. Amonsgt others. Bárbara seems to be the fan favorite but I'd go for Elisa's better version of their home entry two years ago, or extravagant Filipe with a song that sounds l...

Marco Mengoni is Simba, and Elisa Nala in the remake of Disney's The Lion King in its Italian version. The version follows the success of Disney's non-animated covers of their most famous animated films, a winning concept that has won at least this blogger over ( Aladdin was fabulous!) Marco Mengoni, who celebrates his 10th anniversary in business this year has been touring Italian arenas this spring-summer with his Atlantico tour , and will continue in November. His fifth studio album Atlantico that came out last November has sold already double platinum and topped the Italian album charts with four singles released so far. Now the success continues certainly as Simba. Can you feel the love tonight?

Tonight's the final of 69th Festival della Canzone Italiana aka Sanremo. Who's going to win? The race is still very open and the revealed partial votings per night haven't but confused the matters even more. If we go for standing ovations Loredana Bertè should be the winner but she's been unlucky in Sanremo before even though this year it seems like she might do it, there's strange - but well deseerved - let's support Loredana thing going on. While the various groups may have very different preferences the winner is a compromise that must be liked by all of them, unless someone really dominates the televotes, like Ultimo or Il Volo, while press votes for Cristicchi and Mahmood... The top contenders to make the top-10 I suppose are in no particlar order Bertè, Silvestri, Ultimo, Cristicchi, Irama, Il Volo, Nek and Renga not forgetting Arisa, Mahmood, Turci and Carta/Shade. My favorites are Bertè, Mahmood and Irama. Tonight all 24 for sing again and after t...