Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

Things get serious in Sanremo tongight. First of all we have the Newcomers final. After last night's voting chaos apparently Miele's staff and manager are not satisfied with the possibility to sing her song again but are asking to be in the competition. How would a final with five work out with the duels... I don't know. We will see tonight how this all works out.... In the Big category we have all the 20 on stage again. The votes from the previous nights (by 50-50 televote-Press) will be counted along with tonight's votes (televote 40%-expert jury 30%-demoscopic jury 30%) and the top-15 is safe for tomorrow. The last five will enter in another rond of televoting and one will enter tomorrow's final as 16th entry. But we will know who that is only tomorrow. Tonight's guest stars are Elisa, J.Balvin, Lost Frequencies and Enrico Brignano Also Miele will be back on stage performing her Newcomers entry, but not in the competition but as a guest. Fair e...

More guest have been announced for the coming 66th Sanemo festival. Sanremo winner 2001 Elisa will be there to present her new work and return to singing in English, No hero . Ellie Goulding will be bringing her worldwide success to Teatro Ariston as well, and Sir Elton John will grace the event his present. Let's see if he uses it to promote the ongoing demostrtions in Italy for equal rights #Svegliatitalia. .....

Italian artists who sing in English are a rarity. (The big names go for Spanish and Latin market and make wonders there from Pausni to Ramazzotti, Ferro and Nek.) Not many have made a career of it, if we don't count some dance acts. Those who did - Alexia, Spagna and Elisa come in mind - have sooner or later switched into Italian after all. Now all of sudden we have two new very interesting debuts in English. First of all Michele Bravi . He won the X Factor, got songs written by Tiziano Ferro among others for his debut album and EP. The EP was a success with #1 La vita e felicità but everything ever since went downhill and it seemed he'd be yet another forgotten winner. Now he's back with the single The Days and new album I hate music . (I suppose he means music business....:-) ) All of sudden he's very interesting..... Virginio Simonelli , another reality talent show winner (Amici). Similar story, after initial success a career that went downhill fast. His bi...

Luca Carboni released his new album Fisico & Politico earlier this year featuring duets with likes of Alice, Franco Battiato, Cesare Cremonini, Tiziano Ferro, Jovanotti, Elisa and others. He's about to start his tour and the kick off is tomorrow in Bologna's Paladozza celebrating 30 years of career. He will have special guests in this concert including Alice . It's the first time ever they perform together. He recalls he met her briefly in 1983 in a music festival He was just beginning his career but she was alredy a Star he also admired and followed. She tells she heard Carboni for the first time in radio and liked what she heard and kept eye (and ear) on the guy. Now 30 years later they finally met again thanks to Tiziano Ferro and recorded Farfallina that according Carboni symbolize the 1980's, the period Alice was one of the music queens.  The other guests that will join Carboni on stage in this occasion are Tiziano Ferro, Biagio Antonacci, Jovanotti an...

Marco Mengoni won the Italian X Factor 3 and the 7th season just concluded a couple of days ago. In the final there were four artists left; Ape Escape, Violetta Zironi, Aba and Michele Bravi and they all had to do also a duet wit a famous Italian artist. Ape Escape got together with Elisa performing her fantastic Labyrith , Violetta got Marco Mengoni on her side and they did his Eurovision entry and Sanremo winner L'Essenziale , Aba did wih Mario Biondi his Close to you while the eventual winner Michele did one of this blogger's favorite songs ever, Gocce di memoria with Giorgia . One can only hope Marco and Giorgia had a little chat about Eurovision... (well, this blogger would be happy with any of these three names for Eurovision; Elisa? Mario? Hello?) Anyways, Marco has had an incredible year and returning to where it all started from seems more than fitting. He already appeared in the season before as he was giving helping hand to Mika, one of the judges. Worth ...

I have never been a huge fan of duet albums, and/or albums with remakes of old songs, something rather typical for Italian artists but now there's coming an album I can hardly wait! It seems like a real piss-your-pants material! Luca Carboni celebrates his 30th anniversary in business with an album with a few new songs and reworked versions of his old hits with guest stars. Nothing special here, is it? But then when you look at the guests, it turns into a wet dream: Alice, Franco Battiato, Tiziano Ferro, Elisa, Cesare Cremonini, Biagio Antonacci. .. it's like a reunion of my favorite singers! Add Miguel Bosé, Jovanotti, Samuel Bersani and Fabri Fibra and that's the album I can hardly wait for! It is released October 1, 2013 and will feature these songs (click for the originals, *new tracks): Fisico e politico (Fabri Fibra)* C'è sempre una canzone* Dimentica* Persone silenziose (Tiziano Ferro) Vieni a vivere con me (Elisa) Ci vuole un fisico bestiale ...

Italy and RAI is almost certain to participate in Copenhagen 2014 and it's good to remember it's also 50 years since Denmark hosted its first Eurovision in Copenhagen, won by Italy. Could they do it again? Certainly they have a lot of singers who could cross over and appeal to European audiences. RAI, despite not confirming their participation (but that comes as no surprise as it may happen again only once EBU publishes the official list) nor have they hinted how the song and/or the singer will be selected. Similar poll was launched last year, yet the singer came from Sanremo festival as the previous year's after their comeback, and this time it was the winner of it, L'essenziale by Marco Mengoni.  This poll also underlines the problem with these online polls; it is the fans of certain singers flooding it as the top names in it are all singers from reality series Amici with strong online fanbese: Emma, Annalisa, Alessandra Amoroso, Marco Carta and yes, even Marco...

As a duet partner with Marta sui tubi on Sanremo Story night when all the Big category artists sing a song from Sanremo's past, that is. Anyways, it's great to have her back on the stage of Teatro Ariston. It's five years since hr last studio album with new songs but she's been busy in other fields, like being featured in Scooter 's remake of Ti sento in 2009.  She participated as the lead singers of Matia Bazar in Sanremo five times, winning in 1978 with ... E dirsi ciao! That opened them doors to Eurovision the year after with Raggio di luna . They won the Premio della critica twice, in 1983 with Vacanze Romane and in 1985 with Souvenir .  Antonella returned as solo artists in 1998 with Amore lontanissimo and the year after with Non ti dimentico placing 2nd both times. In 2005 she won the female category and was 3rd in overal with Echi d'infinito . Now Antonella wil sing the classic Nessuno with Marta sui tubi.  Other interesting duets and songs wi...

Ok, old news I know. Marco Mengoni emerges as the favourite to represent Italy in the 2013 Eurovision song contest in Malmö. This time the poll was organized by Eurofestival website and scored exactly half of the votes or 50%. He is followed by Stefania Germanotta aka Lady Gaga who was included in the list as a joke but she scored 18% of the votes :-) Third was surprisingly rather unknown Francesca Michielin (11%) before Noemi (8%), Dolcenera (7%), Tiziano Ferro (7%), Malika Ayane (6%), Elisa (6%), Giorgia (5%) and Laura Pausini (4%). Considering Marco Mengoni is in Sanremo 2013 there's a possibility he will be the one. On the other knowing his feelings about competitions (he is participating in Sanremo to make his granny happy!) he is mostly to say no if offered the job. That could open the door to Malika Ayane and she would follow Loreen's footsteps to bring a little bit Morocco back to the contest....

Remember the earthquake in Italy this May? 190 towns and villages suffered in six different Italian provinces; Bologna, Modena, Ferrara, Reggio Emilia, Mantova and Rovigo causing damage of 13,2 billion euros.  Today the big charity concert will be held to collect money for those in need and reconstruction of the area, especially the schools for 140.000 students who were left without proper school buildings. 150.000 tickets have been sold, eight special trains from all over Italy bring people to the venue in Reggio Emilia, SKY will broadcast the concert plus interviews with the artists on its channels and most every local radio station has united in collaboration to broadcast the concert live, too.  The gates opened at 9am and the concert is due to start at 8pm. The artists are: Biagio Antonacci, Claudio Baglioni, Elisa, Tiziano Ferro, Giorgia, Jovanotti, Ligabue, Liftiba, Fiorella Mannoia, Negramaro, Nomadi, Renato Zero and Zucchero . Unfortunately Laura Paus...