Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

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. Umberto Tozzi (69) won Sanremo 1987 with Gianni Morandi and Enrico Ruggeri with Si puó dare di piú , co-written by Raf or Raffaele Riefoli. Morandi had already done Eurovision and Ruggeri would do it later so Tozzi took along Raf (in the beginning of his career spelled Raff) with another song they wrote together, Gente di mare . It also marked Raf's debut singing in Italian. They placed 3rd out of 22. Umberto Tozzi is one of the most selling Italian artists abroad in the 1970's/1980's with songs like Gloria , Ti amo , Tu , Stella stai . Laura Branigan made both Ti amo and Gloria global hist in English. Over 80 million records sold he's still active today. Four Sanremos with that one victory, 17 studio albums and 60 s...

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 winners. Enrico Ruggeri (64) took his second Sanremo win with Mistero , the first and only rock song to win Sanremo until Måneskin. His first one was in 1987 in Trio Morandi-Ruggeri-Tozzi wherefrom Umberto Tozzi went on to Eurovision with Raf instead. However he didn't bring Mistero but Europe inspired Sole d'Europa but Europe wasn't shining too much love on him and he placed 12th out of 25. Ruggeri is one of the Big names and has been around in music business since early 1970's, first in I Decibel band with whom he does his first Sanremo in 1980. After 22 studio albums and over 50 singles he's also writer, tv and radio host and the president of Italian artists football club. After this presence Italy stayed home for three y...

While the Eurovision 2019 season is heating up with the pre-parties let's have a look and listen of previous Eurovision stars or wannabes efforts. Enjoy! Twin Twin is dubbing it away with Dub life featuring Hindi Zahra. There's something hypnotic in this video and reggae rhythms... Enrico Ruggeri rocks it away in his latest Come lacrime nella pioggia , off his latest album Alma , released last month. It's already his 28th studio album.... Janice Mangion may have not won the Maltese ticket to Eurovision (yet) but it's always nice to hear someone sing in Maltese like this her new song  Xewqti (My wish).  David Civera is still active and having the Spanish beats and sounds alive. Mundo diverso adds some fashionable reggaeton and Latin sounds to the mix. 

Tonight's the duets night and there are so many guest stars you don't know where to start but we have among them Eurovision veterans Ermal Meta, Fabrizio Moro and Enricco Ruggeri. And one wonders where is Francesco Gabbani, missing already two years?! The only non dueting star in competition is rocker Luciano Ligabue. All 24 songs will be performed again, as duets and propably different arrangement. Last night the festival finally found its rhythm and it was a lot more pleasant to watch despite many intervals, as they were better and rather entertaining. Mostly. Ornella Vanoni Vs. Virginia Raffaele is already a tv history. The tribute to Mia Martini was also very welcome and the other guests did a good job but the viewing figures are a bit down: 46,7% or 9,4 million.  Achille Lauro - Morgan *1/2 Anna Tatangelo - Syria ** Arisa - Tony Hadley and i Kataklò ** Boomdabash - Rocco Hunt and i Musici Cantori di Milano *** 1/2 Daniele Silvestri -...

  Wind Music Awards is the annual Italian affair where music industry awards the best selling artists of the past season. Broadcasted live from Arena di Verona, the Roman amphitheatre build in the first century, in Rai1 on June 5 and 6. Carlo Conti and Vanessa Incontrada are hosting as Eurovision veterans Francesco Gabbani, ( Occidentali's Karma 4x platinum, Magellano  album gold) Il Volo (platinum album and tour) , Emma (Adesso tour) , Raphael Gualazzi, (Love life peace album gold) Massimo Ranieri, (live shows) Enrico Ruggeri   (with Decibel a speacil award for an album from the past) and Umberto Tozzi (special award FIMI)  get up on stage to perform and pick up awards either for their resent sales or other awards for their live performances etc. The two night affair really has the best of Italian music gathered in one place as the other artists present are Ligabue, J-Ax, Fedez, i Pooh, Giorgia, Renato Zero, Ermal Meta, Zucchero, Alessandra Amoroso, ...

Two weeks to go for the announcements of the Sanremo artists, and finding out who are the Newcomers finalists. The rumour mill is running wild as always and some new names have entered the speculation in the past days.  Ermal Meta could finally move among the Big ones after ebing in Newcomers last year (and twice before with various bands), Sanremo winner and Eurovision veteran Enrico Ruggeri is named again as a possible one, Al Bano really wants to celebrate his 50th anniversary of his first big success in Sanremo, Francesco Renga and  Renzo Rubino could be back, too. Some names that have been missing for some time could reappear invited by Carlo Conti: Syria, Paolo Vallesi, Mietta, Mariella Nava, Marco Masini, Jalisse, Ricchi e Poveri, Zarrillo, Ron, New Trolls, Paola Turci, Annalisa Mnetti, Dirotta su Cuba, Nomadi .... The duo that comes up every year is back this year, too: Anna Tatangelo & Gigi D'Alessio . Another possible duos might be Elodie & Fabr...

Fausto Leali releases his first album in seven years and this time it's fashionable duets album. The lead single is A chi mi dice , originally adapted in Italian by Tiziano Ferro for Blue , originally Breathe easy . Leali belts it out with legendary Mina (last public concert in 1978, but has released dozens of top selling albums since, 1-2 per year generally), the only lady on the album while other duets are with Eurovision veterans Enrico Ruggeri and Umberto Tozzi , and Spandau Ballet's Tony Hadley , just to name a few.  Two years ago he released an autobiography Notti piene di stelle (Nights filled with stars) that celebrated his 50th anniversary in the business. The story continues now.....

Sanremo number 66 has started and Carlo Conti can have a long sigh of relief. The viewing figures are out and the festival scored an average of 11,135.000 viewers and 49,98% share! That equals last year's first night even though there a bit fewer watchers (11,767.000) but better share (49,34%) The first part of the show was watched in average by 12,515.000 (49,2%) while the second part by 5,906.000 (52,30%). The most watched act was duo Caccamo & Iurato with 15,580.000 viewers followed by Dear Jack and Arisa with over 14 million, Noemi. Fragola and Stadio with over 13 million. Bluvertigo and Ruggeri scored over 12 million while Hunt got just a bit over 10 and last Fornaciari less than 10 million but then Hunt and Fornaciari were the last two to perform late late...... The show was also marked by the fight for the equal rights, even if no one mentioned it aloud. The Rainbow stripes were part of the performance of five artists (Noemi, Arisa, Ruggeri, Bluvertigo, Fornaciar...

The Sanremo 2016 festival is already the 66th Festival della canzone Italiana This year there are two real veterans: Enrico Ruggeri participates for the 10th time (since 1980) and Patty Pravo for the 9th time (since 1970) Nine out of 20 Big participants have participated in the X Factor or Amici reality shows searching for new talents: Deborah Iurato (Amici 2013-14 winner), Francesca Michielin (XF winner 2011), Valerio Scanu , Noemi , Dear Jack , Alessio Bernabei , Lorenzo Fragola (XF winner 2014), Annalisa , Giovanni Caccamo . No one from The Voice is there but at least lat year's winner Fabio Curto submitted a song (see below) Alessio Bernabei competes against his ex-band Dear Jack , but it's not the first time a similar duel happens: In 2002 we had Franceso Renga against his ex-band Timoria, and in 20015 Antonella Ruggiero against Matia Bazar Quite a few artists have made public their submission and not being taken to the festival. Scialpi and Marco...

Sanremo's 65th festival comes to and end tonight, or rather early hours of Sunday. We already have two winners as Nek won the Covers night, and Giovanni Caccamo the newcomers aka Nuove Proposte last night. he also picked both special awards given by the critics named after Mia Martini, and the press, named after Lucio Dalla. Four artists with their songs didn't make it to the final: both Eurovision veterans Lara Fabian and Raf, comic duo Biggio e Mandelli and quite surprisingly Anna Tatangelo, whose song was Eurovision worthy me thinks.  The previous nights votes (see below a graphic how the 16 finalists were chosen) will be zeroed so the race starts again. There is once aain the voting threesome: 40% televote, 30% expert jury and 30% demoscopic jury. After the first round there will be another round, once again the votes will be zeroed before that with the top-3. Several guest stars tonight: Gianna Nannini (she was supposed to be with Massimo Ranieri (ESC 1971, 1973) ...

An interesting twist in the Sanremo 2015 preparations! It seems Carlo Conti is aiming to have some foreign singers in the Big category as well, singing in Italian of course but being equal competitors like all the others. That way they could in theory also end up representing Italy in the Eurovision.... This wouldn't be the first time though, as we can remember for example 15-year-old Mexican Luis Miguel who came 2nd in 1985 with Noi, ragazzi di oggi and is today a Latin superstar. We can't also forget Argentinian Lola Ponce who won with Giò di Tonno Sanremo 2008 with Colpo di fulmine . And what about a certain Paolo Meneguzzi ? Or Raquel Del Rosario with Luca Barbarossa in 2011? Also in the old days the songs were often performed in two versions; one Italian and one foreign and the system was shortly readapted in the 1990's.... As for the other news emerging these days we have the possible co-hostesses Ambra Angiolini and Vanessa Incontrada as well as new names i...

Umberto Tozzi was already a worldwide star when entering Sanremo for the first time as a part of the supertrio with Gianni Morandi and Enrico Ruggeri in 1987 with Si puó dare di piú . They won, of course. Apparently Enrico Ruggeri and Umberto Tozzi were supposed to go to Eurovision after that (Morandi already having done that before) but when Ruggeri said no, Tozzi took Raf along and they scored a respectable third place in Bruxelles with evergreen Gente di mare and refreshed his international career that had made him a million seller with songs like Ti amo , Gloria and Tu . He returned to Sanremo in 1991 with Gli altri siamo noi (4th) and again in 2000 with Un'altra vita (16th). His last participation to date is 2005, when Le parole failed to reach the final..... Tozzi has released 18 sudio albums since his debut in 1976, several compilations and live albums. His latest albums are Yesterday, today (2012), Non solo live (2009) and compilation Yesterday - the best of 197...