Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

Last year it was Portugal, now it's Croatia. Namely the country I will miss a lot. HRT has made public they won't be in Copenhagen 2014 and thus joins Turkey, Andorra, Czech Republic, Monaco, Luxembourg, Morocco and Slovakia as countries that won't participate in 2014 (either). Portugal instead is apparently returning :-) Croatia joined the Eurovision family in 1993 and did very well scoring six top-10 placings between 1995 and 2001. Then the success vanished and Croatia hasn't been in the final since 2009, when they were actually picked up by jury's wildcard after finishing 13th in the semifinal.  This blogger has several big favorites among the Croatian entries like Sveta ljubav , Marija Magdalena , Everything I want, You are the only one , Romanca , Lijepa Tena , Lako je sve and Nebo , and how could we forget Neka mi ne svane or Moja stikla ? Croatia will be greatly missed in Denmark....

Italy is not participating, we all know that but like most every year some Italians have sneaked in anyways. Or artists with Italian connections at least. Thea Garrett from Malta basicly started her career in Italy two years ago with Gigi D'Alessio. The Albanian violinist Olen Cesari also got his big breakthrough in Italy back in 1993 by winning Partita doppia TV-show. Since then he has worked with most Italian big stars and lives and works in Italy. He has even arranged the strings for one Sanremo winner, Ti regaleró una rosa in 2007. Georgia has a lot of Italy in it. One of the writers, Christian Leuzzi, one of the dancers Francesca Lavecchia and the dress, by Dolce & Gabbana. Croatia's Feminnem recorded an Italian version of their song. And on top of that there are two (2) Italian accredited journalists! Two! (Eddy, is that you?)

The shower curtain look is really in this year. One could start calling it the trend as there are so many all of sudden now that also Feminnem have fallen victims of that "fashion". And hey, they are barefoot! Another trend for sure this year! On top of that they are all wearing the same color that makes them look a bit boring! Why oh why? Skip back to the three color thing! That put beside it's all very nice indeed. They sing pretty good, the song is beautiful and catchy at the same time even if the dancing gets kinda busy at one point and I still don't quite like the hearty end but maybe it will all come together on TV screen? Video .

In 2008 Aremnian Sirusho, Israeli Boaz and Serbian Jelena got togerher after Eurovision and recorded Time to pray . This time Bulgarian Miro and Croatin Feminnem made a duet before Eurovision, Mil amantes . They will be both in the second semifinal on May 27 almost back to back. I personally hope they both will qualify, let's see.

Or rather the English versions of the Swiss and the Croatian entries in Oslo 2010. Here and here ! Oh, there's more: Lako je sve in Italian and Russian . And of course Il pleur de l'or in German .

Feminnem won both the televote and the jury vote and goes to Oslo 2010 for Croatia with Lako je sve ! They already represanted Bosnia-Herzegovina with Call me in 2005 and gained 14th place.

Croatian TV has announced the names for the Dora 2010 participants. Feminnem is trying once again!  And there are many other familiar names in the line up, too! These songs were selected out of 177 sent in songs and eight of them will go to the final where they will meet another eight songs, the invited ones. - Giuliano Danic - Moja Draga - Vokalina Skupina Rivers - Bez Tebe - Martina Vrbos - Ti I Ja - Mijo Lesina - Tajna Ljubavi - Betty Belle - Ne - Doris Teur - Ti me ne Zasluzujes - Nikola Marjanovic - Ti i Muzika - Feminnem - Lako je sve - Franko Krajcar - Jobrni Je Jobrni - Klapa Iskon - Vrime Za Kraj - Teska Industrija - Nazovi Stvari Pravim Imenom - Izvodac - Sada Osjecam To - Tomislav Modric & Ansambl - Trio Tulipan - Valungari - Vol or ne vol - Drazen Zanko - Moja Ljubav Jedina - Flip Dizdar - Sunce