Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

Former Yogoslav Republic of Macedonia is now North Macedonia, and they're sending to Eurovision a real veteran, internally chosen Tamara Todevska with Proud . An emotional ballad dedicated to her daughter and full of girl power. 

The rest of the semi-final one acts rehearse today for the first time, including Finland. Macedonia - Eye Cue - Lost and found Macedonia takes lead from their music video and they have a drummer and three backing singers on stage, while Marija interacts with all them with or without Bojan. Fucsia minidress for her. Another close up start apparently, and another let's walk to the stairs for the finale. Judging the comments it seems they did it all right and vocally fine. Looking good for them then. Maybe. This song is musically such a mess one needs time to digest it and an average televoter doesn't have it. But isn't that dress a bit too short....? "Sultry", "Cool beats", "Great chemistry", "Unfinished", "Not instant" Croatia - Franka - Crazy Another close up start? Franka is wearing a black lace dress looking like a real diva taking a full advantage of wind machines. smoke and did we see a tear? This ...

First they were 43 as slipped away by RTP, then EBU confirmed 42 , and now it's 43 again and the curse is beaten for once and apparently Macedonia has paid its debts to EBU, or at least managed to get an agreement when and how to pay it. Thus, 2018 will match 2008 and 2011 as the record number of participating countries, 43. If only Bosnia & Herzegovina were able to take part we would have had a new record. Or if Turkey or Slovakia returned... (or Andorra, Luxembourg, Monaco or Morocco for that matter :-) ) I feel pretty much like Kaliopi at 2'30 mark....

  Only twice Eurovision song contest has managed to reach the record number of participants, 43, in 2008 and 2011. It seems every time since when 43 has been announced something has happened and it has dropped to 42. Be it Bosnia-Herzegovina wihdrawing or Romania being kicked out. This time it is Macedonia. It's pretty safe to assume Macedonia was in RTP's list of 43* they confirmed last week before EBU made public it has cut off MRT of its services including news, sports etc and of course Eurovision song contest due to a debt of 0,5-22 million euros depending on your source. This recalls the Romanian affair of 2016, only that it happens well ahead of the contest unlike then when Ovidiu Anton was already packing his bags to go to Vienna wheh he and Romania was stopped. This time Macedonia's participation in Junior Eurovision song contest 2017 goes on as planned but Eurovision 2018 itself is a no go, unless the debt is paid or solution found.  *It would be real su...

  Jana won't be dancing alone in any club if she wears that dress! It's not the one she will wear on the big night but my guess is it'll be equally non-existing in lenght. Add high boots and her slutty moves that in some strange way mix nicely to her bubbly girl-next-door looks and facial expressions. She may have been a disaster in the promo events but apparently gave a decent vocal performance. Decent but not great. The backdrop has city lights that would fit Belgium, but here they are instead with some footage from her video clip or her dancing her heart out alone.  Now this is one hard thing to predict.... In or out?

Pictured is the national flower of Macedonia, poppy Macedonia chose internally Jana Burčeska and also her song Dance alone amongst the over 100 songs submitted The curious rumour is she was to sing In too deep first, the Serbian entry but ... who knows? Anyways, the song is written by Borislav Milanov, Alex Omar, Joacim Persson and Florence A. Macedonia's aim was to have an entry of quality and dignified representation, that is modern and attractive. Time will tell if they succeeded. Jana Burčeska (23) has experience in the Macedonian Idol  in 2011. Then she went on the usual festival circuit and tried to get to Eurovision in 2012, and participated in Skopje Fest 2013 and 2015 making herself known. She's also UNICEF Ambassador. This is one of those very few entries that I got very excited first and then with further listenings it has dropped in the ranking. It has a cool 80's sound, it's catchy and joyful and you are singing along already in the second...

Jana Burčeska has been selected internally to represent Macedonia at the Eurovision song contest 2017 in Kyiv. She started her career in the Macedonian Idol back in 2011, and has participated in the Skopje Fest a few times since. Since 2014 she has also been singing in a local cult rock band Mizar. Her internally selected song will be presented later.

The Balcan rock queen has cu her hair, too. She was wearing her stage dress, black and white, and was in good spirits. As we remember after the first one she wasn't too pleased but now all seems to be fine. New graphics and new lights have improved the act a lot. No backdrop to talk about, only spotlights for Kaliopi. Looks good, sounds great. And yes there's her trademark scream in the end. Love it. I am so hoping this will qualify for the final! (I know I'm saying this to most every entry, but I like almost everyone this year :-)

Kaliopi. Who doesn't love her? She's back by public demand as she says. She will be wearing a long black dress with white back when it matters but today she was in casual. Four backing vocalists and a drummer with her on stage. Dark blue stage with spotlight on her only to start with, and then the stage lightens up eventually. Kaliopi is a fantastic live performer and could sing the shopping list convincingly if needed, especially if in Macedonian. And she puls out her famous high note as well. What's there not to love? The song may be old fashioned and all that but then, among all these manufactured and calculated acts this stands out as real and autenthic, full of passion and emotions. Real ones (take note, Australia) Kaliopi was not happy with her first rehearsal, she tells in the Meet & Greet. But she's sure everything will be fixed in time. She also has actively forgotten her 1996 Eurovision and counts only these last two ones. Then she praises the Eurovisi...

In a funny twist of fate three of the returning artists this year all competed in the 2012 edition in Baku, and all of them also made the final. Do you think they can do better than four years ago?  Kaliopi for Macedonia did the best, finishing 13th with her Crno i belo .  And this year she is giving us Dona Just one point behind was Lithuania's Donny Montell finishing 14th with Love is blind .  This year he's singing I've been waiting for this night Iceland's Gréta Salóme dueted with Jónsi in Never forget finishing 20th.  This time she's solo with Hear them calling *We have three more returnees this year:  Ira Losco (Malta 2002), Deen (Bosnia & Herzegovina 2004) and Poli Genova (Bulgaria 2011)

FYR Macedonia announced this evening Kaliopi will return to Eurovision and sing for them in Stockholm 2016 Eurovision! Her song will be once again written by Romeo Grill and will be presented in the end of February. This blogger is superhappy, she's awesome! Can't wait!

Kaliopi, the finest voice the Balcan's have to offer if you ask me, has released a new single today, Jutro . It's already a thrid offering this year following Mojot dom  and  Poželi . Especially  Poželi promised great things for her new album and Jutro follow on that path. That's an album to buy for sure. And she's one artist I would welcome back to Eurovision any year! Enjoy! 

Now what to say? I loved the original version of this song, then grew some fondness to this new one. Daniel is a fine singer. I love the backdrop, I think it's one of the nicest ones this year but then I do have a thing for columns. But. Somehow this isn't working - unless the camerawork is amazing and hides all the akwad movement we see on stage in the video. Also I keep asking why he has this bacing group as they seem to thunder over him. There are too many things wrong with this staging, and the arrangement of the song. Such a shame. I desperately want to like this so much more than I can make myself to do at this point by listening it. Watching this performance? Hmm, I may use it as a toilet break.... Sorry. And what's it with this flasher's jacket in the forest?

The Macedonian entry surely has went through some transformations step by step dropping any hint of Macedonia from it. The song that won originally was first totally rearranged and now the staging takes it to another diretion again. To a very American that is. Daniel, who actually lives in Vienna, has invited American vocal group MERJ (ex-Blackstreet) to perform with him. It all comes across very boybandish affair but the staging is also nicely retro, and the backdrop and colors are very beautiful. Somehow this comes across very likable. I always liked the song, but maybe I tend to forget it when spotting out favourites. Now with this stunning visuals I will remember it for sure....

Daniel Kajmakoski (31) is the fresh winner of Skopje Fest and the Macedonian entrant for the Eurovision song contest 2015 in Vienna. His winning song is Lisja esenski , here's the studio version . There is a possibility the song will be changed before March 2015, but this blogger ctually likes it a lot so I hope they will stick with it.  He's also the winner of the first X Factor Adria where his mentor was none other than Zeljko Joksimovic, they also recorded a duet together Skopje-Beograd . Another Eurovision connection is he wrote to Karolina Goceva Vis ne se vrakas in 2010 that was a big hit. For him it's a return to Vienna as that's where he grew up after moving there when six year's old. He even participated in the Austrian talent show Starmania seasson two in 2003 where he reached the top-8. (The next season was won by Nadine Beiler and runner up being certain Tom Neuwirth aka Conchita Wurst! Even Eric Papilaya was in it). His career didn't quite g...

The Macedonian Skopje Fest ended with Daniel Kajmakoski's win with Esenski lisja . Tamara Todevska finished second with Brod sto tone and Evgenija Cancalova third with Da ne te sakam . All three were in both international jury's and televoters top-3. This blogger agrees with the top-2 but had a little preference to Tamara, like most fans online it seems and she indeed was also the international jury's favorite but in the televoting she only managed third that cost her victory while Daniel and Evgenija were in the league of their own in that.... Reality television rules.... Here above you have the jury votes.... ... and here the televotes.... .... and here the final result. Today the vote rigging claims have arisen in Macedonia and police is investigating a question of about 1000 seized phonecards.... Let's see how this ends....

Tonight's the night. The first national final of the season takes place in Metropol Arena in Skopje, Macedonia where 20 acts take the stage and 50-50 televote-jury vote will decide the winner and the Macedonian Eurovision song contest 2015 entry for Vienna.  The show starts at 20.15 CET and you can watch it here or here .  Read more about the songs and participants here . 

The season's first national final takes places in Macedonia in less than two weeks when Skopje Fest will take place (November 12, 2014) and give us the Macedonian entry as well. It seems to be a grand show that will also celebrate MRT's 50th and Eurovision's 60th anniversary.  The winner will be decided by 50-50 televote-international jury. Seven different countries with five jurors each will provide the international votes and they will vote on the dress rehearsal performances the night before - sounds very old school Eurovision, doesn't it? Special guests will be the Macedonian ladies in Eurovision: Karolina Goceva ( Od naz zavisi 2002 and Mojot svet 2007) and ever so wonderful Kaliopi ( Cnro i belo 2012). The running order was drawn with a special gimmick that I hope more countries will adopt: songs were divided in ballads (even numbers) and uptempos (odd numbers) before drawing the positions.  Lena Zatkoska –  Alo Tanja Carovska –  Ako mi se vra...

Tijana's sister Tamara is among the 20 Skopje festival participants. She must have gotten the spark in Copenhagen 2014 where she was providing backing vocals and enjoying the atmosphere besides being very nice to everyone. She's no stranger to Eurovision anyways as she did represent Macedonia already back in 2008 with Adrian Gaxha and   Vrčak. Also Vlatko Ilievski who already did 2011 is trying to get another go at it.  MRT received about 200 songs and these 20 will battle it out already on November 12, 2014 and the winner will get the ticket to Vienna 2015 Eurovision song contest after 505/50 jury/televote. Risto Samardziev & Vlatko Ilievski  –  North–South Lena Zatkoska  –  Hello Aleksandra Janeva  –  In your world Nade Talevska  –  I know Sanja Gjoshevska  –  I want to fly Viktorija Loba  –  I’m missing someone like you Goran Naumovski & Sanja Kerkez  –  A moment without you Lidija ...

Macedonia has confirmed their presense in the 2015 Eurovision song contest and the biggest local music festival, Skopje Fest will be the selection form as its winner will go to Austria. Last year Lambe Alabakovski won with Ke te chekam jas but internally selected Tijana went to Copenhagen instead. (Hopefully Lambe comes back!) But this is not the first time the Skopje winner goes to Eurovision as it has happened already more often that not, namely in ( 1996 ), 1998 , 2000 , 2002 , 2008 , 2009 , 2010 and 2011 . However Macedonia hasn't feared so well in Eurovision failing six times out of the last seven participations to qualify to the final. The exception is Kaliopi's fantastic Crno i belo in 2012 that sailed to the final and finished 13th - the best ever for Macedonia so far.  This year Skopje Fest will take place on November 13 and 20 songs will take part. The application period to take part is open until July 31, 2014. In the final there is a 50-50 televote-internat...