Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

Loreen of Sweden is the 15th previous Eurovision song contest winner who has decided and/or managed give it another try. Only Ireland's Johnny Logan has managed to win twice, as we all know. One can't really do a ranking however as the contest had changed so much from the 1950's with maybe a dozen songs to the approx 40 we have these days. In coming days I will feature the winners who decided to come back  after  winning the contest as there also many winners who have won with their second or third try.   Rarely you see such "a star is born" moment and mass hysteria that followed like when only 16 year old Carola (56) won Melodifestivalen 1983 and went to Eurovision for the first time placing third. I was there, in Sweden that night at my aunt's and remember it well. I also went to see her on her summer tour in Sweden that year and it was something else.  But in a decade things went sour and she went from everyone's darling to a religious freak that needed...

  Pat Benatar has toured in 2019 with her 40th anniversary tour even if her latest album came out in 2003. Her career highlight was the 80's with nine US top-20 hits, and those are the songs I remember well.... especially Shadows of the night , a kind of early Heaven is a place on earth (by Belinda Carlisle), and We belong .  Check out also

Now what can I say? Carola is one of my favorite artists, an ultimate Eurovision Diva and we go back a long time. Flashback summer 1983: I was spending summer at my aunt's in Sweden. And Sweden was all about Carola after her Melodifestivalen win (full marks from each and every jury - for the first and last time ever) and 3rd place in Eurovision (6,1 million Swedes watched her there!!!) with Främling   (fate is I was also in Sweden when the Mello took place and saw it live on tv. However then I was all for runner up Kikki Danielsson's Varför är kärleken röd ...) Her album was the best selling album in Sweden ever (over 1.000.000 copies). She was everywhere, including a Folketspark near Fagersta where I saw her live.  The tour broke all previous records in 24 out of 25 parks. The year after I saw her live in Finland. And again in the years to come . But then Carola, a controversial figure retired after 3-4 years of success and even an album with the BeeGees in the USA to...

She's no longer chameleon nor invincible. She'll be walking on water like Edsilia Rombley and someone else back in the day. This is so wrong in so many ways. Ok, there was an option in the Maltese national final that the winner could change the song afterwards, but then why did they bother at all? Why have a national final if it served only to pick up the singer? And if that was the purpose why wasn't it made very clear from the beginning? Why the artists in that case had to sing new unreleased songs, potential Eurovision entries if it was to be changed anyways? Why couldn't they just sing an old hit or a cover to showcase their talents at maximum? Why on earth did Ira Losco have TWO songs? Again, if Maltese broadcaster wanted her so bad why didn't they just have a selection with her and drop the whole national final thing? Why-ay-ay-ay? If I were one of the other 18 competing artists in the Malta Eurovision song contest 2016 I would feel very cheated and m...