Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

  The all Danish boy of Cliche love song Basim sounds completely different in his latest  Comme Ci Comme Ça ft. Gilli going full front to his Moroccan roots. It paid off, it's already #2 hit in Denmark  Armenian Sirusho 's latest Huh-hah is also filled with exotic sounds. The video also takes full advantage of the rich Armenian culture and looks like ... well, Eurovision promo video, doesn't it? It even clocks just over 3 minutes..... Nearly ten years have passed from her Eurovision adventure but she keeps going strong releasing hit singles and picking up awards on annual basis. Maybe a comeback to the contest would be an idea? Another Armenian diva Iveta Mukuchyan has released  Depi Nor Irakanutyun , aka Towards a new reality she wrote herself and it comes with a fancy futuristic video. Quite interesting and catchy, in the same way her Eurovision entry was but less dramatic. Another Danish boy to close this video post, with a link to Africa as ...

Omar's got a sleep buddy Lena's got some doggy love, too Marija and Huck having some quality time Eldaar and some puppy love  Zoe did Madrid As did Polina Polina did also Barcelona  Dima is touring the vast mother land.... ... as is Sergey, somewhere up north. Brrr... Tamara did Vienna Iveta did Dubari   Naviband will do New York

Sanna Nielsen is a real Midsummer girl and Aminata don't want to be anything less either... while Emma keeps milking her 21st place with self irony.... and Tooji celebrated his birthday with flowers in his hair. Congrats! Emma is also taking part in #saveIceberg, a dog rescue operation  from the Danish authorities who want to kill him... Read more here Marija just loves her dog but I'm sure she's in it with spirit anyways! Maja Keuc's good cause is food waste. Don't waste your food. Eat it. Share it.  ... and Sebalter bikes for cancer from Lugano to Chur to St. Moritz!  That's a lot of biking! Elsewhere Deen advices to you face creams.... Iveta is a happy covergirl ... and Donny boy is happy for his new shoes.... Socks and sandals? Yeah, I read somewhere it's trendy now.... O tempora o mores!

That much is for sure now, as only four artists remain in the race and they are all female. This week Lucy (Aram MP3's team) and Vahe Aleksanyan (Iveta Mukuchyan's team) had to leave the contest as they scored the lowest with the combined jury and televote. Marta shone above the others in this round securing the win with both juries. Jury placed Vahe second but televoters last and so he dropped out. Wanna have a look and listen how they are? Click on their names for some past performances....  1. Marta (Anush) - Jury 48 + televote 49 (25,9%) = 97 2. Artsvik (Essai) - Jury 32 + televote 39 (20,6%) = 71 3. Suyzanna (Inga) - Jury 31 + televote 36 (19,1%) = 67 4. Egine (Hayko) - Jury 25 + televote 33 (17,5%) = 58 5. Vahe (Iveta) - Jury 33 + televote 15 (7,9%) = 48 6. Lucy (Aram MP3) - Jury 20 + televote 17 (9%) = 37

Armenia decided to be the complicated one this year with their  Depi Evratesil marathon that started months ago. It's prettty much like any The Voice/X Factor/Idols type reality show with the exception the winner goes to Eurovision and the judges/coaches/team leaders are all ex-Eurovision artists: Anush (2009, 2015), Hayko (2007), Iveta Mukuckyan (2016), Aram Mp3 (2015), Inga (2009) and Essai (2015). After endless auditions and second round eliminations each coach had their team of four ready for the next rounds: Aram MP3 — Lucy, Saro Gevorgyan, Jujo and Lilit Harutyunyan Inga — Suzanna Melkonyan, Gevorg Harutyunyan, Karina Harutyunyan and Narine Jinanyan Essaï — Opera Viva, Artsvik, Only Girls and Marissa Iveta — Christina Mangasaryan, Vahe Aleksanyan, Hasmik Siroyan and Sona Dunoyan Hayko — Egine, Anna Danielyan, Eva Kans and Amalya Margaryan Anush — Stepan Hovhannisyan, Marta, Alexander Plato and Anna Седракјан Then we had some duels and the losers wa...

There's apparently a small plane flying above and around Globen with the banner "Karabach love Iveta". Does this count as waving the forbidden flag? Who's behind it?

Eurovision reference group has condemned Armenia's contestant Iveta Mukuchyan  for brandishing the flag of the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh in the Green room last night during the first semifinal live broadcast. The separatist region is officially part of Azerbaijan but currently is under the control of local ethnic Armenian forces. EBU on Wednesday called the incident a "serious breach" of its ban on political messages. It said Armenia's public broadcaster would face yet-to-be-determined sanctions and that "any further breach of the rules of the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest could lead to disqualification from this year's event or any successive editions." So, people of Armenian delegation: make sure those flags are taken away from Iveta!  Both Armenia and Azerbaijan qualified for the Eurovision final on Saturday. When the Eurovision song contest took place in Baku, Azerbaijan 2012 Armenia skipped that year.... Update:  Armenia will be ...

Oops! Here we go again. Last night's jury final for the first semifinal is in a scandal, thanks to Russian jury member. She did so many things wrong that I don't even start to list them. In short she did a lve broadcast on Persicope during the Netherlands and Armenia entries live on stage, not only displaying how it all looks on television along with her votes. One in question is Anastasiya Stotskaya (33) who throughtout the broadcast seems to be more interested in her own appearance in on screen than the important and responsable task she's doing. On top of everything else she's actually Ukrainian, if that should make any difference when both Russia and Ukraine are among the tio favorites to win come Saturday.  Anyways it's also very interesting to see how uninteresting the jurors seem to be on what's happening, they hardly paid any attention to Douwe's 10 second silence as they were too busy joking around. One of them is talking on the phone while Arm...

Iveta was one of the artists that impressed the most in the first rehearsal with her song taylor made for her. She was wearing her eventual dress, or rather swimsuit with a flowing back trail (If you got it, flaunt it would one say) and projections duplicate her on stage at times. She looks fierce and uses a lot of her hands otherwise mostly staying on her feet at one spot. It all looks fabulous and dramatic. Mostly blue lit stage with a lot of clever lighting ideas and apparently some pyros at some point. Very good visually and all, but is this musically strong enough to win? Maybe not....

A swinsuit with a cape. naked thights. Close ups of her face. Her legs. Holograms. Great lighting. Great vocals. Intense and pich perfect. A bit aggressive. Flames and pyros. The first reported applause in the press center. She and her five backing singers have been rehearsing two months for this performance. Love changes everything is the motto. It's the solution to everything. Love can heal you. And everything.  "The stage is amazing. The song is amazing. Everything is... amazing!" Iveta, the sexiest woman in Armenia anno 2012 who meditates with chrystals says in the Meet & Greet. She's been waiting for to rock that stage for so long. And then she goes "Fuck it all, I do whatever I want" for the question how they have tried to forbid her this and that like smoking, drinking and eating certain food before singing. She brings back memories of Emma in Copenhagen who was "fucking tired"... :-) And writing a new song feels like  good sex. So ...

For the first time the Blogilkar panel has six people reviewing, and quite an international team it is: a Finn, a Brit, an Irish living in Belgium, a Dutch, an Italian living in Sweden and as a cherry on the cake, a German living in the UK! In coming days we will review all the entries with out personal notes.  Four foxy ladies to kick of this year's Eurovision song presentations. Enjoy! ALBANIA - ENEDA TARIFA - FAIRYTALE (Olsa Toqi) This was the first chosen song for this year. When it won the Festivali i Këngës it was in Albanian and titled  Përrallë . It has gone through a major revamp since and unfortunately not succesfully it seems... Blogilkar: Albania in original arrangement and in Albanian was somewhat interesting; a bit mysterious and intriguing. The new mix in English falls flat by the time the chorus kicks in. Even Eneda has lost the sparkle in her voice with it. This can be now saved only by an owesome staging that will take away from the 13-in...

Moscow hosts again another Eurovision pre-party, for the 7th time already. This time in Izvestiya Hall. Apparently 13 acts will be present - even though there are mixed information on Albania's and San Marino's participation, let's see.... Albania - Eneda Tarifa Armenia - Iveta Mukuchyan Azerbaijan - Semra Rahimli Belarus - Ivan Cyprus - Minus One Israel - Hovi Star Macedonia - Kaliopi Malta - Ira Losco Moldova - Lidia Isac Russia - Sergey Lazarev San Marino - Serhat Spain - Barei Switzeland - Rykka

Armenia finally exposed its good and released Iveta Mukuchyan's LoveWave. "Hello....." oh sorry "Hey..." it starts with spoken bits becoming a slightly screamy electro ballad. I expected something else I must say. I don't know what it was but not this. Not very impressed I'm afraid. I suppose this comes with some staging gimmick as otherwise it's not going any places....  The violin is a nice touch though.

Armenian tv has revealed tonight the name of their artist for the 2016 Eurovision song contest in Stockholm. It's 29-year-old Iveta Mukuchyan. Born in Yerevan she moved with her family to Germany when she was 6. At 23 she moved back to Armenia and continued her music studies. She has taken part in the Armenian Pop Idol finishing 5th in 2010 and she also did The Voice of Germany . In 2012 she was voted the Sexiest Armenian.  Armenian tv has made a call for songwriters all over the world to submit a song for her by November 13, 2015.  Let's see which direction the final choice will go, Freak or her latest release that you can hear below.... Whatever it is it will be an improvement from last year's fiasco.....