Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

Laura Pausini is making a comeback from maternity leave with a new album and new duets. The first one features Kylie Minogue ! Sounds a rather strange pairing but Limpido works out well. And the ladies get to take some very colorful baths in the video. Staying in Italy we have Quando una stella muore by Giorgia . Once again: What an Eurovision entry this would have been for Italy! Remember Lucy Was Driving from UMK? They're back with The anthem of broken dreams . The video is very innotive and... ehmm... educative? In the end music can make wonders! There's plenty of drama, education and high notes as added bonus in Robin Stjernberg' s new one, Pieces , too. Hands free, I say!

Namely in popular TV-show Tartu mikkiin (Grab the mic), where singers have to sing and guess musical quizzes and compete against each other and public, too. Krista Siegfrids, Mikael Saari, Diandra Flores and Lucy Was Driving's Otso Koskelo are meeting each other again and competing against each one more time. Surely a lot of Eurovision tunes in store and their own songs, as well. Will Krista & Otso beat Mikael & Diandra or how will it end? With a lot of entertainment for sure.... The show's on YLE2 tonight at 9pm (and rerun tomorrow 10.20am, and Thursday 15.10pm). You can also watch it in YLE Areena. Ding dong! All four have also been interviewed by yours truly here . 

Elina Orkoneva Lucy Was Driving Diandra Flores Krista Siegfrids Iina Salin Last Panda

Well, it might be only wishful thinking but apparently some of the UMK 2013 artists have been planning on going on tour together, and even more so: to cover each other's songs, just as they have been doing in dressing rooms and backstage. True or fiction? Time will tell. However, the boys of Last Panda and also Lucy Was Driving would like to cover Mikael Saari's song. Panda boys would make it a rock song, and so would Lucys "Goosebumps are overrated. We would show it's really done! " says Otso Koskelo, band's lead singer. Diandra would love to cover Iina's song . "I really like the song and have been listenong to it! " And finally the winner Krista Siegfrid, a real rock chick in heart would do Arion's Lost. Besides, she has already altered the lyrics in her song including Arion's lead singer: "Marry me, Bieber!" - like he has been labelled by the jury, heavyrocks' Justin Bieber. Oh well.... maybe this is better to stay...

Here it is. The grand final of UMK 2013 and the field is wild open! Diandra and Mikael have been winning polls, bot so have Krista and Arion. And we can't rule out Great Wide North either. When did we last have a final where five out of eight would be worthy winners? Never propably. This blogger will be happy if the winner is Mikael, Krista or Diandra, but wouldn't be surprised (or so very pleased) if Arion wins. And if Great Wide North wins I would say it's 2000 all over again.... There will be 50-50 televote-jury and no superfinal. Anyways, I will be live blogging the event as always so come along at 20.00 CET! 1. Arion - Lost 2. Elina Orkoneva - He's not my man 3. Lucy Was Driving - Dancing all around the universe 4. Krista Siegfrids - Marry me 5. Last Panda - Saturday night forever 6. Mikael Saari - We should be through 7. Great Wide North - Flags 8. Diandra - Colliding into you

Finnish newspaper Ilta-Sanomat is closely following the UMK 2013 finalists and their Spotify listening times. Diandra has been in the lead since they started that but today Mikael has almost reached her gaining 20% of the total hits against Diandra's 21%. Apparently the difference is 0,7% at the moment. Krista Siegfrids is a solid #3 with 17% followed by Great Wide North on the rise at 14%. Arion keeps falling and is now at 12% before Elina Orkoneva at 6%, Lucy Was Driving 5% and Last Panda at 4%.  They are also doing different kind of statistics and it reveals Diandra is women's favorite while Mikael is men's! (One would think the opposite!) Under 18 year's olds Diandra reigns at 41% while Krista comes 2nd and Mikael a close 3rd. In over 46 year olds the situation is the same, only that Arion is more popular than Mikael! He takes a revenge at the age of 26-45 where he is a clear #1 with 25% before Diandra and Great Wide North. And finally the 19-25 category is to...

Lucy Was Driving also made their way to the UMK 2013 final with their Dancing all around the universe , first they performed it for the judges , then in the first heat and finally in the semifinal . What color will the lead singer Otso choose for the final for his leather jacket?

Otso Koskelo is dancing all around the universe with his band Lucy Was Driving in UMK 2013. He landed in the life after Helsinki 2007 long enough to answer some questions by yours truly. Are they Eurovision fans? Did the champagne run out when Lordi won? And what has Atomic Spa to do with it all? Read it all here: All you Lucys are 34-year-old. What have you been doing until now? You have released one album and participated in some talent contests before, haven't you? We all had been in other bands already before Lucy Was Driving was put together eight years ago. So it has been a long journey for us to get this far. We did release our self-titled debut album in 2010 and are about to release the second album later this year. Before that we did few promotional CD:s and, of course, we tried to send them everywhere we could. Back in 2005 one of the songs got to semifinals of MTV Nordic's international competition but this didn't include any live shows so I...

I will be once again live blogging the UMK live tonight. It's time for the semifinal and see who will be the two (or apparently it is four!?) lucky ones the jury and televoters send to next week's grand final with Mikael Saari, Diandra Flores, Krista Siegfrids and Arion. Like the previous weeks the show time is on YLE Areena with UMK+ 19.45 CET and the show itself starts at 20.00 CET,  also on YLE's website. Tonight's guest star is Elonkerjuu. Twitter #UMK13 19.45 UMK+ has started online and soon we will move to The Circus nightclub in Helsinki city center. One of the judges, Aija is interviewed and she tells how she has given advice to the vocalists in the early stages of UMK but now they are on their own and the judges only... judge. She also tells she wished there was more indie pop but apparently that's something missing in the Finnish scene at the moment... Next we talk with the hosts, Ile and Anne, and most of all their outfits for tonight. They remind ...

If you thought it's easy to just go and sing, in UMK or some other national final or something just have a look at Otso Koskelo's pulsemeter. He had it on all night last Thursday, when Lucy Was Driving made its way to the semifinal next Thursday with Dancing all around universe . The graphic clearly shows how his heartbeat went overdrive during the performance and peaked again during the results (tulokset).

Join me again tonight at 20.00 CET for the second heat of UMK 2013. Two songs will send to the final directly with 50/50 jury/televote. One act will be send home, the others will get another chance next week. The Circus nightclub in Helsinki is once again sold out venue and you can follow it here. UMK+ will bring you backstage 19.45-20.00 here and during the break before the results part of the show.  Last week fan favorites Mikael Saari and Diandra made it to the final, this week we have Krista Siegfrids (who just today has signed her first recording deal with Universal, congrats!) and Arion as clear fan favorites and knowing the judges like them, too, anyone else qualifying would be a surprise. But who will be kicked out? That's the question tonight! And tonight's guest star is Jesse Kaikuranta! Don't forget to read these UMK artists exclusive interviews right here -> 19.45 Here we go again! The backstage UMK+ online has just started.The web presenters are t...

Jack at Eurovisionjack3 has reviewed the UMK entries for Blogilkar. This blogger agrees in most cases but the beauty of these reviews and opinions that there is always something to disagree :-). Here's what he had to say: Arion - Lost  This is what Finland does best - ROCK! It's just awesome - the kind of music I like! Unfortunately, I was very underwhelmed by their stage performance - I hope they will be able to improve on that for next week. It's a powerful song which could do very well in the charts, even if it doesn't make ESC! One of my favourites for sure... 9/12 Atlético Kumpula - Paperilyhty Don't get me wrong, it's a really good song, but I feel like something is missing! It has a folk sound which I don't think will do very well. I can't see it doing very well - it's too strange. I would love to see it do well (or at least make the UMK final) but I can't see it happening... 4/12   Diandra - Colliding into y...

Tonight we got to see the remaining six perform their demos to the judges for the first time in studio stage. The artists didn't know who the judges would be until they entered the stage so that gave them some extra excitement, too. And the judges finally saw the artists they had only heard on tape so far. As always the judges commented the song, the performance and gave the artists hints how to make it better for the live gig next week. Here's a short round up what was said and how the performances were.  LUCY WAS DRIVING - ALL AROUND THE UNIVERSE *** Toni praised them and says he thinks they have a really good song in its genre. Some critic for the vocals that surely would sound fine if there were 300 girls screaming along but here in this studio one can hear everything. Aija thinks the chorus is a killer. She also likes the drum beat. She also criticized the vocals, as did Tomi. And finally they commented their look, the scarves especially, too cliche. They sugg...

Tomorrow UMK continues on TV and the artists and judges meet for the first time and they get to perform to them for them as well. I will of course post about that tomorrow with video links and comments. I have made posts about each of them based on the first program where the judges listened the demos and picked up the 12 qualifiers. Those artists were interviewed as well and they got to present themselves a bit and you can read my sum ups here: Last Panda , Iina Salin , Mikael Saari , Ilari Hämäläinen , Rautakoura , Diandra , Atlético Kumpula ,  Krista Siegfrids , Lucy was driving , Arion , Elina Orkoneva and Great Wide North . My comments on hearing the songs in full and in final versions for the first time is here . Don't forget to vote for your top-3 in my poll on the right hand side of this page! In other fan poll Diandra is keeping her early lead still but Mikael Saari and Iina Salin are reaching her while Krista Siegfrids seems to be struggling a little. But th...

Lucy was driving is another band from Helsinki and made of Otso Koskelo, Henri Kälvälä, Janne Koukkula and Juho Sandman. They are taking part in UMK because they want to get bigger audience and even look at abroad. Otso has written the song Dancing all around the universe and tells it's about an atom's voyage from the Big Bang to the heart of a person. He's a doctor in physics btw. The band has been together since 2004 and has gained already fans in Germany besides Finland and in the CV they also have MTV's Nordic Unsigned competition. They have also voted the best unsigned band by Noise.fi and already in 2008 City paper named them one to watch out. Their debut album was released in 2010. Otso tells that they want to break through and collect small victories before becoming world stars. This would be one step, to make a proper tour after this, even abroad and then on to next challenges. What I saw of UMK last year I think this would fit nicely to us, being a comm...