Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

Oh what a night! What a voice! Slimane came to Helsinki on his world tour that is sold out most everywhere he goes and Helsinki was no exception. I bought my tickets the first day they were on sale and to my great surprise it was already almost sold out already and all I got were seat too far for my cellphone for any decent photos so sorry for the bad quality! :-) Scroll down to a video recap - decent sound, poor picture.  The new world tour differs from the French arena tour he has been for a year or more that ended in early January. A new set list was prepared for this international adventure and smaller scale staging. There were only Slimane on stage with three excellent backing singers, a drummer and a keyboardist but it sounded great anyways, and after all with Slimane and those fantastic singers it was all about the voice anyways. Simple yet very clever lighting as icing on the cake that played with little tricks creating just right atmosphere. As he may not be as well known ...

Ok, it's time to reveal my own personal ranking this year. The first song I heard was France and it has stayed the clear number one for me all this time, and I still think it can win it all - maybe not winning neither the jury nor the televotes but ending up winning as a compromise. The other that still moves me every time I hear it, and I just like still as much as the first impact is Ukraine. Italy and Croatia were on top ever since they won their national finals and Albania was my favorite in FiK and even if it took awhile for me to adjust to the new version I still like it a lot. United Kingdom didn't impress that much at first but has been climbing all the time. Azerbaijan was a favorite as well right away while Switzerland took some time to appreciate while Luxemburg and Austria in the end made my top-10.  A special mention bubbling under are Belgium, Netherlands, San Marino, Spain, Lithuania and Israel not forgetting Ireland and Australia.  1. FRANCE - Slimane - Mon amo...

  Slimane was the fourth artist announced for the Eurovision song contest 2024 in Malmö, but the very first with the song Mon amour released at the same time and thus the first song of the season, when the whole package was revealed on November 8, 2023. This year France Télévisions dropped the national final and picked internally the biggest name instead. A bit like Italy last year with Marco Mengoni. Slimane Nebchi (34) is a French of Algerian descent through his grandparents. In 2016 he won the season 5 of The Voice but before that he had already gone through many talent shows: Popstars 2007, Nouvelle star 2009, X Factor 2011, Encore un chance 2012, Je veux signer chez AZ and also did Didier Barbelivien's musical Marie-Antoinette et le Chevalier de Maison-Rouge in 2015. His recording career started started after The Voice (except for an EP in 2011 that went nowhere) with his debut album hitting #1 and selling triple platinum. Since then he has released three more albums (last one...