Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

Latvia's Supernova 2022 started with 16 chosen songs, and one more was added from ten additional songs based on online vote. We lost Eurovision veteran Katrina Dimanta in that round. Ten songs qualified for the final from semi-final with jury/televote 50-50 voting and this round we lost Markus Riva, who never stops trying. Eurovision veterans Aminata and Intars Busulis (in  BUJĀNS) made it. Half the songs seem to be joke entries, most of them horrid but two of them actually rise above the horrible being actually rather good. But in general the standard is very low..... The worst of all Baltics this year. Aminata is the designed winner but I kinda hope it's either Bad or He, she, you & me, or even better Es pabiju tur , simply because it's in Latvian.  Citi Zēni - Eat your salad * Ok, the opening lyrics got your attention for sure. And there's nothing else for me to get my attention. Groovy energetic performance of a song heard a million times in some adverts and ...

Freddie got restyled Gabbamania continues with the new single and video coming up Barei celebrates September ... as does Edurne Anouk not so much Musiqq makes most of it as does Poli (Cheers!) The Swedish stars are onto something as is Edsilia - one jazzy lady! Tereza... well, do we wanna know? Vaclav's got a brother Can they challenge togerher Iron man Amir? Or Guy? Kristina looks pretty and ready to sing while Lena is doing some product placement Lucie got married.... .. as did Hanna but Ott's cat is having done of it. You're not going anywhere!

Francesco did Milan..... Vaclav did a video shoot.... Maraaya did Warsaw... Dami did Nashville.... Donny did Dundalk (that's Ireland btw)...  Mørland did beach... Poli did Prag... Sin+ did JazzAscona... Cascada did Budapest (shopping)... Vaidas did India... Gigliola will do Tokyo... Michal did... errr.... Helena and Tamta did a duet... Francesco did get good news... (one day she will share with us hopefully) Musiqq did celebrate 8 years together... Gigliola did Toto's make up for a photo shoot... Demy did a video.... Eric did have standars... Loic did a video shoot, too... Senhit did wear fake fur and sat on a fake leather.  Just to be clear!

Remember Latvian Musiqq that represented the country in Eurovision 2011 with Angel in disguise and deserved so much more? The band's been releasing new music ever since and has all but disappeared. Now they have released a new single in both Latvian Dari ká es and English While we are young with a fancy video showing Riga with a twist to go with it. Actually it makes me wanna revisit that beautiful town... Enjoy!

The troubled Sopot festival was held again this year after a couple of year's break. The line up included three Eurovision stars; Gerard Lenorman (France), Musiqq (Latvia) and Eric Saade (Sweden) who also took the Amber Nightingale Grand Prix of the festival with Hotter than fire . He also won Top of the Top award.  In all there were 15 artists/countries taking part: Poland, Switzerland, Russia, Portugal, Bulgaria, Iceland, Lithuania, Estonia, Croatia, Hungary, Albania, Ukraine and Spain completing the cast.  For some years Sopot hosted the Intervision Song contest, the anti-Eurovision song contest in the East, where only Finland and Yogoslavia took part of the Eurovision countries, and Finland won twice - both times thanks to Marion Rung (1974, 1980). More information here . 

Latvia will have its final tonight. Ten songs made it this far after two semifinals earlier. The first part of the show starts at 18.00 CET and the second with three superfinalists at 20.00 CET. Amongst guest stars we have the only Latvian Eurovision winner Marie N, this year's Swiss entrants Sinplus (yes, they sure make the rounds!) and Musiqq. My favourites by far are Anmary (even if they need to better the staging a lot!), Roberts and Mad Show Boys (who on the other hand don't need to change a thing) but we can't rule out PeR unfortunately either. Andris could have a chance as could Elizabete. UPDATE: Beautiful song is the winner. With a new staging. But it still doesn't work I'm afraid. Just sing and drop the show! 1. My world - Ruta Duduma 2 . I want you back - Samanta Tina & Davids Kalandija 3. Disco superfly - PeR 4. Stars are my family - Trianas Parks 5. Celebration - Paula Dukure 6. We can change the world - Andris Abelite 7. Beautiful...

Tired of the Swiss entries already? Nothing interesting in the Swedish Melodifestivalen webbjoker thing? Try Lativan entries here . You can vote till the end of month by clicking "balsot" and a validiation email will follow. One vote per pc is allowed. Latvia has had a mixed fortunes in Eurovision with early successes to non-qualification already three times in a row. This blogger still thinks Musiqq should have qualified though... And Aisha's remix is rather fab, too.

Belarus provided this year's "OMG what are they doing" moments along with Ukraine with their song selection. Anastasia Vinnikova was chosen first with Born in Belorussia but eventually ended in Germany with equally horrific I love Belarus .  In Latvia they did have a national final. My favourite Musiqq with Angel in disguise won so no problems there. Except its placing in Germany, it deserved so much more. Lauris Reiniks and Banjo Laura seems to be the fan favourite and indeed it's a jolly silly little number and would propably done well in Germany as Latvia time to time surprisingly does. He may have been sure to win himself as the song has been recorded in many languages like Spanish , My favourite in the end is Jānis Stībelis with Let it be me .

Greetings from Latvia and here's a summery song from the Musiqq guys, their hit Abracadabra . I didn't hear any Eurovision songs in Riga, except this year's Austria in Rimi supermarket when Nadine was belting out the last notes of her entry....

It's time for a little summer trip and I'm off to Riga for the very first time. Riga hosted the Eurovision 2003 when Turkey won with 167 points followed by Belgium' s 165 and Russia 's 164 - a surprise twist after the last voting round and one of the most spectacular votings ever while the Latvian winning song the year before might be one of the less spectacular ever. The song, not the performance . Latvia has finished in the top-5 also with their debut in 2000 and again in 2005 . The past three years they have missed the final even if at least this year Musiqq did deserve the final if you ask me.... See you next week!

Belarus looks on stage like they were hosting a quiz sgow with their huge microphone stands. I won't comment the song or Anastasya's vocal capacities for obvious reasons. No final.With a different singer and lyrics this could be rather nice though. After three poor entries (for me) finally something I like, Latvia . The guys of Musiqq are also in their casual wear today and the performance is a solid good one. They start sitting on stools their backs to the audience and turn around when the chorus kicks in. The rapper guy gets up when it's time to rap a bit and the singer guy has a great voice if a little raspy today after last night's party?. It's groovy, poppy and catchy. I want to believe this qualifies, even if no one else seems to think so... Time will tell. I like it! After Latvia another popular dislike of mine, Denmark . Like Romania more I hear this less I like, but then the televoters hear this for the first or second time and are fooled. Shame. The onl...