Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

New series start: Let's kill some time having a look at the last decade and see who were the Top-10 best scoring countries in the Eurovision song contest in the past ten years. The ways to calculate are many and here I have used the simple average placement method (and it's not all so serious). First out Serbia! 2010 Milan Stanković - Ovo je Balkan (Ово је Балкан) - 13th *** 2011 Nina - Čaroban (Чаробан) - 14th * 2012 Željko Joksimović - Nije ljubav stvar (Није љубав ствар) - 3rd ***** 2013 Moje 3 - Ljubav je svuda (Љубав је свуда) - NQ (11th in semi-final) *** 2015 Bojana Stamenov - Beauty never lies - 10th *** 2016 Sanja Vučić ZAA - Goodbye (Shelter) - 18th **** 2017 Tijana Bogićević - In too deep - NQ (11th in semi-final) ** 2018 Sanja Ilić & Balkanika - Nova deca (Нова деца) - 19th **** 2019 Nevena Božović - Kruna (Круна) - 18th **** As a remainder, Serbia would have been represented by Hurricane (incl...

Iceland's Sögvakeppnin 2020 comes to a happy end tonight. Four of the finalists have decided to switch into English for the final and eventually for the Eurovision song contest should they win. Daði og Gagnamagnið has created some worldwide online buzz for his entry overtaking Iva's position as the front runner. I still hopelessly stand by the wildcard Nina, she's got one of the finest pop tunes in the while Eurovision 2020 season.  Ísold & Helga - Meet me halfway  ** Daði & Gagnamagnið - Think about things  ** Nína - Echo Iva - Oculis Videre Dimma - Almyrkvi

Another Eurovision legend has left us. The Spanish composer of worldwide hit and Eurovision 1973 runner up  Eres tú , Juan Carlos Calderón. Not only, he also wrote Tú volverás for Sergio y Estibaliz (1975),  La fiesta terminó for Paloma San Basilio (1985) and finally Nacida para amar for Nina (1989).  His song  Me gustas tal como eres gave Luis Miguel his first Grammy award. Eurovision is only a small part of his career and he worked with great sngers both sides of Atlantic winning awards and scoring hits. His talent will be missed even if la fiesta terminó .... 

October 16, 2011 marks the 4th anniversary of Tose Proeski's tragic death in a car accident. For the occasion the Serbian TV is airing a special in his honour. Tose Proeski was popular all over Balcans so there will be artists from all over to honor him: Eurovision stars Hari Mata Hari from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Toni Cetinski from Croatia, Marija Serifovic, Jelena Tomacevic and Nina from Serbia, with Aki Rahomovski, Aleksandra Radovic, Anja Rupel, Sergej Cetkovic, Antonija Sola, Bora Dugic, Sasa Kovacevic, Boris Rezak and Mari Mari will perform Tose's songs with the Great Symphony Orchetra of RTS. The two hour show will also have documentary parts of Tose's life and career.

Turkey didn't have open selection so skip them and go to Serbia where they did have one, with three songs. Nina's Caroban was clearly the best choice and eventually finished 14th in the final. If they had sent Aleksandra Kovac with Idemo dalje they might have stayed in the semifinal but would have had a worthy entry anyways.

As much as I would like to hate the boom boom nonsense from Armenia I can't. The weakest thing is Emmy herself with her vocals, or is it the song after all? Anyways, it's a bit like Madonna songs: not the greatest singer nor the greatest dancer but somehow it just works out fine. The choreography is great with some very nice details and one can even forgive the redhooded opening in the boxing glove as after all this is Eurovision. A sure qualifier, not for the musical quality nor for the fact it's Armenia but for the entertainment value. She's in a short white number and the guys are wearing a boom boom t-shirt. How tacky is that? Turkey next with their lady trapped in the ball trying to break out and live it up.Very strong vocals again and this has no trouble getting to the final either. The guys were in jeans and t-shirts but I doubt they will go to the big night that casual so their outfits are yet to be revealed? No pyros in any of the videos I have seen today?! A...

So, the first day of rehearsals is over. They might be "only" technical but already give hints what to expect how things will turn out later. This first part of the first semifinal turned out to be a solid pack and when five songs were presented I had five possible or sure qualifiers. Disturbing! Of course it's not going to be like that when tomorrow we have another nine songs to go through ( btw, tomorrow I can't be blogging until the evening so tomorrow's comments and posts will all come together, not as the day progresses ) and the things may look a bit clearer - or then not.  The biggest positive surprise today was maybe Albania . I didn't count much on it but it did make an impact. I was also very relieved Finland did look stunning and sounded as good as I hoped it would. Way to go Axel! I have to admit Armenia gave a good show without being over the top and as much as I wished it would be a disaster it's a contender. Not for the victory but for a g...

Serbia as expected follows the look the had in their own selection and video. Some rather psychedelic images accompany Nina and the three backing girls in bright colors and the girls do a very 1960's girl group kind of choreography while the colors and images are rather 1970's. A very nostalgic happy thing it is as you can see in AKOE's video here . All this said I would say this is the first one today that might not make the final after all. Had they sing in English maybe yes, and I don't usually say such things as I'm all pro-national language use but... I'm not convinced. It's nice and nice's not enough in Eurovision.... The official  video.

France - Amaury Vassili - Sognu **** France keeps trying different styles and it is always good and refreshing, even if a strong French pop would be nice for a change, too. Especially as this entry is more Italian than French. More Italian than the Italian entry in fact, even sung in Corsican that most everyone will mistake as Italian anyways. This is when writing this leading the betting odds and I'd like to ask: What makes this so much better than Norway last year? Opera voiced pretty boy singing boombastic song? I wouldn't be surprised if this fails come mid-May but I hope not. Winner it is not, unless the few uptempo favourites eliminate each other which I doubt. Midtable.  Serbia - Nina - Caroban *** I should love this as I'm a big fan of 60's Motown girlbands but maybe that's where the problem is - it's fake 60's sound. Nina sings nicely, it is great they kept the original version instead of the English version and the song is kinda groovy. But som...

UKRAINE Mika Newton (25) won an bit surprisingly the Ukrainian final beating Pridhenko, Zlata and Jamala amongst others. She has been singing since she was 9 and released her first album back in 2005 with her band. Her song Angely has been translated into English for the occasion. This didn't convince we with the first impact but it's not bad. MOLDOVA Zdob si Zdub returns to Eurovision after 5 years. In 2005 they were the country's first represant and with a little help of their granny took the sixth place with Boonika bate toba . This time their song is So lucky and instead of a granny they have funny hats. They're together since 1994 and have released nine albums so far. In some wicked way I like this a little like I did like the granny songs, too. A little. SERBIA Nina Danica Radojicic won in Serbia with Čaroban which translates to Magic . She is fairly unknow 21-year-old lead singer of a group called Legal Sex Department. The song is written by Kristina Kov...

Nina has just won the Serbian selection with Čaroban Sorry, but I'm usually a friend of Serbian entries but... no. Not yet at least. :-( She won with 14.900 votes against Aleksandra 's 5.990 cotes and The Breeze was last with 1.490.