Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

Italy's close runs continue in the annual OGAE Second Chance contest where Il Volo's third placed Sanremo entru Musica che resta is beaten by only two points by France's Seemone, the runner up of Destination Eurovision with her Tous les deux . Sweden sent Anna Bergendahl, the only Swedish act not to reach the final so far, and only 10th in this year's Melodifestivalen. Her Ashes to ashes , one of the finest songs this year in the national final circuit gets a sweet revenge and places third. You can watch the show produced in Udine by the Italian OGAE Club, last year's winner with Annalisa's Il mondo prima di te HERE . 

Yawn. In a Million years I wouldn't have thought this could happen. That's the first reaction. Not really, lol. For a change it's a worthy winner and was one of my faves in Melodifestivalen.  Sweden wins with Mariette the OGAE Second chance contest for the 16th time. Add nine 2nd place sand one 3rd places and that leaves us only six Swedish participations that didn't land the Top-3. The lovely surprise is Italy's second place. Paola Turci 's anthem for loving yourself Fatti bella per te is Italy's third second place (added to two wins and one third place).  Check out the full results after the jump.....

There was not a shadow of doubt in this blogger's mind Margaret would walk this with Cool me down . And she does bring Poland its first ever victory. Sweden once again scores well with the fans placing second (which this blogger doesn't understand) but the rest of the top is rather in line what I thought. Finland's Mikael Saari did better than I believed and Switzerland's Vincent Gross way too low for my liking....  Check out the full results after the jump

Sanremo 2015 runner up and the winner of OGAE Second chance contest with Fatti avanti amore will release a new album, Unici , next week. It's his 13th studio album. Uno di questi giorni released this summer was the first single off it, and the title track is released as follow up. There's also one duet in the album, Freud with rapper J Ax. 

A total of 23 national OGAE clubs have submitted their entry from a national final to the OGAE Second Chance, the longest running OGAE competition (since 1987). A lot of runner ups, but also other choices by the fans, like Italy that picks up Patty Pravo (68) who placed only 6th in Sanremo.  Italy won last year with Sanremo's runner up Nek and Fatti avanti amore and therefor organizes this year's contest. The club members are voting their favorites during this summer and by sometime late summer/fall we should have a winner. If this blogger picked up the entries out of these 23 there would be maybe 7 only.... I would have went for different songs :-) But that's the beauty of Eurovision. We agree to disagree on everything :-) Below is the Youtube playlist for all the entries.  Belgium: Tom Frantzis – I’m not lost (2nd) Belarus: NAPOLI – My universe (2nd) Ukraine: The Hardkiss – Helpless (2nd) Albania: Besa Krasniqi – Liroje zemrën (unplaced) Malta: Brooke –...

Compromise. Not a pretty word. That's what BBC is doing. Add OGAE and you will end up a total mess. Ask YLE. Finland involved OGAE members and various juries in the selection and ended sending Edea in 1998 leaving Jari Sillanpää home and his song is an evergreen today while Edea? Or the song.... And again in 2000 Nina Åström won without being anyone's favorite and is today a totally forgotten one while Anna Eriksson  wnet on to win OGAE Second chance and is totday a megastar and what to say about  Nightwish ? A true missed chance.  So, good luck BBC and prepaire for the worst. Ok anyways, the procedure is that 45 OGAE UK members divided in five groups of nine will each review 60 song and pick up their personal top-5. Actually this might be the saving aspect of this method. As a smaller group of persons hear only a smaller group of songs. Then each groups top-5 is sent forward so there will be 25 most likely heavily compromised and melodifestivalized songs to dea...

The OGAE contest for runner ups and fan favorites from national final is finally over for this season and Italy completes the well deserved third place in the Eurovision song contest with the victory in here for the Sanremo runner u Nek and Fatti avanti amore . The rest of the top is dominated by the Nordic countries Sweden, Denmark and Finland proving that at least Finland should have sent the runner up instead of the nonsense that we did send..... Watch the voting here and the entries here . 

Adelen with Bombo wins this year's OGAE Second chance contest and rightly so as it has been maybe the biggest hit of all national selection songs this season charting in various countries. This is Norway's third win in this contest. Italy continues its string of success in these OGAE related contests when Malika Ayane is the runner up with E se poi . Hungary representing the rest of the world came third before Sweden and Finland with YOHIO and Mikael Saari .  Watch the entries and the voting here .

Eric Himan (remember You're gonna need me from the Swiss selection?) is back with Red hot tears that is rather brilliant song indeed with a simple but effective video. Croatian Nina Badric released earlier this year Ceznja , that fits very nicely to this late summer filled with heat and sun and nostalgic atmosphere. Hannah Mancini has joined with Vanillaz and Kosta Radman in Back 2 life . A perfect club anthem for those hot summer nights, isn't it? OGAE Second chance winner Anna Eriksson will release a new compilation this month including some new songs performed live, including Je suis malade/teit minusta sairaan . She proves once again she's one of the most touching and best vocalists in Finland!

Italy gets to participate again in OGAE's Second Chance as the Italian entry comes from Sanremo this year. OGAE Italy run the voting in two phases; first picking up one song to each artist, and then the chosen ones were voted. You can see the results below with the videos of the songs. If nothing else an excellent excuse to wtach some great ones and listen again the pretty great songs from Sanremo 2013. Malika Ayane will do the honors with her very classy and beautiful E se poi .... And yes, she's following Krista's wedding theme in the video! 1 MALIKA AYANE E se poi 386 2 ILARIA PORCEDDU In equilibrio 341 3 RAPHAEL GUALAZZI Sai (ci basta un sogno) 333 4 ANTONIO MAGGIO Mi servirebbe sapere 330 5 MAX GAZZE’ Sotto casa 327 6 RENZO RUBINO Il postino (amami uomo) 322 7 SIMONA MOLINARI & PETER CINCOTTI La felicità 304 8 MARCO MENGONI Bellissimo 298 9 CHIARA Il futuro che sarà 291 10 ANNALISA Non so ballare 278 11 DANIELE SILVESTRI A bocca chiusa 252 12 MARIA NAZIO...

Pastora Soler beated eternal runner up Danny Saucedo with one point only to the second place and wins OGAE Second chance contest for Spain. And this blogger is just very happy! Sweden has won this contest already 13 times out of 26 so the fan adoration for the Melodifestivalen entries is getting beyond ridiculous. This is also Sweden's 7th second place. 20/26... C'mon! They are not that good, are they?  Anyways, Spain took its 3rd win with Tu vida es tu vida . Norway came third.  Here are the full results. 

The Finnish music scene has been dominated by female artists the past few years. First names like Jonna Tervomaa, Irina and Maija Vilkkumaa did pop rock, followed by more sophisticated Jenni Vartiainen and Chisu while Kaija Koo was always there in between. Then we have Jippu and Anna Eriksson who both have returned with a bang this spring. And they both have turned very dark!  Jippu entered the album chart at #8 this week with her Väärinpäin lentävät linnut full of very personal songs about the very colorful life of this somewhat troubled and sensitive artist. This is her third album following the previous #1 album Kuka teki musta tän naisen four years ago. In between she scored cover hits in duet with Samuli Edelmann. And did you know Jenni Vartiainen is one of her closest friends? Here is Henki ja elämä and the title track .  Anna Eriksson returns with her 7th studio album Mana in Finnish after the previous Garden of love album in English and went straight to #2 ...

As it often happens the runner up takes the real prize. While the UMK winner Pernilla Karlsson has pretty much disappeared from the scene and will probably reappear only in May in Baku for a moment, the runner up Ville Eetvartti has scored a #3 radio play hit with his entry Lasikaupunki and has finished his debut album already. Kirkasta will be released on April 25, 2012 and the night before he will have his album release gig in Helsinki. His second single will be Tie that you can listen here on Wednesday March 26 at 13 CET. He has also been selected as the Finnish represent at the annual OGAE Second Chance contest.  Ville Eetvartti has kindly included my post on him in his links (Kiitos!)

Title says Yohanna as she won under the flag of OGAE Rest of the world as Iceland didn't have its national OGAE until recently. Well done and congratulations to Iceland anyways and Yohanna. The song is one of my favourites of the season so I can only be happy about it. It's no surprise Sweden took home another top placing as runner up and it's no surprise either Italy came third breaking the old Nordic top! 1. Nòtt - Yohanna (Rest of the world/Iceland) 224 2. Something in your eyes - Jenny Silver (Sweden) 201 3. Arriverà - Modà con Emma (Italy) 153 4. 25 hours a day - Le Freak (Denmark) 136 5. Or - Chen Aharoni (Israel) 119 6. I don't wanna dance - Nikki Ponte (Greece) 106 7. Vardlokk - Helene Boksle (Norway) 99 8. Abrazame - Lucia Perez (Spain) 80 9. Push forward - Lena (Germany) 73 10. Ladadidej - April (Slovenia) 49 11. Em nome do amor - Rui Andrade (Portugal) 36 12. Falling - Nikki Kavanagh (Ireland) 23 13. Blessed with love - Saara Aalto (Finland) ...

The results are in and I don't want to spoilt the fun of discovering who won by telling it here. I just say that the two countries I most follow did just as I expected, and I'm not at all surprised by the top songs. Or the bottom songs either! Watch the voting yourself here .

It's time for this contest won by Sweden 13 times already out of 26. Other Nordic nations take another 5 wins and that leaves the other victories for Spain (2), Italy , Slovenia , Turkey and The Netherlands . This edtion has 21 countries taking part and 10 are sending the actual runner up, the other fan favourites from the national finals.The votinh should close on August 21, 2011 and sometime later we should know the results.  Sweden won last year with Timotej's Kom and you can find more information here . 01. Poland - Anna Gogola - Ktoś taki jak ty 02. The Netherlands  - 3JS - De stroom 03. Israel - Chen Aharoni - Or 04. Slovenia - April - Ladadidej 05. Lithuania - Linas Adomaitis - Floating to you 06. Spain - Lucía Pérez - Abrázame 07. Sweden - Jenny Silver - Something in your eyes 08. Greece - Nikki Ponte - I dont wanna dance 09. Finland - Saara Aalto - Blessed with love 10. Germany - Lena - Push Forward 11. Italy - Modà feat. Emma - Arriverà 12. Denmark - Le Freak - 25...

Another triumph for the Italian band Modà. The band may have existed since 2003 but it's only the past year that things are really happening for them. First came #2 hit Sono già solo , then another #2 La notte and then #1 Arriverà , a song that they presented with Emma in Sanremo and came 2nd and also Italy's entry in the OGAE Second chance contest. The album Viva i romantici has sold multiplatinum already and went to #1. And now, La notte has been voted the Italian entry for the 2011 OGAE Song contest! Viva i Modà!