Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

  This Sicilian winner of Castrocaro 1987 new talent competition took part in Sanremo newcomers in 1993 with this song that I still love, Non volevo . He placed 6th (behind likes of Laura Pausini and Nek). I always thought he had something common with Battiato, Alice and likes and in fact he ended up working with Juri Camisasca in the 2000's besides writing for theater, films and television. Besides writing the fantastic pop number  Musica for Paolo Meneguzzi in 2007, that scored BIG in Latin America. 

An interesting twist in the Sanremo 2015 preparations! It seems Carlo Conti is aiming to have some foreign singers in the Big category as well, singing in Italian of course but being equal competitors like all the others. That way they could in theory also end up representing Italy in the Eurovision.... This wouldn't be the first time though, as we can remember for example 15-year-old Mexican Luis Miguel who came 2nd in 1985 with Noi, ragazzi di oggi and is today a Latin superstar. We can't also forget Argentinian Lola Ponce who won with Giò di Tonno Sanremo 2008 with Colpo di fulmine . And what about a certain Paolo Meneguzzi ? Or Raquel Del Rosario with Luca Barbarossa in 2011? Also in the old days the songs were often performed in two versions; one Italian and one foreign and the system was shortly readapted in the 1990's.... As for the other news emerging these days we have the possible co-hostesses Ambra Angiolini and Vanessa Incontrada as well as new names i...

Paolo Meneguzzi, as we have learn to know him is no more. He takes his real first name Pablo also as his artistic name and starts anew, as the title of his new album Zero suggest. The album is out September 30, 2013 and comes after three years of his previous one, Miami . It includes 12 new songs. In between he has released a compilation album to sum up his story so far, Best of Sei amore . The first single off the album was La vita cos'é and now he has released the title track Zero as the launch single, and it is rather fabulous! Love the piano! This album comes 12 years after his debut album in Italian, but he started his career already in mid 1990's and released four albums to the Latin American market in Spanish, and has even released an album for the French speaking market. Later on he managed also to release for the North American market.  Countless song contests and festivals from Viña del Mar to Sanremo and Eurovision, at the age of 37 it may be a good point t...

Swiss Eurovision entrant Paolo Meneguzzi is returning with a new album this September and the first single has been just released, La vita cos'é he asks in a rather bad video.... The bits reminding of Jennifer Beals dancing in Flashdance are nice, but the rest... :-( Loreen is back, or back in time as she has finally released a video for My heart is refusing me , a song as old as her career.... Another stunning but very dark video, for my favorite Loreen track I guess. Great stuff! Hanna Pakarinen has released Olipa kerran elämä video, that is a very homely and very Finnish affair indeed.  Karaoke like. Russian Serebro from Helsinki 2007 Euovision is having another success in Italy and elsewhere with Mi mi mi . No comment. Other than it's annoyingly catchy.....

Over the past years we have been talking about the Swedish influence in the Eurovision but another one has been floating around maybe a bit unnoticed, Italy! We have had songs sung in Italian, songs produced in Italy, sung by artists like Paolo Meneguzzi who is associated as Italian despite having a Swiss passport, or Roberto Meloni... not to mention all the song in Italian in various national finals! All this when Italy itself was absent. And this 2013 is no exception with Italian touch. The Croatian song was recorded in Italy by Italians, the Lithuanian artist lives in Italy,  the Romanian one has done his vocals studies in Italy, the Belgian singer has clear Italian roots (once again), as has the Slovenian one. The Spanish lead singer's claim to international fame is she was singing in Sanremo a couple of years ago... On top of that both Italy and San Marino will sing their songs in Italian this year (finally!) and both are in top-10 in most every poll. And we can't f...

Here it is, Paolo Meneguzzi's new video, single and title track of the new album, Fragile . When I first started listening I was like "oh no, one of these similrap  things.... but then the chorus kicked in and I liked in. And then I had to listen to it again. And again... Great stuff!

Paolo Meneguzzi is back in full swing with his parallel careers. His touring Italy, has released another album for the South American market titled Mi mision with the single to go along with it and in Europe he's to release a new album with new songs titled Fragile, just like his tour and the latest single.  You can catch him for free next Saturday in Florence, in Piazza del Carmine along with Paolo Vallesi and Neri Marcorè. You can hear Musica  for example, but it looks like Era stupendo is not in the set.... Why am I not surprised?

My flying reporter Robert had a morning chat with the Broggini brothers Ivan and Gabriel aka Sinplus. What have they been up to since winning the ticket to Baku 2012 five months ago? Whose song could they cover? What is their parents favorite band? And what their aim is? And why don't they sing in Italian? Find it all out here: Why are you interested in participating in the Eurovision? There isn't much of a chance for a young rockband to get noticed so we decided to participate and everything's going well! And now that we are here, Eurovision can help us also to cross the borders, Switzerland is such a small market. And if you don't qualify for instance, will it hard your career? We just signed with Warner to release our album in Europe after we won the Swiss selection, some 100 million people will see us now here, so no. Eurovision is a good start for this band. Of course it's important to reach the final but it's already good to be here. When d...

Our little Paoletto has already 15 years of career behind him, who would believe that? He started from Chile's Viña del Mar festival in 1996 that he won as Pablo Meneguzzo, moved on to Sanremo  in 2001 (five of them so far), Festivalbar, festivals in Argentina and Acapulco and of course Eurovision. He has also written a book and shortly his latest album Miami will be released in the USA in Spanish with the first single Mi mission . But here in Europe this new compilation features two new songs, Sei amore and Love plus his greatest hits like fantastic Musica that in my opinion is his best song, his break through VeroFalso , Guardami negli occhi and Grande . And of course Era stupendo .

The first Italian represant (not counting various Melonis and Meneguzzis...) in the Eurovision song contest of the 2000's Raphael Gualazzi has been busy lately with his concerts and promo gigs around Italy and beyond, including the recent ESC Party in London. Follia d'amore or Madness of love may be old news in Italy as he has released the follow up there, A three second breath .  In the pic above you have the cover of the before mentioned ESC song with it's pinkish line . ... It includes all three versions of the song.

Si o no? Questo é il problema (Yes or no? That's the problem) is the title of Paolo Meneguzzi's book. Yes, a book, not a new album. It's a mix between biography and a novel. "I strongly wanted this to happen to celebrate my 15 years in music business with my fans, friends, family and collaborators, and all people who have said yes to be at least once" he says. "It's in style of American comedy. I wanted to leave something that would remain. " Inside the book you can also found out how to win a date with him to record a duet to his next album!  So, this seems very different from the other recent book by a famous singer in Italy, Tiziano Ferro. His Trent'anni e una chiaccherata con papà is rather sad reading about what happens behind the curtains in music business and how hard it can be to deal with own identity and sudden fame when you didn't want to be a singer at first place. (Se non l'hai ancora letto, dovresti secondo me. Ti fa p...

OGAE Song contest 2010 comes again this year and the Italian club is ready with its short list for the possible entries. A total of 22 songs from the latest new names, alternative names, Sanremo successes and even two ex-Eurovision stars in it, Paolo Meneguzzi and Miodio, with the come back of lovely Paola & Chiara. Here is the recap of all the songs, and here is the OGAE Italy page with full Youtubes to all songs. Enjoy! Who should do the honors for Italy in 2010?

Also Paolo Meneguzzi, the Swiss entrant in 2008 with Era stupendo is returning with a new album Miami on May 25 and the first single is Imprevedibile . June 1 you can catch him live in Riccione, Italy.

The 2008 edition provided a perfect Eurovision entry in both categories when Gianna Nannini penned  Colpo di fulmine by Gió Di Tonne and Argentinian Lola Ponce won the main category, and Sonohra's L'amore the newcomers. Anna Tatangelo came second with a gay themed Il mio amico , and third.  Fabrizio Moro.  Toto Cutugno was there as well (4th) and Paolo Meneguzzi (6th), Mietta (11th), L'Aura (13th). Mia Martini's sister Loredana Berté took care of the scandal as she presented a song she had already recorded back in the 1980's and was disqualified but still performed her song on stage, also along with Ivana Spagna .

Back to normal. Or two categories that is but with a surprise winner. Last year's runner up in Newcomers Simone Cristicchi  takes revenge in Big and wins with Ti regaleró una rosa , followed by veteran Albano with Nel perdono and another practically unknown, Piero Mazzocchetti and his Schiavo d'amore . Paolo Meneguzzi is only 6th with his masterpiece Musica that maybe was the moral and the commercial winner of this festival. Antonella Ruggiero is there once again but scores a last place in the final (10th). Elsa Lila tries for the second time to break through in Italy in Newcomers with Il senso della vita but doesn't reach top-3 but a place in the final only. For me this is a poor and weird year and Paolo Meneguzzi deserved so much more, snobbed by the so called Jury of quality - of course!

In 2005 Sanremo got rather confusing with the introduction of all sort of categories; Men, Female, Groups, Classic and Newcomers. Top-5 of each went on to the final and winners of each category had sort of death matches... After all this confusion Francesco Renga's Angelo came out as the winner (Men) with 54% of the televotes, followed by Come noi nessuno al mondo by Toto Curugno & Annalisa Minetti (Classic), Echi d'infinito by Antonella Ruggiero (Female), Che mistero é l'amore by Nicky Nikolai & Stefano Di Battista Jazz Quartet (Groups) and Non credo nei miracoli by Laura Bono (Newcomers). Many previous winners and/or Eurovision artists were there, too: Marco Masini , Paolo Meneguzzi , Umberto Tozzi , Alexia , Matia Bazar (once again a new singer!) and Peppino Di Capri. Worth mentioning is also Paola & Chiara who's A modo mio was eliminated the first night.... Laura Bono went on to have success abroad and would have been great for Eurovision. Or Alex...

The annual ESC Radio Awards have been given out for the third time and the radio listeners all around the world seem to agree with the real winner as Dima Bilan wins the best male and Believe the best song award. Ani Lorak is the best female artists and Euroband the best group. Dima Bilan wins over Boaz Mauda and Paolo Meneguzzi in best male artist category, while Dustin the Turkey beats Rodolfo Chikilicuatre in the bottom of the list. In best female Ani Lorak, Sirusho, Gisela and Vania Fernandez fought for the top places while Czesy, Geta Burlacu, Teresa Kerndlová and Hind fought for the last place. In groups Euroband, MioDio and Elnur & Samir were on the top, and Krajlevi Ulice & 75 Cents and Kreisiraadio on the bottom. In songs Believe was a clear winner followed by Qele qele and Casanova . Real fight for the worst song but Lato svet clear the way for that, thus making the Estonian team win two last places: worst song and worst group! Full results here: http://www.escradi...

It was a close run earlier this summer in Italy in the fan club's selection for the song that would do the honors this year in OGAE song contest. However Sonohra won and I wish them all the best! Excellent mix of songs and many of them would have been been a great choice. My everlasting favourite Mietta was second but she has done it already twice with excellent results: 1990 winner with Amedeo Minghi and fantastic Vattene amore ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C07uOukxxls ) , and 2000 2nd with equally fantastic Fare l'amore .( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gs1fCKuKcrU ) Here's the full ranking: 1. Sonohra - L'Amore (296) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMuMa_nNbm4 2. Mietta - Baciami adesso (284) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zc8nh74WOYk 3. Paolo Meneguzzi - Grande (282) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHRqZMNmHf4&feature=related 4. Tazenda ft Eros Ramazzotti - Domo mia (281) http://www.youtube.com/watchv=CJ99yOzhA8s&feature=related 5. Gió Di Tonno & Lo...

Raffaella Carrá is pulling all the possible strings in her power to make italians talk about Eurovision and Italy's absense from the contest since 1997. Her new weekly primetime show Carramba! Che fortuna already featured Dima Bilan last week, a tribute to ABBA and Raffa's touching introduction with the words "... in my heart I believe that day is not so far away!" meaning of course Italy's return. She also plans to feature artists from this year's contest on weekly basis (names in circulation include Boaz Mauda, Pirates of the sea ft Roberto Meloni, Paolo Meneguzzi, Miodio, Vania Fernandez, Jelena Tomasevic, Kalomira etc). Apparently her visit to Spain to host the national final and this year's final from Belgrade made her such a fan she is doing all she can to make Italy return. Meanwhile, the touched and grateful OGAE Italy is planning to grant her honorable membership to the club! Evviva Raffa!

And to finish the day three somewhat disappointing presentations, for different reasons: 7. SWITZERLAND Paolo performs well and this was just the first rehearsal so there's time for him to get his act together. What I didn't like was the four dancers. I expected so much more, now it's just all so unprepaired looking let's wave our arms and snap pur fingers and walk around here and there kind of thing. I almost wished Paolo was there alone with the piano player.... Where are the surprises Paolo has been talking about? This was rather boring and uncaptivating act... 8. CZECH REPUBLIC Even worse than I dared to expect. Vocally that is. Visually there's plenty see from silver heart shaped DJ box to a few kilometers of bare legs in microshorts and bubbly background that looks quite fab. But a pretty giftbox can't hide an empty inside I'm afraid... 9. BELARUS Another visually pretty good presentation with its starry mushrooms on stage and some interesting coreogra...