Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

Natalia Gordienko (32) was ment to do his solo debut at the Eurovision 2020 after representing Moldova already in 2006 with Arsenium and Connect-R with Loca . Natalia, of Ukrainian descent, sung, studied piano and dance at school and at the age 15 started participating in various song and talent competitions. She sung in Millenium band, worked as DJ, released an album and string of singles and videos over the years. And then came the big step back to Eurovision, until it was cancelled.  So far there has been no news if she will do it in 2021 or if Moldovan television will go for another selection. Somehow, cosidering she got a little help from Kirkorov this year, she might be back in 2021...

If Kirkorov and Dream Team (who are also behind  the Greek entry) had a reason to celebrate in Estonia last weekend their Saturday got even better in Moldova, where Natalia Gordienko's Prison won. As planned. Some fans were even saying the whole Finala națională was just a staged internal selection.....  Singer, dancer and DJ Natalia (32) is an Eurovision veteran having been part of Moldova's Loca team in 2006 with Arsenium and Connect-R. As most she has been through several national and international competitions over the years picking up prizes and awards, and has won both Slavianski Bazaar and New Wave, but there isn't much of a recording career to talk about, just a couple of singles. Another Eurovision veteran Pasha Parfeny came second and the third one, Geta Burlacu withdraw the last minute for reasons to me unknown... Check out the full results (results in the bottom with zero votes in order based on televotes)  and performance videos below: ...

  San Marino - Jessika feat. Jenifer Brening - Who we are Jessika Muscat (29) has the faith of fellow Maltese Christabelle: several national final attemps and now she gets finally to Eurovision with the worst of them. Or almost. She is joined by German Jenifer Brening (21) who took the original rapper Irol's place when he turned down the song stating it's not his cup of tea. He would have given this at least some Sammarinese touch. Anyways, the innotative Sammarinese national final selection promised a lot but in the end gave us this. I would have chosen differently but what we have is a rather anonymous and heard before anthem against bullying, well sung by Jessika with Jenifer's rap as bonus. Sadly unforgettable and the only thing that might get attention and viewers to remember this are the robots. If they travel to Lisbon, too. What's their deal anyways?! 3/10 Macedonia - Eye Cue - Lost and found Eye Cue is Bojan Trajkovski and Marija Ivanovska...

  Azerbaijan has released their cards for Lisbon 2018 Eurovision song contest. Behind it are the usual Kontopoulos-Kirkorov-Bjurman but ... X my heart such a standard middle of the road Melodifestivalen/album filler song that one is lost for words. Not even a minimum effort to try to make it stand out, a little bit original or add some local flavor. The only effort comes in form of the "X". This is loooong 3 minutes...

  No surprise here. DoReDos have won with the help of Kirkorov and will sing My lucky day for Moldova in the Eurovision song contest 2018 in Lisbon. DoReDos – My lucky day ( jury 12 + televote12) 24 Vera Țurcanu – Black Heart (10 + 5) 15 Doinița Gherman and One Voice  - Dance in flames (7 + 6) 13 Tolik – Broken Glass (3 + 10) 13 Ana Odobescu – Agony (8 + 3) 11 SandyC & Aaron Sibley – Once upon a time (5 + 4) 9 Nicoleta Sava – La Esencia del Sur (0 + 8) 8 Felicica Dunaf – Alien (6 + 1) 7 Cobîlean Constantin – Numai tu (0 + 7) 7 Lavina Rusu – Altundeva (4 + 2) 6 Anna Timofei – Endlessly (2 + 0) 2 Ilia Soroceanu & Dasha DaGro – Minds & Veins (1 + 0) 1 Bella Luna – Moments (0 + 0) 0 Ruslan Tsar – Come to Life (0 + 0) 0 Viorela – The Gates of Love (0 + 0) 0 Che MD – Inima-n stângă (0 + 0) 0

Telegraph writes lenghty about the Russian reactions to be beaten by Ukraine.  While Ukrainians basked in their Eurovision win on Sunday, Russian officials and Kremlin-friendly media offered up a string of conspiracy theories to explain the win of Crimean Tatar singer Jamala, whose song “1944” was largely seen as a jab at the Kremlin. And some officials said Russia should boycott the song contest next year, if it is set to be held in Ukraine. The song contest took on major political overtones this year, as Ukraine's Jamala squared off against Russian singer Sergei Lazarev in a showdown that many Eurovision fans saw as a continuation of the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine. When Ukraine beat Russia 531 points versus 491, Russia's state-run media seemed to have a hard time coming to terms with it. Interviewing Lazarev after he came in third, Russia's state-run television channels presented him as the “champion,” apparently hinting that the official results d...

The premiere on stage will take place tonight but already he has published the video for You are the only one, Russia's entry for the Eurovision song contest 2016 and one can expect Lazarev manages to overcome all the reserves against Russia and become the number one favorite to win it all in Stockholm. He's got Phillip Kirkorov, Dimitris Kontopoulos, John Ballard and Ralph Charlie in song writing team and Miss Russia 2015 Vladislava Evtushkenko in the video. It could have easily been kitchy and corny but the outcome is quite stylish, original and enjoyable.  I doubt we will see him dressed like this in Stockholm..... or then who knows?

Or so the story goes. Apprently the Soviet propaganda wanted to take also the Eurovision trophy in the crazy years of change in the late 1980's. Back in 1987 the Minister of Education for the Soviet Union Veselov brought out the idea. He even had proposed popular singer Valery Leontiev as the ideal debut artist but both president Gorbachev and the leaders of Communist Party considered the idea "too radical". LOL. The talk continued until the whole union was gone by 1991. Russia did enter the contest in 1994 and despite sending local superstars Philip Kirkorov and Alla Pugatseva among others failed to make an impact, even not qualifying in the 1996 pre-selection. They took a break of a couple of years before re-entering and have been very succesful ever since with one victory, 4 second places and two third places so far.... Nine other former republics of the Soviet Union have entered the contest since 1990's though: Lithuania 1994, Estonia 1994, Latvia 2000, Uk...