Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

  Edem Ephrain and Dennis Fuller formed London Boys in 1986 and were active until their death in a car crash in January 1996. Their biggest hits were in 1988-89 but my favorite Sweet soul music was released in 1990 and hit the #1 in Finland of all places while was the first single to fail in the UK charts after their breakthrough. Already in 1987 they had released Supermix single in Finland only..... Check out also

Lovely Alma blows you a kiss and wishes you a good Eurovision!

France will perform in the second half in the final Alma looks chic and trés Francaise a la Alizée in her dress and works the camera looking gorgeous. Houses are flying over Paris and Eiffel tour makes an appearance and finally the dancers from the video are spotted dancing inthe windows flying by. If you are afraid of heights this might be a tough one to watch, at least in the arena, one must wait and see how it looks on telly.  She's lovely, likable and the song is great. She should manage easiy Amir like results, but will it go any further remains to be seen....

Paris. Alma takes us to Paris and Tour Eiffel is the prop. Very French indeed. She's pretty in her self designed silver and black dress. Apparently there are clever camera angles and tricks to make this a visual celebration of Paris and france, just like the video clip but in a different way. We can only wait for the full footage come Sunday and the shows.  France is heading for another top-10 finish. 

Pictured is the national flower of France, iris Once the Eurovision superpower France has been struggling big time in the 2000's culminating in the the last place in 2014 and second to last in 2015. It was a time for a total makeover and in 2016 they did it. Amir was chosen internally, scored 6th place in the final and became one of the biggest hits of the year in France, and in Eurovision general. His success changed apparently also the French public's interest and if it works, don't change it. Stick to Amir's inner circle:   Requiem is   written by Nazim Khaled. Just like Amir's J'ai cherchè .  Alma or Alexandra Maquet (28) is a singer-songwriter. She started with music already as a child and has lived in both Miami and Brazil. She started releasing her own songs few years ago and slowly made her way to television and touring with Amir among other things.  Requiem is her third official single since 2014, and her debut album will be released shortly...

France is living some kind of Eurovision  fever after Amir's success last year and Alma is set to follow her friend's footsteps on the left side of the scoreboard for sure. And French fans can get their pop corn, 8 euro ticket and a souvenir postcard signed by Alma, sit back on cinema's comfortable chairs and enjoy the show on megascreen and great audio in the 39 CGR Cinema Multiplexes all over the country.  France is promoting this as the first ever "Eurovision in cinema" in the contest 62 years of history but that's not quite true. It's true in this dimension, of course, but some OGAE clubs have been watching the show in a proper cinema before.....

It's no secret last year's French participant Amir - who brought France back to success after an eternity - and this year's Alma are friends and have been working together since forever. Time will tell if she will better Amir's 6th place. And now they deliver us a lovely acoustic version of this year's entry Requiem . S'il vous plait.....

Out of the blue - sort of - comes the French entry. It's Alma (Alexandra Maquet) with Requiem . My sources hinted this one a few weeks ago and voilà, here it is! Alma (28) is a new artist to the scene and the entry is nicely ethnic, a bit like female Kendji Girac. But she already knows most likely what she's getting into: she has toured with last year's Amir and the song is written by Nazim Khaled, who is also behind Jái cherchè . 

Alice recorded this wonderful Gabriel Fauré's Pie Jesu for her 1988 Mélodie passagère album, and it was also included in her 1999 God is my DJ album. A stunning performance. Happy Easter everyone.