Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

Ebu made the painful but sensible decision not to let the 2023 Eurovision song contest be held in Ukraine, the 2022 winning country due to ongoing Russian aggression and full blast war that seems to not be ending anytime soon sadly.  When the speculation started immediately, or even before their win, many broadcasters and countries stepped in line more or less seriously to have it from Italy to Poland, Sweden, the Netherlands and Spain but the Ebu decision fell on BBC and United Kingdom, the historical back up country and this time also the runner up with the official announcement on July 25. By then most every UK city has expressed its willingness to host Eurovision 2023: Aberdeen, Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Brighton, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Nottingham, Newcastle, Sheffield, Sunderland and Wolverhampton.  This will be 9th time United Kingdom hosts the contest: 1968 London, 1977 Wembley/London, 1982 Harrogate, 1998 Birmingham after...

Funny how James Blunt - who's latest UK Top-10 single as lead artist is from 2013 btw - comes out almost every year after Eurovision telling how he'd like to do it, like this tweet already in 2015: You have had already three years to actually take your words into action. What have you done about it? Another one out there indirectly again, Robbie Williams. Would he like to represent Russia? UK? whatever. As much as I would love to see Robbie do Eurovision  and should he win it, host it the year after, or simply host it should UK ever win it again this kind of free publicity is so cheap. And it is so funny how all websites fall for it every year. Oh yes, I'm here with it, too, but as you can see with another kind of approach.  Honestly I'd rather see Pet Shop Boys rethink and re-enter the game again....

A minor drop in the share and viewing figures for Sanremo last night. The second night was scored a share of 46,6% or an average of 10.367.000 viewers, a drop of 3,4% which is however better than in 2015, Conti's first festival, And 2016's second night was one of the best scoring ones ever so no worries. The after show DopoFestival is still doing well, 40,60% or an average of 2,4 million viewers... at 2am. Not bad at all. One possible reason if of course foorball, there was a Serie A match last night.  One of the highlight of the evening was the surprise kiss Robbie Williams gave to Maria De Filippi. Apparently ti created some 70.000 tweets in the seconds after..... 

Tonight Carlo Conti and Maria De Filippi try to repeat the success of last night. Another 11 Big artists will perform and the newcomers will start their competition with first eliminations. Two of them will make the final on Friday, while 8 of the Big will make it to Friday, while bottom 3 will have to try to make it in second chance tomorrow night.  Keanu Reeves, Robbie Williams, Giorgia, footballer Francesco Totti, Biffy Clyro, magician Hiroki Hara, comedians Enrico Brignano, Flavio Insinna and Gabriele Cirilli, actress Sveva Alviti who plays Dalida in a new fiction are among tonight's guest stars I will be live blogging and commenting again tonight so please join me at 20.30 CET. 20.49 The Eurovision tune goes off... here we go again! Carlo enters the stage and goes straight to the business and so do we: the Newcomers elimination round starts right away! Two out of four will be sent home.... 20.53 Marianne Mirage - Le canzoni fanno male She's propably t...

More guest stars have been revealed for the coming Sanremo festival. Besides before announced Tiziano Ferro and Carmen Consoli, Mika, Giorgia, Ricky Martin, Rag'n Bone Man, Zucchero, Piccolo Coro dell'Antoniani, comedian Maurizio Crozza we can now ad also actor Raul Bova with his wife, actress and ex-Sanremo host Rocio Munoz Morales, Biffy Clyro, Clean Bandit and Robbie Williams. Oh and talking about Robbie Williams, he surely could bring UK back to some Eurovision glory with something like Love my life . That screams a perfect Eurovision entry, doesn't it? Anyways, it's hardly likely we will ever see him do it, but maybe he could write a song? Or better yet; should UK win one day soon this blogger demands him as the host! He's just about the only one who could top Petra & Måns in that department. Period. 

While Conchita Wurst tells he's getting dead threats and hate mail, is condamned by some Russian and even Finnish politician (sigh) she's also getting congratulations and praise from world stars like Cher, Lady Gaga, Robbie Williams, Jean Paul Gaultier and Boy George among others, and she received flowers from Elton John with congratulations. Meanwhile Rise like a Phoenix is charting iTunes in over 50 countries from Kyrgyzstan to Mauritius, from Australia to Colombia, New Zealand, South Africa and Mexico. And from Canada to USA, Taiwan and Indonesia. Love conquers hate in the end. "Congratulations, we love you. Elton & David" "With unstoppable love, Jean Paul Gaultier"

End of the year, time to wrap up some lists. I sat down, tried to get sorted out the albums I have loved, listened, admired the most in 2013... #1. No doubt about the first one: Marco Mengoni's #prontoacorrere . It played on repeat from its release to late summer. The singles L'Essenziale , Pronto a correre and Non passerai are all fabulous but I adore also Non me ne accorgo, La vita non ascolta, La valle dei re, Una parola ... in fact I like all the songs on the album! And know most of them by heart by now. My love and adoration for this album is well documented in this blog so let's move on.... #2. The second one, Rafael De Alba's debut album En s ueño maybe a late addition, but since I got it in early December I haven't stopped listening it. Also, whoever I have played it, likes it, too! Are you still asking who is he? He's the one who wrote Melissa's Point of no return and Rebecca's Let's try again for the Swiss national selecti...

And just about in time! What is Sanremo without a scandal? Nothing. In a press conference. The guy who's in charge for the televoting said Roberto Vecchioni is leading the televoting when it is ment to kept secret. The direector of RaiUno and Morandi got angry of course and Morandi left the conference with the infamous "Vaffan...". It was also revealed that Micaela won the televote for the newcomers but the jury vote put Raphael Gualazzi ahead of her. And it's not all, Robbie Williams made a scene as well. Take That came to rehearsals one hour late and Morandi asked "Where have you been?". Long story short Robbie took off and Morandi was running after him trying to make things right. In the end Elisabetta Canalis convinced Robbie to perform at all in one condition: Morandi should be nowhere around! Oh dear... Here's The Flood last night. Meanwhile the share driopped to 46,91% or 10.616.000. In all this is the most succesful edition in many years with th...

Daniel Diges, the Spanish entrant in Oslo 2010 has a lot of experience as a stage artists but now thanks to winning the Spanish selection with Algo pequeñito he finally got to record his first album to be released shortly. The producer and arranger for it is five time Grammy winning Oscar Gómez (collaborations with Chayenne, Julio Iglesias, Ana Belen, Roberto Carlos and Miguel Bosé just to name a few) and Daniel has written most of the songs himself with some covers from Michael Bublé, Billy Joel and Robbie Williams. I think Daniel's lovely waltz will the dark horse....

The 60th Sanremo, il Festival della canzone Italiana starts next Tuesday, February 16. Antonella Clerici is conducting the five night event. As usual there are also several foreign guest stars to spice up the nights and in 2010 we will have Susan Boyle, Tokyo Hotel and Robbie Williams for sure, and Jennifer Lopez is "almost certain". As always the songs by the Big are not heard beforehand but the new ones, La nuova generazione has been widely made available on internet beforehand. You can listen to the ten finalists here . None of the names known to us Eurovision people made it: Miodio, Roberto Meloni, Paula Selig, Claudia Faniello.... BlogIlkar will follow the festival closely next week so please come back for daily updates!

And here are the most sold foreign albums in Finland in 2009. The German band Baseballs has really conquered the market and Madonna follows far behind. Another German band Rammstein takes the bronze! Baseballs Strike! Warner | 2009 (73 626) Madonna Celebration Warner | 2009 (28 999) Rammstein Liebe Ist Für Alle Universal | 2009 (24 067) Lady Gaga The Fame Universal | 2008 (20 741) Andrea Bocelli My Christmas Universal | 2009 (18 274) U2 No Line On the Horizon Universal | 2009 (17 019) 7. Green Day 21st Century Breakdown Warner | 2009 (15 116) Robbie Williams Reality Killed the Videostar EMI | 2009 (14 862) Michael Jackson Essential Sony Music | 2005 (14 535) Muse The Resistance Warner | 2009 (14 342) You can see the full list here .