Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

Here it is, already traditional Blogilkar's Eurovision Home Jury results. This year we had a total of nine people in the jury from teenagers to 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s, most every one just people who do watch Eurovision but aren't any fanatic fans, just tv viewers who don't remember who won two years ago or sometimes even last year, don't have a clue about the polls and odds but just score the songs to their liking. We used 1 to 10 scores. Tie breaks were settled by highest marks and if still a tie by my preference. Here we go! 28. MONTENEGRO - TAMARA ZIVKOVIC - NOVA ZORA    38 29. PORTUGAL - BANDIDOS DO CANTE - ROSA  36 30. SAN MARINO - SENHIT FEAT. BOY GEORGE - SUPERSTAR   35 31. CROATIA -  LELEK - ANDROMEDA    34

    I wasn't planning on doing personal reviews this year either but here we go after all. Truth to be said I have listened the entries 0-2 times before sitting down now to comment them. Let's go! The usual Blogilkar's home jury will reunite later and the results revealed in due time. meanwhile, my thoughts and comments on the entries of Eurovision song contest series is right here.  Greece - Akylas - Ferto ***** Ok, this is this years Käärijä/Joost/Baby Lasagna/Tommy Cash but Akylas has what the others have missed since Käärijä: the cute bubbly personality that I can't not adore. The song's also fun, catchy but not studid. The arrangement throws in nice nuances and the ballad bit fits and is beautiful and very, very Greek. Great job. I hope this makes the Top-5. Should this win I wouldn't be too sad but this more of a tyoical runner up like song. Instead of the national final video I want to add here the preview video as it shows best his personality.  Moldova ...

  Spain is turning into Operación Triunfo to find their Eurovision entrant for Lisbon 2018. But there's a twist: there will be a specially staged Eurovision final for the five finalists - before the OT is over! The five finalists will have songs written by experienced composers to compete and televoters will choose the winning compination. After that OT continues to its end so the OT winner may not be the one going to Eurovision.  Nine out of original 18 singers are still in the competition, but four more has to go before we get to the Eurovision stages. The next episode will air after New Year's so February looks likely for the OT/ESC final. Then again, this isn't something new either: Beth who represented Spain in those OT years didn't win OT either. She only came 3rd in OT behind Ainhoa and Manuel Carrasco but beat them in the special Eurovision selection. The year before when the first OT was used as Eurovision selection the winner Rosa took her runner u...

Francesco Gabbani will join a long list of other Eurovision artists in Madrid's Wold Pride celebrations starting this weekend until July 2.  Eurovision winners Loreen and Conchita are present, so are Slavko from this year's contest, Spanish entrants Ruth Lorenzo, Barei, Soraya, Rosa, Azucar Moreno, Mirela, LeKlein and Baccara, Kate Ryan, Suzy with Ivri Lider, Carlinhos Brown, Aliice, Norwood, Toby Corton, Roser, Ama Torroja, Nito, Jorge Gonzales, Rebeca, Nuria Fergò and Toby Corton. How come they forgot about Saara Aalto? ;-p

News from Spain concerning their participation in 2018. The good old Operación Trumfo, that brought the country to top-10 three times in a row 2002-2004 and so far the last time anywhere near it with the exception of Ruth Lorenzo's 2014 and Pastora Soler's 2012 - both barely 10th - could be making a comeback as country's national selection next year. It seems TVE is prepairing another 20omething finish next week... BUT OT has given us a lot of Spanish flavour and good placings, hopefully this could change the Spanish Eurovision faith again! In light of that ti makes sense, even if TVE has prompty denied it is so.... In 2002 Operación Triunfo was launched and caused a real hysteria in the Iberian peninsula launching the careers of Rosa Lopez, David Bisbal, David Bustamante, Chenoa, Gisela and some others. Rosa took all the runners up with her to Eurovision and Europe's living a celebration finished 7th while the whole of Spain lived with them the somewhat disappo...

The Spanish final with ESDM was rather Italian show, when  Marco Mengoni was one of the judges, Luca Barbarossa sent a video postcard to Raquel (they dueted in Sanremo 2011with Fino in fondo ) and  Nek duetet with ESDM But also Pastora Soler was there.... ... so was Rosa! I kinda liked all of their three songs equally. Dame tu voz reminded me somehow Mecano, but the other two were very ESDM indeed and either of them winning will be ok for me. In the end they all agreed; the jurors and televoters all put Dame tu voz 3rd, Atrevete 2nd and Contigo hasta el final first. What an agreement, untilt he end!

All is set in Spain. El Sueño de Morfeo was internally selected in December ro represent the country. Then they decided to use ESDM as the band's name for the occasion (very clever, if they bomb they can always go back to the original name and in no time no one remembers ESDM was them...).  Then two songs were put online to be voted by the public for the third song in the line up. Atrévete won over Revolucion with 69,9% of the votes and join the other two songs in the final; Contigo hasta el final and Dame tu voz .  There will be combined televote/jury in the final. Next we learned the Italian Sanremo winner and Eurovision 2+13 entrant Marco Mengoni will join the special jury along with Rosa Lopez (ESC 2002) and Spanish commentator Jose Maria Iñigo. Carolina Ferre will be hosting the show and ESDM in duet with various singers: last year's entrant Pastora Soler, Alex Ubago, Musicalite and Italian Nek . Destino Eurovision will be streamed live on TVE's webs...

The Spanish fans launched a poll to see who they would prefer to represant their country in the 2011 Eurovision song contest and Chenoa is narrowly their favourite, almost head to head with Mirela, 2.243 votes against 2.232. Soraya despite her flop in Eurovision came third with 1.995 votes. The top trio is followed by Natalia Jiménez (1.974), ex-vocalist of La 5. Estacion, Marta Sánchez (1.923), Malú (1.917), La Oreja de Van Gogh (1.888), Mónica Naranjo (1.865), Edurne (1.847) and another ex-Eurovision star Rosa (1.836). Other familiar names include Enrique Iglesias (12th), Coral (14th), Hevia (15th), Anabel Conde (17th), Venus (19th), Maria Isabel (20th), David Bisbal (28th), Ana Torroja (33rd), Ainhoa (34th) and Amaia Montero (44th). The Spanish TV has launched an open call for both singers and songs this time around. Let's wait and see if any of these artists will apply.... Mirela has said she'll be there and will finally release her debut album in spring 2011 while ...

RTVE has announced details about their final on February 22. Previous entrants Sergio Dalma and Rosa will be guest stars along with David Bustamante, who was one of the finalists along with Rosa in Operación Triunfo and her backing singer in Eurovision, and has then built a very succesful career. His latest single is Abrázeme muy fuerte , while Rosa's is De haber sabido . Sergio Dalma will release a new album in March and the first single off it is Mientras tanto . A combination of jury and televotes will decide the winner for Oslo 2010 out of the ten finalists that qualified from the internet voting.

... Superstar Monica Naranjo would be the fans choice in Spain according a poll conducted by www.eurovision-spain.com . Monica is followed by Chenoa and Mirela (who should have won last year with Nada es comparable a ti , btw). La 5. Estación , La Oreja de Van Gogh , Marta Sanchez , Diana Navarro , Merche , Rosa and Amaral complete the top-10 wish list by fans. Other interesting names include my favourite Malú (11th), Coral (13th), Soraya (14th), David Bisbal (20th), Amaia Montero (25th), Beth (29th), Enrique Iglesias (40th), David Civera (43rd), Sergio Dalma (46th) and brilliant  Bebe (47th). But as there is an open internet selection for the songs that will start January 13 we can only wish at least some of these artists have applied....

Rosa Lopez is releasing already her 6th album Propiedad de nadie with the first single release De haber sabido . Who would have known she would be still around and so strongly after all this time, unlike most Idols like casting/talent reality stars? I must admit I was never a fan on Europe's living a celebration and my dislike to the song also made me dismiss unfairly Rosa herself. Anyways, over the years I have discovered Rosa as she is: a great singer with good albums and songs in various styles, all from Carola covers to Melodifestivalen covers to classics , and her own songs. And it all started from this .

It looks like Spain has dropped out of Eurovision dance contest 2008 just 17 days before the event leaving Rosa Lopez and Nieto sitting at home! Not fair. Europe's not living a celebration....