Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

  He's done it again. A real fun banger.  He did Amsterdam's Het grote songfestivalfeest again this year opening the whole show this time

  Well, at least to launch a November of #Finpop!  Four songs every day from the Finnish streaming platforms, charts and radio waves. A lot of newcomers and fresh talent along with bigger and Big names already maybe familiar to you. And who knows, maybe among them we have some or all the UMK 2023 entrants?  Enjoy the month ahead!

Käärijä's Eurovision runner up and televote winner Cha cha cha is dominating the Spotify viral charts in most every market including the USA, Japan (#2), UK, Germany, France and Sweden but something else is happening in Finland! On Monday 22.5 Cha cha cha was #1 in Spotify Viral in USA, Canada, Germany, France, Spain, UK, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, Israel, Ukraine, Poland and Australia. #2 in New Zealand and Japan, #4 in Mexico, #7 in South Africa. Just to name a few :-) After being the only country not to give Sweden any televotes the Top-2 of Finland's viral Spotify chart is occupied by those songs that have inspired Loreen's Tattoo quite a lot. I find all this so amusing. No one needs to get offended or say Finns are bad losers. It just shows how we function. A bit differently. Lol. Listen to Mika Newton here and Pont Aeri here .

This is only the beginning but Käätijä's Eurovision song contest 2023 runner up and televote winner Cha cha cha has already become the most streamed Finnish song in Finnish!  he has also broken the Finnish record of daily streams (469.600 on May 14) as well as weekly streams (2.566,241 accumulated on May 12-18)! The streaming numbers are over 32 million when writing this (pdate 21.5.: It's already 45 million) while the previous chart's Top-10 looks like this (On May 17, 2023), incl. UMK winner Aksel Kankaanranta as feat.: 1. Käärijä - Cha cha cha   32 297 751 2. JVG - Ikuinen vappu    31 441 712 3. Korpiklaani - Ievan polkka   30 432 149 4. JVG - Tarkenee   29 162 829 5.  Behm - Hei rakas   28 183 379 6. William - Penelope   27 053 714 7. JVG - Hehkuu   23 090 230 8. Pyhimys feat Aksel Kankaanranta - Jättiläinen    23 087 338 9. Reino Nordin - Antaudun    22 811 485 10. Behm - Frida ...

The Eurovision song contest 2023 runner up and televote winner by a margin, Käärijä's Cha cha cha from Finland after having topped the Spotify Global Viral chart for a couple of days climbs to number 7 in the official Spotif Global charts! It entered the Top-200 at number 151, climbed to 68 and now 7. This is the fist time evr a song in Finnish enters the Top-200! The daily streams since Eurovision grand final on Saturday have been nearly 2 million. Number one in Finland, Sweden (!), Iceland, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuamia. Numer two in Austria. Belgium, Norway, Ukraine, United Kingdom (!) and Poland. Number 3 in Ireland, Israel and so on. All I can say is cha cha cha (and please someone take it out of my head, it's been days I just go cha cha cha in any situation!)

"The rules are the rules and they are what they are and are to respected", said Käärijä in his homecoming interview at Helsinki airport today. But he continued that maybe they should be changed to be more fair. "Loreen deserved to win. Of course I wanted to win and I am disappointed. You enter a competition to win. Not for our performance, I wouldn't change a thing. We had a chance to beat her, did well but it wasn't enough. Loreen is amazing person and I love her. But I would have loved to beat her!"  He didn't know Finland didn't give Sweden any televote points. "Wow, I didn't know that! But it only proves Finns supported me also that way and I am grateful." Mayor of Vantaa, his hometown, and CEO of Yle were also there to welcome him home. Käärijä tells he has been in the Eurovision bubble for two weeks and has only a tiny idea of what's been going in Finland with this green hype and now it will take some time to let it sink. City...

Mahmood's very much awaited new album, his second is finally out. Ghettolimpo unites ghetto and Olympus being a sort of concept album and each song having a new personality and character for Mahmood. The album was already planned for 2020 release but as we know, sh*t happened and it was postponed. Rapide (#5), Dorado (#19), Inuyasha (#21), Zero (#44), Klan (#59) and now Kobra are the singles off it already, as well as Barrio (#4) as a bonus track. This said the album still has eight new and fresh song, including a duet with Elisa, Rubini . Moonlight popolare (#3) released between Rapide and Dorado didn't make the album cut. 

After winning Sanremo and placing second in Eurovision, after 120 million Youtube views so far, over 100 million Spotify streams becoming the most streamed Italian song ever and picking up triple platinum in Italy, platinum in Switzerland, Greece and Spain, gold in the Netherlands and hitting #1 in Israel among other chart listings the next logical step is of course an European tour following the ongoing tour in Italy between European PR gigs and events. On October 23, 2019 his European leg of the tour will start in Lugano, Switzerland, the birth place of the Eurovision song contest. Next stops (so far) Zurich, London, Paris, Luxembourg, Brussels, Berlin and Barcelona. Clap clap  will echoe even in the fall time. 

A month later comes Beautiful mess Hit the floor rmx with revisited video, too.  It's pretty good. 

On Sundays I will feature lesser known Motown songs and the first one might be quite surprising: Waylon! Yes, Waylon of The Common Linnets fame and Eurovision song contest runner up was signed to Universal and he released his debut album through their then owned Motown label.  Title track Wicked ways was a top-10 hit in the Netherlands.  An album followed (peaking #3 in the charts but staýing in top-100 for 80 weeks and selling platinum) and earned him awards as the newcomer of the year and later Singer of the year as his success continued and grew. 

Salvador Sobral might be the jazzy singer who did win Eurovision but Italy's Raphael Gualazzi, the runner up in 2011 is the one who has managed to make it an international career. And after last year's summer hit L'Estate di John Wayne he's again flirting heavily with pop for the summer: La fine del mondo is just that: summer pop song. It's off his international release of Love. Life. Peace. album.  Gualazzi is also touring Italy all summer with his tour and various (jazz) festivals.