Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

As I'm off to France for some well deserved holidays and will get back to this blog afterwards I will feature a song a day. From France as my travelling tradition goes. By my favorite French singers bien sur. Enjoy!

Oh what a night! What a voice! Slimane came to Helsinki on his world tour that is sold out most everywhere he goes and Helsinki was no exception. I bought my tickets the first day they were on sale and to my great surprise it was already almost sold out already and all I got were seat too far for my cellphone for any decent photos so sorry for the bad quality! :-) Scroll down to a video recap - decent sound, poor picture.  The new world tour differs from the French arena tour he has been for a year or more that ended in early January. A new set list was prepared for this international adventure and smaller scale staging. There were only Slimane on stage with three excellent backing singers, a drummer and a keyboardist but it sounded great anyways, and after all with Slimane and those fantastic singers it was all about the voice anyways. Simple yet very clever lighting as icing on the cake that played with little tricks creating just right atmosphere. As he may not be as well known ...

France continues sending big guns to Eurovision song contest as following Slimane's footsteps it is Louane, who was in my bingo card as a possible and welcome one to be selected!  If in 2024 France was the first to publish their song in 2025 they will be among the very last, if not the last, as she will premier her entry on March 15, 2025 during the half time of the Six Nations rugby match France-Scotland at the Stade de France. March 15: Maman was released Louane (Anne Edwige Maria Pelchert, 28) is another singer coming out of The Voice even if she didn't amek the top-4. However her road to stardom was ready and her debut album in 2015 went to #1, sold double platinum in France, platinum in Belgium and gold in Switzerland. The second album also went to #1 selling half a million copies in France. Three more albums have followed , all top-10.  She has also released 23 singles so far including one #1, and five top-20 hits.  Enjoy below some of her previous hits:

Sometimes the Eurovision stars don't quite follow up their momentum with releases of new singles and/or albums but this year the Top-4 has been already productive with the exception of the winner Nemo who still goes around singing The Code. The runner up Baby Lasagna from Croatia  third placed Jerry Heil and Alyona Alyona from Ukraine as well as French superstar Slimane all are out with a follow up single already. BABY LASAGNA - AND I JERRY HEIL - VIRGIN MARIA ALYONA ALYONA - Тато SLIMANE - RÉSISTER (WHAT ABOUT PEACE?)

Slimane recovered from flu just in time to perform in front of Basilique Saint-DenisDenis in Paris just hours before the outstanding opening ceremony of 2024 Olympics. Accompanied by 50 piece symphonic orchestra, gospel choir and dancers and even another Eurovision veteran Lara Fabian (her Eurovision 1988 competitor would be icing on top in the opening ceremony later that night). He sung some of his hits, including a majestic version of Mon amour and his most recent release, Résister (What about peace). Enjoy the show below!

Four Eurovision song contest icons selected randomly to celebrate Paris Olympic games opening tomorrow - with Slimane giving a free concert as warm up show (and I am hoping he will also perform in the opening ceremonies  as well!) ? Not quite so.  Slimane has dueted with all of them, besides co-writing the songs. Let's have a listen! LA ZARRA / SLIMANE - LES AMANTS DE LA COLLINE PATRICK FIORI / SLIMANE - PROMESSE MADAME MONSIEUR / SLIMANE - DIS-MOI QUE JE SUIS PATRICK FIORI / YCARE /CLAUDIO CAPÈO / SLIMANE -  QU'EST-CE QU'ON ÈTAIT BEAUX Slimane has literally dozens of duets with other singers so it's no wonder he has ended up with these previous Eurovision stars. Maybe they have had a word to convince him to do it, who knows?

  Let the drama come to an end with a peaceful way. Let's pray! In the odds (at 6pm) Croatia is still leading with 43% chance, followed by Israel (22%), Switzerland (14%), France going up with 4%. All the other % are 4 or lowers so I won't add them here. Ireland is steady at 5th, followed by Ukraine and Italy dropping, Finland going up to 8th place (!!!), Greece steady at 9th, Uk, Sweden, Norway and Armenia going up next, while Lithuania and Austria going down. Georgia steady at 16th. Spain and Cyprus going up and Estonia steady at 19th. Then Germany and Latvia going up, while Slovenia going down at 22nd. Portugal and Luxemburg going up while Serbia has dropped to last. So, quite a lot of movement there up and down. I still stick to my fixed idea since November 2023 of France winning followed by Israel, Ukraine, Croatia, Switzerland and Italy in random order. I also think the winner may not win either jury nor televotes, maybe not even be the runner up but in the end maths done...

Ok, it's time to reveal my own personal ranking this year. The first song I heard was France and it has stayed the clear number one for me all this time, and I still think it can win it all - maybe not winning neither the jury nor the televotes but ending up winning as a compromise. The other that still moves me every time I hear it, and I just like still as much as the first impact is Ukraine. Italy and Croatia were on top ever since they won their national finals and Albania was my favorite in FiK and even if it took awhile for me to adjust to the new version I still like it a lot. United Kingdom didn't impress that much at first but has been climbing all the time. Azerbaijan was a favorite as well right away while Switzerland took some time to appreciate while Luxemburg and Austria in the end made my top-10.  A special mention bubbling under are Belgium, Netherlands, San Marino, Spain, Lithuania and Israel not forgetting Ireland and Australia.  1. FRANCE - Slimane - Mon amo...

  Slimane was the fourth artist announced for the Eurovision song contest 2024 in Malmö, but the very first with the song Mon amour released at the same time and thus the first song of the season, when the whole package was revealed on November 8, 2023. This year France Télévisions dropped the national final and picked internally the biggest name instead. A bit like Italy last year with Marco Mengoni. Slimane Nebchi (34) is a French of Algerian descent through his grandparents. In 2016 he won the season 5 of The Voice but before that he had already gone through many talent shows: Popstars 2007, Nouvelle star 2009, X Factor 2011, Encore un chance 2012, Je veux signer chez AZ and also did Didier Barbelivien's musical Marie-Antoinette et le Chevalier de Maison-Rouge in 2015. His recording career started started after The Voice (except for an EP in 2011 that went nowhere) with his debut album hitting #1 and selling triple platinum. Since then he has released three more albums (last one...

As always, the Eurovision entries are being released in various versions; either being revamped for the contest or having a change of language or just simply an alternative version of genre or whatever. Here's a collection of season 2024 entries and their variations starting with Finland's Windows95man's No rules in its fabulous Enigmastic 90's Spa mix. Love it! (And yes, that's Sibelius in the background!) ... but that's not all! They also did a symphonic version with Espoo's Tapiola Sinfonietta orchestra!  No rules! We follow with France. Slimane delivers the perfect ballad Mon amour but in a Meya Rework mix with more beats and stuff. I may prefer the original as it's just perfection.  Italy's Angelina Mango has recorded a Spanish verison with Alvaro de Luna Azerbijan's Fahree feat. Ilkin Dovlatov reworked their entry a bit Slimanesque way. It's quite wonderful.  Spain's Nebulossa has rercorded Zorra with Mexican superstar Gloria Trevi....

The UEFA EURO 2016 foorball circus starts this week on on Thursday night a big concert is to be held to celebrate the opening. And France gives us some of its finest on Champ-de-mars in Paris: David Guetta, Kendji Girac, Louane Emera, Christophe Mae, Florent Pagny, Soprano, Amir and Slimane, the Voice winner are flying the French flag while there will be also Madcon (Norway), Zara Larsson (Sweden) and Will.I.am is the obligatory American in the lot on the foot of Eiffel tower.  The games start the day after with France Vs. Romania.  Meanwhile check out their video after the jump.....