Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

Things are not going very well for Anna Oxa. As her career has been going down all the 2000's - can anyone name a hit of hers from the 2000's? - including 3 Sanremos with declining placements (2001 10th, 2003 14th, 2006 not qualified for the final, 2008 not even being accepted to the festival) and in her private life things aren't so well either. In 2006 she married in great secret her bodyguard, 22 years her junior, but it's over now and Anna says goodbye to husband number 4. On top of that she only got negative comments on her appearance at Amiche per l'Abruzzo charity event organized by Laura Pausini & co for her song choice, and especially for her diva behavior.... Playing a diva on stage like she did in ESC 1989 is great, but doing it backstage in a charity event is not. Anna, get your act together (and record some proper songs for awhile, ok?)

Next three Madonna singles started a little set back in her career, caused by the Erotica controversy and the Sex book. Deeper and deeper**** * despite being one of the finest Madonna dance anthems ended her 5 year string of top-5 hits in UK stopping at number 6 and made it to number 7 in the US. There are countless remixes and versions of the song. I didn't find the video on Youtube so here's the Girlie Show performance: http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKfi_ZKjmwc Bad girl**** was Madonna first "flop" in charts since 1984 making only number 10 in UK and 36 in the US and it didn't make an impact elsewhere either. The US release had Fever on the B-side, but Erotica in UK. Fever was hurriedly released in UK to cover up the chart failure. http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9jm0hqldAQ Fever*** was released only in UK where it made number 6 and some other major markets. In US it was once again number 1 for her in Billboard's Dance charts but never officially ...

Antti Tuisku will represant Finland in the coming OGAE song contest with his latest single and hit Juuret (Roots) , off his forthcoming album Hengitän . Antti comes from Rovaniemi, Lapland and the video pictures the text very well, going back to his roots. Antti (25) came third in the very first Finnish Idols won by Hanna Pakarinen but has since become the best selling Idols related artist in Finland, and one of the best selling artists in 2000's overall. All his five albums so far have made it to number one - with the exception of his Christmas album that stopped at number 3, and Rovaniemi that was released together with New York in 2006. It stayed at number 2 while New York was number one! His greatest hits album made it to number 10. He has done some acting and musical Altar Boyz and his new album to be released this fall will be his first since the 2006 double release. Watch the video and the Finnish entry here: http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbNx5utnADg

In a very close run Antti Tuisku (Idols class 2003) beats another Idol Anna Puu (class 2009) and Euroviisut favorite Johanna Kurkela. Here are the results as voted by OGAE Finland members: 01. Antti Tuisku - Juuret 226 02. Anna Puu - C'est la vie 225 03. Johanna Kurkela - Kauriinsilm't 224 04. PMMP - Lautturi 204 05. Movetron - Elä nyt 202 06. Dacia - Kuin teräs 178 07. Happoradio - Che Guevara 173 08. Snowclone - Jäärakkaus 168 09. Juha Tapio - Kaksi puuta 163 10. Suvi Teräsniska - Hento kuiskaus 150 11. Finlanders - Sinun vuokses 139 11. G-Powered - Sun kanssas 139 13. Neljänsuora - Siipirikko 124 14. Annika Eklund - Julia jäi henkiin 121 15. Apulanta - Vauriot 104 16. Cheek - Liekeissä 74 17. Hausmylly - Samat sanat 54 17. Maija Villkkumaa - Suojatiellä 54 19. Petra - Kuka mä oon 47 20. Samae Koskinen - Hevonen 15

Alexander Rybak will perform tonight in MTV3's Pitkä kuuma kesä, broadcasted live from Tampere. The other guests tonight are Idols winner Koop Arponen and Eurovision veteran Laura Voutilainen who will cover Kirka. She will release a new album in October...

Amadeus Lundberg, the youngest artist in Tangomarkkinat 2009, won the title last night. Despite his age he has a lot of experience and the latest Eurovision success instrument violin is there, too. And opera... The show was a success for YLE who took over the contest from MTV3 this year. Nearly one million people watched the show live last night (compared to 700.000 last year) and Tangomarkkinat itself were visited by over 100.000 visitors all week. "I have been performing since I was 3 " says the winner. "Sure I was very excited what the jury will do as I am so young" he says now afterwords after being the clear superfavourite in all online polls and winning the televote in Thursday's semifinal. But he is no stranger to stage. He has been studying violin and plays guitar and sings backing vocals in his father's band. "I started singing more when I was 12 as I joined the opera's child choir. I have also performed with Hortto Kaalo (*the most famou...

Amadeus Lundberg, a 20-year-old gipsy singer has just won the 25th Tangomarkkinat, thus becoming the Tango King 2009. So, how did the evening progress? First each of the six finalist sung a classic tango. In general all did a great job with their songs. I wasn't so convinced with Amadeus and Marko which put me a bit in crisis. The four remaining performed a "modern tango" or rather a tango adaption of a recent hit. They were announced one by one and had to draw an envelope to hear which song they were to sing. First Kaija Lustila made a fantastic performance of Uniklubi 's Näiden tähtien alla and made me add her to possible top-2 proving she can cross over to pop. Amadeus Lundberg then performed Lauri Tähkä & Elonkerjuu 's Rakkaus ei oo pysyvää . He is young and "unpolished diamond" as the jury said and I'm not sure if he can drop the tango singer's maneuvers. Still very interesting and pleasant version lacking the rage of Lauri Tähkä. Nex...

Tonight its the final of the 25th Tangomarkkinat and a new King or Queen will be crowned. We will also know the very first participant in Euroviisut 2010. Whoever it will be, he or she will be singing a Mika Toivanen song in Euroviisut as he is the musical director (and man behind the idea?) of Tangomarkkinat. He has won Euroviisut twice: in 2004 with Takes 2 to tango and 2005 with Why . Or I might be totally wrong..... The fun starts 7pm CET.

Another mixed group of Madonna singles these three next. Another track from The Immaculate collection , a movie song and the first single from the next album.... that got her into trouble. Rescue me*** had no video made for it, and was messed up in the UK with the re-release of Crazy for you with the same sleeve. It went to number 9 in the US and eventually number 3 in UK when it finally was released and top-10 most everywhere else. I didn't find any Youtube for it (!!!) so you have to settle with this instrumental: http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptSFmsWz4mc This used to be my playground***** is from a fortunate Madonna movie A league of their own with Geena Davis and Tom Hanks. This is one of my favorite Madonna tracks and a sharp contrast between Justify my love and Erotica ! It became Madonna's 10th number one in the US and number 3 in the UK and a top-5 hit worldwide. http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjaQjaGYmqM Erotica**** took things a bit too far for her, and so...

Songs for summer, or rather yet another post of the series "gay artists who like to sing naked" as here comes Quentin Elias. Algerian born Frenchman, from the slums of Marseille to opening acts to Janet Jackson and Madonna. From a million seller boyband to solo stardom naked and hard in all his glory on video and pages of porn websites and performing half naked in New York's gay clubs and working with top producers and mixers. Anyways, he has made recently a cover of Johnny Hates Jazz's classic Shattered dreams and while there's no video for it yet here's his MySpace: http:// www.myspace.com/quentinelias and here's the original: http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgTLogsIWgM

We have now the six finalist chosen by televoters. Tomorrow the final takes place and it's only the jury that makes decisions. First they will drop out one male singer and one female singer. Out of these four they will pick up the final two who will battle it out in the final round. Jurors have stated the standard is very high and the winner won't necessarily be chosen by singing skills only, but the one who feels right for the job might be chosen. Which makes me think again Marko Maunuksela over Amadeus Lundberg. We will see...

The semifinal for the Tangomarkkinat has just finished and there were little hints about the future Eurovision deal, especially in the new feature: the singers could sing any song of their choice besides the tango assigned to them. Some took a change to show off what kind of pop singer they would be singing songs like Robbie Williams's Angels , or Finnish poprock, while some completely blew it by songs like Cry me a river or Love story . In my opinion - and in the televote - the male singers out sung the females and my bet for the winner is Marko Maunuksela. His tango was Hulluna tangoon aka Takes 2 to tango . He was beaten in the televote - to visible dislike of the jurors - by Amadeus Lundberg meaning the gypsies were watching and voting as always (the Finnish version of block voting...) However I must say Amadeus (20), the youngest singer this year, possesses a very powerful and nice voice. Here are the finalists for Saturday night and their scores tonight. One of them will b...

French Polynesia joins in as 139th country on this blog. Welcome! :-)

Next three Madonna single releases include the luckiest B-side strike ever, the most forgettable one and the banned and most scandalous video one. Vogue*** . Mainly due to the "flop" of Oh father in the US charts Madonna quickly recorded a new track to Keep it together 's B-side. When the record industry people heard it they thought it was too good to be wasted there and released it as a single. The rest is history. One of the biggest Madonna hits was born and she brought vogueing from the underground clubs to mainstream. Number one in both US and UK (and most everywhere) it is one of her trademark songs today. http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQDFEv72e3U Hanky panky* followed Vogue and despite charting well in many countries (US number 10, UK number 2) was soon forgotten. No real video was made for it and once again a live performance was used as such. This was the only real single from the Breathless album. http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXOKASfypSY Justify my love...

Tracey Ullman is fantastic. She's probably best known for her award winning comedy series Tracey Ullman show and Tracey Ullman's State of the union that is starting its second season in the US this fall. She's also responsible for the Simpsons mania as they were first featured in her show. She has won 7 Emmys and countless other awards and starred in several movies including Jumping Jack Flash and Death becomes her where she was cut out from the final cut unfortunately. But she started her career in musical theater however and scored six top-10 hits in the UK from her two albums You broke my heart in 17 places (1983) and You caught me out (1984) . Here's a bit of good humored summer music for you: http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mi0juQjuHp0 , http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvZSdCTcS-A , http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BDLcutLekU , http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXYLbvL9DTk , http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTCl64Tzq3k , http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=0z6W3xuOp0...

Corinne Hermes has released a greatest hits album Les plus belles chansons . Get it from her official website www.corinnehermes.com. Click on the pic for full tracklist.

This songs for summer is slowly turning into "songs by gay singers who like to get naked in public" as here comes Joel Evan, formerly known as Jet Kanashi. He is also a model and has not been shy to show of his body and fully hard frontals in pages of Playgirl and Men magazines and others. Anyways, he is up to his second album where from this minor hit I'll keep smiling is taken from. To his credit he's fully dressed and remains so throughout the video..... http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJ1d_GJ3rTU

I originally had saved Jay Brannan for the "Songs for summer turned into gay singers who want to get naked series" as he did a lot of things in the film Shortbus in a all male orgy scene but since then he has become an internet folk singer with a following. Recently he has released his second album. It's all about covers and one of them is a very bare version of Michael Jackson's Man in the mirror . The memorial service for Jackson is going on in LA this very moment so this is as good a time as any to publish this. http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=vm1s2I4Iix4

The annual Tangomarkkinat (Tangomarket) festival and competition for the next Tango Queen or King is here again. We have ten finalists and one of them will have a direct access to Euroviisut 2010 as a bonus if he/she so wants! So, in few days we will maybe know the first artist while YLE will announce the other 11 in September. In October the online competition for the remaining 3 places will be held. Many previous Tango Queen and Kings have later participated in Euroviisut as I have written in this blog before, but this is the first time the winner gets the right to participate like this. Is this a sign Tangomarkkinat is moving more and more pop oriented? This year's finalists are Eerika Grönlund, Markus Kokkonen, Mervi Koponen, Amadeus Lundberg, Kaija Lustila, Marko Maunuksela, Tuomas Myllylä, Nino Nyman, Anni Parkkila and Virpi Piippo.

Next three Madonna singles had various releases in different markets and ended her record breaking string of top-10 hits in the UK. But something bigger was already cooking up... Oh father** was the fourth US single from Like a prayer and was only released in the US where it stopped at number 20, breaking the chain of becoming 16th top-10 hit in a row. When it was finally released in the UK - and elsewhere - 7 years later it made it to number 16 there and number one in South Africa of all places. http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=QK7v81xsG0A Dear Jessie*** was the alternative to Oh Father in UK, Australia and several European countries. It went to number 5 in UK, number 3 in Ireland and top-20 in some other countries. Madonna did not feature in the video that was not commercially released. http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=onJq-1iSqx0 Keep it together*** was the final single off the album and only released in the US and Japan, and later in Australia as AA-side to Vogue/Keep it toge...

I was and still am a huge fan of fabulous Pointer Sisters. One of their biggest hits from 1984 has been covered very well by Ultra Nate. While the original ladies bring back all the horrors of the 1980's fashion in the video Ultra Nate brings us a very different approach: the 2000's relationships reality online! Enjoy: http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNi8aW8Nf6s and http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhVqUMdBnLE

Madonna kicked of her 2009 leg of S t i c k y & S w e e t tour last night in London but here we still have to wait for 29 days.... In this series she enters a whole new era with Like a prayer album..... Like a prayer***** became one of Madonna's best selling singles ever with over 5 million singles sold worldwide at the time of the release. It also went number one in the US, UK, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Israel, Japan, Norway, New Zeland, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland almost everywhere else, too. The controversial video caused Madonna to lose her 5 million dollar Pepsi ad campaign but in the end she came out the winner in sales and fame. The video was first aired in Europe on March 2, 1989. My birthday. http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjOoaoPyCZw Express yourself***** followed Like a prayer 's success becoming a number 2 in the US and number 5 in UK and top-5 hit in many other countries. The video was at the time the most expens...

a-ha has been hunting high and low for another big hit and it looks like they might have it in their hands now. Recently released Foot of the mountain is a perfect pop tune and could become a classic like Take on me, Sun always shines on TV and Hunting high and low for example. Morten Harket hosted the Eurovision 1996 but could a-ha make an appearance in Oslo 2010? http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKatwrQIaEA

Jamaica joins in my blog as 138th country. Welcome! Most readers still come from Germany, Finland, Greece, Turkey and the United States. United Kingdom and Sweden complete the top.

Sara Tavares who sung for Portugal aged 16 in 1994 Chamar a música - one of the finest Portuguese efforts ever - has followed Dulce Pontes's footsteps to international fame and love of the critics and fans alike. While Dulce has went for fado oriented stuff, Sara has taken her Capo Verdian roots into use in her music. Fantastic voice, beautiful melodies. Another go in Eurovision might do wonders for her career and spread her music even wider. She has recently released a new album Xinti after last year's Alive! In Lisboa . She has just started a new tour in Portugal that will later take her to Germany, Sweden, Finland (September 29 in Helsinki), France and a long tour in the USA. Watch Chamar a música here: http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlW8sbSQelg and a new track Ponto de luz here: http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2i_-F8JftE and here's Balance from her previous album: http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=1C9mWN8vKHQ