Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

Signmark goes New York! As his Facebook writes: A live Sign Language flash mob music performance led by world’s first Deaf hip-hop artist Signmark will take over New York City 23rd of September, in Washington Square Park at 5pm.As a part of the Deaf Awareness week the Silent shout group wants to start a m . ovement through a collective cultural act towards building a society where everyone has the equal opportunity to participate and dream.The idea of this flash mob event is to get the crowd to sign in sync with ASL a chorus line with Signmark LEADING. The song is called “Against The wall”.Everyone is free to join the performance, for the aim is to build bridges between different cultures and make it easy for everyone to try how much fun signing could be. The Silent Shout group would like to encourage everyone to unlock his or her potential and be a part of the signing live performance! In order to join, you only have to learn the signs in advance from the Internet and be ...

Michalis Hatzigiannis has released his very first album in English called simply Mihalis. Most songs are covers of his original songs in Greek and some of them are simply wonderful. Now let's hope he would one day return to Eurovision.... Shame that both Greece and Cyprus seem to have set their plans for 2011 already. Here's the track listing: More Than Beautiful - I Raise My Hands - Favourite Mistake - Do You Really Wanna Love - Everyone Dance - Suddenly - One In A Million - In The Middle Of The Night - Heart Surrender - Eyes Of A Sinner - Let’s Call It Love - Now That You’re Gone - Kiss on the breeze More than beautiful and Everyone dance have already been released as a single. 

Svante Stockselius, executive Supervisor of the Junior- and Eurovision Song Contest on behalf of the EBU since 2003 resigns after this year's Juniors. It will be his 26th and last event. He used his knowledge of Melodifestival and the 2000 Eurovision song contest in Stockholm to give a new life to Eurovision itself, that was in a bad shape after the 1990's. In few years he doubled the number of participants, introduced televoting and when problems arose eventually the jurys again and made Eurovision a hit again with a good brand name. In an exclusive statement to Eurovision.tv, Stockselius said: "When I took this challenge nearly eight years ago, the Eurovision Song Contest was at a crucial cross road. Since then it is has become one of the greatest TV-entertainment events in the world! After the successes of Moscow and Oslo, I decided that now would be a good moment to say farewell, and to give others the opportunity to take the event to the next level ." No m...

The annual charity concert for children's hospital will take place in Hartwall Areena on September 15, 2010 and once again the hottest Finnish pop names are there from Hanna Pakarinen to Apocalyptica , from Jenni Vartiainen to Cheek and Irina just to name a few. More names will be added for sure and there's always also a surprise foreign act to heat things up, last year it was Tokyo Hotel. Hanna and Apocalyptica have worked together in Black ice .

Anna Oxa returns with a new album and the single Tutto l'amore intorn o after four years of mainly silence after her flop in Sanremo 2006. Since then she got married (and divorced) for the third time, searched her peace in soul and churches, angered other ladies in Amiche per l'Abruzzo and performed in a couple of concerts as guest star. This March she was also guest and dueted in Amici , the Italian Idols like talent show and her visit made a peak of audience and pushed her greatest hits in the charts. Her previous record companies also woke up and hurried to release various compilation albums so Italians have been missing her I guess. I hope she's got her act back together and will offer us something good like in the late 1980's-early 1990's. The first single doesn't quite convince me yet but hey, the album should have several covers of classics - she can'r ruin them, can she?

The question what happens when Germany, one of the Big4. won the Eurovision has been solved. No one will replace the empty slot in the final line up and therefor there will be only 24 countries in the final in 2011: ten from both semifinals and the Big4. A good decision I think. Any other solution would have raised just controversy and some countries being sour.  The other change in the reference groups meeting in Belgrade this week was the change of October 1 rule to the September 1 rule as requested my Belgium (well, they wanted it to be May 1 rule, are they insane??) so my dear readers, we might hear the Eurovision winner already next Wednesday! Are we happy? I am not. I'd rather push it even further, to November 1 or even December 1 rule. I understand pros for it but still... the season is so long already! And finally March 14-15, 2011 sees the reference group meeting in the host city (hopefully Berlin) and every country must have delivered their entry by then. So, let me see.....

The title says it all. Albums that I have listened over and over again and still enjoy after years. I will occasionally present them in random order from now on but I start with the favourite album of mine of all time. After 24 years it still sounds fresh and fails to annoy me. Also, it's a real rarity as none of the songs is a filler but each and every one are good enough to stand on their own. Park Hotel. Alice . This album was a turning point for Alice's career and musical direction and shaped her future as much as it did mine. It was her 8th album and 2nd change of style. I listened this album over and over again. I know all the songs by heart. I remember I bought it in Stockholm for some reason and was dying to get home to listen to it... and didn't stop for weeks. It's a very autumn feel album and every fall it finds its way back to my CD-player. I knew Alice before of course and continue to follow her today. She has recorded several great albums but this one is t...

Blogilkar guest writer Daniel Motiño Camúñez reports: Berlin presented its project to host Eurovision Song Contest 2011 and many jaws dropped when the name of O2 World Arena was not mentioned in favour of the old airport of Tempelhof. Berlin confirms that is one of the most creative cities in Europe by offering the most unique event location that never has hosted an Eurovision Song Contest. Well ,we should also mention the stinky Milstreet horse race arena (stinky since some of the singers pointed out the constant smell). The airport is in excellent central location in the city and was opened in 1927 and definately closed in 2008. It re-opened in 2009 as park and leisure space while the citizens of Berlin will decide its future and final use. The Cargo terminals located in the junction of Kreuzberg /Tempelhof districts should be the place to host the event. At the moment there are a couple of theaters and some of the areas are offered to host fairs and exhibitions. It is ...

Blogilkar guest writer Daniel Motiño Camúñez reports: Charity work for HIV infected and psychotherapy continuation is the scenario Nadja Benaissa will have for at least the next two years. The No Angel avoids prison but goes with a warning after the 300 hours process in Darmstadt. If she puts the process in danger then she will have inconditinal prison for two years. Among the conclussions it was also confirmed that Nadja had unsafe sex with at least two other men without warning them about her infection. After proving several medical records the jury also confirmed that her partner was infected by Benaissa in 2004. The case had also opened the debate about intimacy in Germany,  one of the countries where population is highly concerned about their privacy. One of the HIV activist said "Two person do not get infected if one does not want to" and the jury also clarified "it is not about the HIV infected's flagellation but about the frightening ignorance o...

Anna Bergendahl's second video is ready and out. Listen and watch The Army here .

Belgium or rather RTBF starts its long selection for the 2011 Eurovision on October 1, 2010 in collaboration with AKAmusic. Belgian artists are invited to upload their entries into the website created for the occasion written by Belgian writers and performed in English or French (why not in Dutch may I ask?). Then the wannabes have until December 31, 2010 to collect 20.000 euros to from the visitors to produce the entry.... WTF? I'm a bit lost here now.... If I give say 200 euros to the song I like and it eventually wins will I also get 1% of the royalties? This all sounds a bit fishy to me and just yet another attempt to variate the on going fashion of internet selections.... let's see how long this fashion will last.... Thank God and Svante for the October 1 rule! Other wise we would be having these online selections going all year round.....

If you can't wait for the DVD here's the TV special from TV4.

The summer's over at least in Finland but previous Eurovision stars keep the summer alive with their songs. Bulgarian Krassimir Avramov gets the make over by Deep Zone in Ria while Michalis Hadzigiannis turns up the beat and change the lyrics into English in Everybody dance . Here's the original . I just have to repost also To kalokairi mou simply because it is so fantastic and summery!

Laura Branigan passed away six years ago today at the age of 47. Her biggest hit in the US was a cover of Umberto Tozzi's Gloria , but in Europe a cover of Raf's Self control . She further recorded Tozzi's Ti amo, and even participated in Sanremo 1991 with Fiordaliso doing Il mare piú grande che c'é / Don't walk away . Her recording career started in 1979 but the first album came out only in 1982 and the Grammy nominations started right on with Gloria . She also scored the first hit for writers Diane Warren with Solitaire and Michael Bolton with How am I supposed to live without you. The Lucky one followed winning the Tokyo Music Festival and she also scored a hit with Carole King cover Will you still love me tomorrow , a nice change from her uptempo songs. She also did I found someone , later a comeback hit for Cher, on the other hand she covered Jennifer Rush's The power of love and made it a hit again. And she recorded Celine Dion's Unison before it...

Oh dear, I just read Nena is 50 years old, mother of four and a grandmother!! How time flies. I was a huge Nena was in the early 1980's. For some reason I never cared much for 99 Luftballons but adored Leuchturm , ? (Fragezeichen) , Irgendwie irgendwo irgendwann , Rette mich , boombastic Der Anfang vom Ende , sofisticated Ich häng an dir   and such. When the band was finished and Nena herself continued solo I kinda lost track with her. She caught me attention again when she re-recorded her greatest hits with guests like Kim Wilde and I had a real "I got to listen to all old Nena stuff!" period. Meanwhile she seems to have continued her career as a singer, actress, TV-presenter making also music for kids, being elected the sexiest vegetarian and so on...  Now researching her I noticed she has been doing very well in the charts all through the 2000's after less brilliant 1990's and her latest single is a top-5 hit besides being rather lovely, Im meinem Leben . Sh...

Laura Voutilainen's new single and first release from her coming greatest hits (out October 6, 2010) is Rakkauden soturi (Soldier of love ) that Laura has penned herself. The video was shot in Malta earlier this year and you can see it here . Shortly she will be busy with Stirctly come dancing....

Carola's recent Barbra Streisand and Elvis Presley trinute concert in Dalhalla will be released on DVD in November 17, 2010 and makes a perfect Christmas gift for any Carola fans out there. A teaser will be aired next week on TV4 in Sweden, August 26 9pm but it's just an one hour version of it, the DVD will feature the full show, 2 hrs 20 mins. Here's a bit what to expect: Enough is enough , Love me tender , Somewhere , and Woman in love .

Ukraine takes the crown of the first country to kick of its national selection procedure and after listening to more than 200 willing ones has picked up these 35 for their endless heats and semifinals and god only knows what: 01. Jamala 02. Verka Serduchka (Andriy Danilko) 03. Group Zaklyopki 04. Anastasiya Prikhodko 05. Zlata Ognevich 06. Group Armiya 07. Ivan Berezovsky 08. Arina Domsky 09. Vitaliy Galay 10. Group Metropoliten 11. Maksim Novitzky 12. Group Neksy 13. Shanis 14. Shanti 15. Olena Korneva 16. Yakov Smirnov 17. Oleksandr Kvarta 18. Group Daha Braha 19. Inna Voronova 20. Eduard Romanota 21. Mika Newton 22. Group Bahroma 23. Denis Povaliy 24. DASH 25. Nataliya Pugachova 26. Masha Sobko 27. Duet Para Normalnih 28. Oleksiy Matias 29. Mila Nitich 30. Tetyana Vorzheva 31. El Kravchuk 32. Valentin Levitzky 33. Darya Medova 34. Group VRODA 35. Hristina Kim  Time will tell if this stands or are we going to see another selection or two before...

Four cities are officially running to host the 2011 Eurovision song contest. NRD and EBU will decide within weeks now that the cities and their plans are official. Berlin is the biggest (3,7 million inhabitants) and the most exciting one what comes to history besides being again the capital city. Hamburg (1,7 million) is the home city of NRD. The other two with their over half a million inhabitants are important for other reasons - like Hannover being Lena's hometown. This blog stands for Berlin no doubt!

You can watch the new Lordi video's world premiere This is heavy metal exclusively this weekend here . On September 18 the band will have it's album release gig at Nosturi in Helsinki.

Ukraine will have it's national final on February 27, 2011. NTU is having a casting for new talents and apparently Verka Serduchka who was a worthy runner up in Helsinki 2007 with Dancing Lasha Tumba i has got a wild card to the final. Let's see what (s)he's got cooking this time.... Or will he enter as himself?  Verka's latest single is I love you .

African state of Mali becomes the 185th country to visit BlogIlkar. Welcome!

Waldo's People is charting in Canada's DJFM Radio's Top-20 at #6 this week with their I wanna be a rockstar going up. At the same list we have also Antoine Clamaran ft Soraya with Live your dreams at #7 going down and Dan Balan's Chica bomb going up at #13 so the chart seems very Euro friendly. But that's not all, Waldo's next single Jackpot is currently being mixed in Los Angeles in Timbaland by Koen. I wanna be a rockstar is also nominated in Oulu Musiikkivideofestarit for the best video. Things are looking fine for Waldo's People!

Blogilkar guest writer Daniel Motiño Camúñez reports:   The Process against No Angels member Nadja Benaissa started this week and hit German media. She has been accused of infecting from Hiv her ex-partner which he had a 6 months relationship. Media reported she stayed calm and confessed to be repentant. She confessed to choose the wrong people and the wrong environment around whch lead her to the big mistake. Nadia met the man in the Frankfurt disco-scene and after some drinks and dances together they went to bed. At the time Nadja just left No Angels and was trying to start her solo career. The Judge asked her if she was aware of the fact that with only one contact she could infect third parties, Nadja just answered "by the times that happened I was going through a lot, I cannot even remember, those were really dark times". Nadja stated "I always ignored the risk, I was totally careless", Nadja also said "It was not my intention to infect him wit...

Despite being the first and only Swede todate not to qualify for the Eurovision final, Anna Bergendahl is nominated both the best female artist and the best newcomer in the Swedish Rockbjörnen awards. The other Melodifestivalen/Eurovision related nominees are Agnes (best female), Erik Saade (best male and best new comer), Ola (best male), Salem Al Fakir (best male) and The Ark (best live group). Three out of five best song nominees comes from Melodifestivalen: Manboy , Keep on walking and Unstoppable . The other two are Oscar Linnros's Från och med du and Mando Diao's Nothing without you . In the best foreign song of the year Lady Gaga rules with three out of five moninations: Bad romance , Alejandro and Telephone . The awards are given by the readers of Aftonbladet since 1979.  Anna did beat both Erik and Salem in MF, let's see how it goes here!