Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

It's already a tradition of this blog that Peter Clancy comes up with a review of the season's offering and this year's no exception. Enjoy! Well, we’re back to Eurovision time again and to be honest this year’s crop of entries is quite disappointing which is not so bad because it is likely to make the voting very erratic and with votes going everywhere we could have an unexpected winner...  My prediction is that the initial voting will have all kinds of changes in the leader board. This year I am reviewing the songs in order of my ranking – from the worst to the best in my opinion. the Q is that they will qualify; nq is they will not qualify and F is they're already in the final  Moldova (Wild Soul; Christina Scarlat) : Trying to be a better song than it is, though it has a nice build up ... still a boring song. (will not qualify (nq); rank-37) Belarus Cheescake; Teo) : Boring, an excuse to enter a song - won't do well ! Too jazzy (nq; rank-36)   ...

Germany revamped its national selection concept. Some big or bigger invited names plus one wildcard from open to all selection (that received 2200 songs!), that had its very own final before the Grand final. Elaiza won that round and went on to beat the Big Names in the Grand final as well, surprising everyone, including themselves. Ela (21, Polish-Ukrainian), Yvonne (30) and Natalie (29) have just released their debut album after meeting originally in the recording studios. Last year they also won the best newcomer award in the Women of the World festival in Frankfurt. Is it right? Robert: The German preselection was the best preselection of all the National finals in Europe this year. Lots of interesting artists with modern, contempory, non typical eurovision songs. This is how I would like to see it in the whole of Europe. The artist in Germany that stood out the most for me was MarieMarie, both with Candy Jar and Cotton Candy hurricane . She has a new fan in me and I defini...

Italy didn't use Sanremo festival this year to choose their entrant. They just took the best selling female artist of 2013 and sent her. An example for the other countries, please follow suit! Emma Marrone (29) has a background a bit like Laura Pausini: musician father, singing with him standards, then some event that changed it all. For Laura it was Sanremo, for Emma a reality show, so much more 2000's. That came after years of different bands and projects. Since then it has been a string of #1 albums, winning Sanremo and even having four #1 hits in Italy and a countless number of awards and nominations. Now she's ready to conquer European and Latin markets as well. She has written herself her entry La mia città . Robert: An Italian rock chick is coming to Eurovision stage. It took me a bit but I really love it now. I hope she does well and that an entry like this pays off. She was a guest at the National final of Germany and there I must say, I was not too thrille...

The Class of '14 of Eurovision artists could be one the most even ever what comes to the age of the artists. There's only 23 year gap between the youngest and the oldest artist that performs with own name (solo/duo). With a quick check of the solo artists (I didn't search for the dates of birth of the groups from Latvia, Iceland, Malta, Georgia, Finland, France and Germany, and didn't find Kasey Smith's date) we notice that out if these 36 that I have the year, 22 are born in the 1980's, seven in the 1970's and in the 1990's as well. And out of the 34 that I have the exact date, 26 are born in the first half of the year and only 11 in the last six months of the year.... The youngest ones are the Russian twins and the guys from Finland, Greece and Denmark. The oldest are Ovi and Valentina Monetta! (I think the Icelandic gentlemen would take the prize here though) Dilara and Emma have only 5 days between them, Mei and Ruth about a month, Axel and Car...

Molly Smitten-Downes (27) is a singer-songwriter from Leicestershire. Not exactly an household name (yet) she scored her first top-10 hit already in 2008 with Raindrops . Another collaborations include I will learn to love again , Shadows and Never forget . But she wasn't really into that genre and has since gained notoriety among unsigned artists and even won the Best Urban/Pop artist award in 2012. Last year she won the Best song of the year award, so her career is taking big steps towards wide audience stardom. She got to BBC Introducing series and that's where they found and picked her instead of likes of rumored Geri Halliwell. Love Geri but this was a wise decision. Children of the Universe has pretty much the same incredients than Love shine a light . Robert: First of all, the Uk did great to choose a talented newcomer again after 2 disappointing results with 2 veterans. The song is also more interesting than the last 2 years. It should pay off in the results in ...

As we know Australians are crazy for Eurovision. Some Aussies have even song in Eurovision for other countries, from Gina G to Johnny Logan and Olivia Newton-John . In mid 1990's the Australian TV apparently even offered to host the show in Sydney opera house if only they could take part in it. Or then maybe they didn't but the rumor was there. It's an intriguing idea, isn't it? Anyways, Australian SBS has broadcasted the Eurovision nearly 40 years now and it every year gathers a few million Aussies to watch it downunder. After a long wait finally in 2014 Australia will be present in the Eurovision stage officially. They will provide us the interval act in the second semifinal on May 8, 2014. The lucky chosen one is Jessica Mauboy who will sing her hit Never be the same and another brand new, especially for Eurovision written song.  She is "super excited" and declared a fan of the contest since she was 11 years old.

France had a sort of national final this year for a change. Three songs: one French ballad, one boyband and then this, Moustache by Twin Twin. They are of YOLO (You only live once) generation. have released one EP and one album so far. They are  Lorent Idir, François Djemel and Patrick Biyik and performing together since 2009.Not much else to tell really, it seems... Robert: If you like to bang your head, you like Twin Twin's song. It's catchy and the guys are full of energy. Not a bad song at all but also not a highlight. However the best of the 3 songs in the French selection won but I think better music can come out of France. Blogilkar: France surely would have better to offer but their Eurovision efforts get rather ridiculous if they have to find songs for their nominees from the usual Eurovision writers abroad. Luckily the fake French ballad didn't win and shame for the singer, as she deserved much better. The winning song was and is the only one that has a ...

I will collect and update here videos of the chosen songs so far.  Sit back and enjoy! 1. UKRAINE - Mariya Yaremchuk - Tick-Tock - live - studio - new version - 2. ALBANIA -  Herciana Matmuja - Zemërimi i një nate - live - studio - video - 3. BELARUS -  TEO - Cheesecake - live - video - 4. ITALY - Emma Marrone - La mia città- video   - live - studio - live -  5. FINLAND - Softengine - Something better - live - video 6. SWITZERLAND - SebAlter - Hunter of stars - live - video 7. MALTA - Firelight - Coming home - live - live2 - studio - video - 8. ICELAND - Pollapönk - Enga fordóma - live - studio   video   - Euro Club mix 9. MACEDONIA - Tijana  Dapčević - To the sky - live - Macedonian - 10. HUNGARY - András Kalláy Saunders - Running - live - video - acoustic 11. LATVIA - Aarzemnieki - Cake to bake - live - studio - video - 12. SPAIN - Ruth Lorenzo - Dancing in the rain - live -...

Anis Basim Moujahid (21) aka Basim is of Moroccon origin (like Loreen). He's a household name in Denmark and started his career already at the age of 15 in X Factor. Two albums and one EP later he emerged as the winner in the Danish national final and will fly the Danish flag in his hometown with Cliche love song .  Robert: Since the Danish final of March 8, I've been playing quite some songs from this years Danish preselection. Bryan Rice , Danni Elmo , Sonny and Emilie Moldow to mention the ones I prefer most. Basim won the final with the modern, Bruno Mars like, Cliche love song . For me, its an ok song, and maybe the song with the best chances to get a high ranking on the night of the final. So, I can live with the choice the Danes made. However, if the Danes would have chosen Emmelie de Forest again to defend her title like the Germans did with Lena a few years ago, I would have been very happy. Her latest song Rainmaker is really good and that one would have be...

Italian DJ and radio speaker Linus will announce the Italian votes in the final in Copenhagen 2014 Eurovision song contest. He will also comment the final with Nicola Savino (pictured with Linus on left) . The two semifinals, that RAI will broadcast both for the very first time will be commented by Marco Ardemagni and Filippo Solibello again. All this will happen directly from Milan, so the Italian commentators won't be on spot in B&W Hallerne. (But San Marino will have Italian commentary from studios in San Marino AND commentary in English from the spot!) Italy has notoriously left the winning songs in 2011 and 2012 without a single point, but last year they awarded Only teardro ps full 12 points. Romania, Moldova and Ukraine have received points every year. If combined the last three years votes, the Italian votes this year would be: Romania 12, Moldova 10, Ukraine 8, Denmark 7, Germany 6, Albania 5, Malta 4, Russia 3, United Kingdom 2 and Greece 1. Propabl...

Spain staged a national final with invited artists and it was a pretty good selection indeed. Two favorites stood above others, Brequette and Ruth. They even tied in the final but in the end Ruth was declared the winner. She's 31 and comes to Copenhagen via Spain, USA and UK, where she came 5th in the X Factor a few years ago. She has been touring and doing this and that, but this seems to be her real debut.  Her previous singles are Burn and The Night . Robert : It took me a while to enjoy Dancing in the rain . This was mainly because I was so upset that Brequette with Mas did not win. Her “live “performance was so overwhelming that I could not understand that she did not get the trophy. I saw a winning song for Spain. However Ruth's Dancing in the rain is certainly not a bad song that could do very well if she sings it right and if she manages to deliver. The videoclip is beautiful and the final version of the song sounds great.  But as soon as she is a bit off tun...