Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

Cyprus had its second elimination heat (Information on the first one here ). Five acts made it to the next step out of eight this time. To make things even more complicated Charalambous "Luna" Joseph already qualified last week and here he is again?! Obviously he didn't qualify this time or he might have had some multiple personality problems in the near future I guess. Pieros Kezou is a familiar name from Cypriot final 5 years ago and Ioanna Protopapa already tried her luck in the X Factor Greece. The ones in bold made it through.  Christina Tselepou – In these arms  Valence – Scared  Charalambous “Luna” Joseph – Call for me  Lady Ava – Until the end of time  Pieros Kezou – Said it all before  Kostas Archontous – Steko akoma  Maria Moskofian and Christiana X Iordanous – Sailing Ships Pirates and Dragons  Ioanna Protopapa – Beat of my heart 

Serbia returns to Eurovision in Vienna and they have put Vladimir Graić is charge. He's the man behind Serbian winning entry Molitva in Helsinki 2007 and less fortunate Verjamem for Slovenia in 2012. He will write the songs and select the artists. However, besides wellknown big names the unknown and lesser known ones had a chance as well. Ten of them competed last night performing covers and jury was ment to choose one wildcard for the line up. Instead they picked up two but it remains to be seen if they will perform in duo or soloist and bring the number of songs to four in the final as the information on this seems rather varied dependng on source. Anyways, the lucky ones are  Goga Stanić , a model and  Danica Krstić , more traditional singer.  Serbian final will take place in February

The artists and song titles for the Sanremo 2015 festival have been revealed this afternoon ending a weeks long speculation, guessing and gossiping. Earlier this week it was revealed they are 20 instead of the original 16. Now 16 of them will make the final on Saturday night and the winner has the right to represent Italy in the Eurovision 2015 Vienna. It's a very interesting cast of old and very new, big names of the moment and returns after many years. Only one previous winner (Masini) but three Eurovision entrants (Zilli, Fabian, Raf)... The submissions were 186 and Conti confirmed Sister Cristina nor Fausto Leali has sent a song. Lorenzo Fragola who won X Factor only three days ago is the last addition to the list, last night. Among the artist many very suitable names for Eurovision... Annalisa Scarrone - Una finestra fra le stelle Malika Ayane - Adesso e qui Marco Masini - Che giorno è Chiara Galiazzo - Straordinario Gianluca Grignani - Sogni infranti Nek ...

Since Carlo Conti announced the doors are open for foreign artists in Sanremo as well, not as guests as usual but also as competitors in the Big category fans have been wondering. Amii Stewart's name popped up immediately as she's wellknown and working and living in Italy these days. But it didn't just feel quite right after all. Now, the past few days th pieces seem to be falling a place and it all comes up to Lara Fabian. The worldfamous anti-Celine Dion even has a connection to Italy as her mother comes from Sicily and she spent the first five years of her live in Catania. Then they moved to Belgium, where her father comes from. In 1988 at the age of 18 she represented Luxembourg in the Eurovsion with Croire and finished 4th in the contest won by beforementioned Celine Dion. This blogger loved her and didn't care much for Dion back then but over the years I have taken a liking to Dion while Fabian has stayed a bit indifferent... Fabian took revenge in Dion's ...

Emma Marrone seems to have made peace with Modà - or was it the other way round? - after the break up the night Emma won Sanremo with Modà's Kekko's song Non è inferno and forgot to thank him although she did remember to thank even her granny's cat.... Kekko waited til Sunday afternoon her call and once it didn't arrive declared she's a... well, you know what , and will have nothing to do with her ever again. Or some drama like that. But that was almost three years ago. Now she's dueting with them again in a remake of their song Come in un film , off their live CD/DVD released in September.  Here . Their previous joint effort was Sanremo 2011 runner up Arriverà .

Today Hungarian television revealed the last ten artists and songs for the A Dal 2015 (You can find the first ten here and the next ten here ). Also in this third part of the songs there are some familiar names from previous years. You can listen snippets of all the songs here . They were picked from 350 songs submitted. Next step are the three heats, followed by two semifinals and the grand final. A jury of four members will be in charge (Pierrot, Jenö Csiszár, Philip Rákay and Magdi Rúzsa (from Helsinki 2007 Eurovision) once again with the fifth jury member being the televote.  Ildikó Keresztes - Hazám hazád lehet New Level Empire - Homelight Gergö Oláh - A tükör előtt Heni Dér - Ébresztö Bálint Gájer - That's how it goes Ádám Szabó - Give me your love Leander Rising - Löjetek fel Other Planet - Untold story Bori Magyar - Lead me to heaven Passed - Mesmerize

Carola is hitting the road after years under title Det bästä av mig or The Best of me. From the end of january all the way to the end of March she will be touring Sweden but also Norway and Finland. More dates are added for the summer. Major dates include Oslo Konserthus on February 8, Stockholm Circus on March 3 and 4, Malmö March 6, Gothenburg March 8, Helsinki Kulttuuritalo on March 12 and Mariehamn Alandica on March 13. She will perform her biggest hits from the past 32 years, including of course her Eurovision entries Främling , the winner Fångad av en stormvind  and Invincible as well as the latest hit Tell me this night is over , a The Ark cover from Så mycket bättre.... I think this blogger is getting a ticket.... Update Dec 16 : Only after two days since the ticket sales started Kulttuuritalo is nearly fully booked. Only some lonely seats here and there are left and one part of the worst seats in the corner. Hallelujah and praise the Lord, she's still got it, even ...

Looking for an ideal Christmas present for someone? Or youself? You can try to get the ticket(s) for the Eurovision song contest 2015 in Vienna. There are tickets for all live shows and the second and third dress rehearsal of each of them so that makes full nine shows and about 100.000 tickets in all. The prices vary from 14 euros to 390 euros, but most of them cost between 49 and 150 euros in six different price categories. There are also packages for fans as usual.  The sales start on December 15 at 9am CET here . More tickets are expected to be on sale later once ORF has finalized the layout of the Wiener Stadthalle: stage design, greenroom and camera positions etc. Happy hunting you who are going! UPDATE Dec 15: Apparently the tickets sold out within an hour. More tickets will be available in January.

Trijntje Oosterhuis presented her entry for the Netherlands in the Eurovision song contest this morning in a radio show. Walk along is a sing-a-long midtempo song written by Anouk. A lot of why-ai-ai-ai and I can ask only why? At least with the first hearing there were maybe a bit too many why-ai-ai-ais that made me almost want to walk away, not walk along. So, the first impression: Nah....  For some reason I was expecting something more uptempo, more groovy and a lot catchier effort....  This said, this is the first confirmed song for Vienna 2015 as both Macedonia and Malta that have released their entries so far have kept the option open to change it before mid-March...

Hungarian television has published another ten semifinalists of A Dal 2015 and once again there are familiar names among the names like Fool Moon but most of all Kati Wolf, the big fan favorite in 2011 with What about my dreams . However the live performance wasn't quite there and she ended a disappointing 22nd place. Time for a revenge? The first ten names are here . You can listen snippets of them all here . Kati Wolf - Ne engedj el Timi Antal - Woke up this way Gabi Szucs - Úgy sem felejtesz el Gergo Szakács - Ösz utca Proof of Life - Hol a határ Fool Moon - Back to right Pankastic! - Kicsi a világ, de nagy világ Zoltán Mujahid - Beside you Éliás Guyla Jr - Run to you Eva Katona-Zsombori - Fire

Cyprus returns to Eurovision after one year's break and makes it with one of the longest - if not the longest - national selection process this season. A total of 55 entries will be on the run in the first phase with seven weekly shows. Then there will be another selections to narrow them down to ten first, and finally six for the final.... Judging what was in offer this first episode it's going to be a long winter..... Apparently the artists sing an Eurovision song and their own entry to the jury that varies with guest jurors like Christer Björkman at some point. The first show with nine songs took place last Sunday and we have the first qualifiers for the next step: Eva Diva -  Come and fight for freedom Aimili Charalambous –  Right in Charalambous “Luna” Joseph –  I wanna dance (I say tempo) Maria Evangelou –  Still These didn't make it: Nikolas Leventis – Chlomi seleni Nikolas Mavromichalis –  Ena kafe mazi Christodoula Tsaggaras – ...

Sanremo giovani, or the newcomers. Once again a huge number of artists took part in hope for the gig on Teatro Ariston's legendary stage. Two acts came through AreaSanremo selection. Originally they were 477, cut down by a jury to 40, then to 8 for audition and finally they were only two. Amara and Chanty managed to get through this way. RAI received 578 applications for the contest, 560 were valid. First a jury cut them down to 60 for live auditions and six made the cut. The six names were revealed today. Next year the newcomers have been promised more space and visibility and they will apparently kick off the show in prime time. In the past few years they have performed usually last when most people already have switched off and went to bed. This change is a very welcome one! You can listen to their songs by clicking the title. Here are the lucky eight: Amara - Credo Chanty - Ritornerai Giovanni Caccamo - Ritornerò da te Serena Brancale - Galleggare Kaligola - Ol...

Hungary has revealed today the first ten A Dal entries and the date for the final: February 28, 2015. Hungary has been doing well the past years and is heavily tipped to finally score a win any time now, could it happen in Vienna, a city that shares so much history with Hungary? Hungarian television received 350 songs this year and 30 will be heard in the semifinals so there 20 more to come..... But last year's fan favorite Bogi is already there.  You can listen snippets of these here .  Chances - The night Boggie - Walls for nothing Bogi - World of violance Balácz Fargas-Jenser - Liar Karmapolis - The time is now MDC - Maniac Barbie - Listen to the universe Spoon - Keep marching on Saci & Böbe Szécsi - Our time Vera Tóth - Gyémánt 

The annual rumour is here: Sergey Lazarev for Russia. Who knows, maybe this time it will become reality? The Tolmachevy Sisters this year were kind of safe bet and relatively unknown so if they did bad no one realy cared but Russia is gaining confidence again and might send one of their big guns. Someone like Sergey Lazarev. He has recently released a song celebrating the seven wonders,   7 цифр , that has just been released also in English as Breaking away . It's a perfect uptempo pop song, very catchy and kind of that makes you forgot about Russia and all the negative associations it brings. Also very Eurovision friendly staging can be easily done. Sergey is also a kind of anti-Bilan, someone you want to like in some weird way. Isn't he? Could it be? Only a rumour?

The long Swiss 3some has come to an end after live auditions yesterday and we have the six finalists. The German speaking entries are from Andy McSean, Timebelle and Tiziana. Tiziana is no surprise, and I was pretty sure Timebelle would please the jury as well and Andy is a pleasant surprise in the line up. The French ones are Licia Chery and Mélanie René while the Italian one is Deborah Bough that I find a bit surprising.... At this point I think I'm for Andy, followed by Timebelle and Tiziana. Licia is bubbling under and might surprise live while for me Mélanie and Deborah are out for now.... The next step is the final in the end of January 2015.... Who is your favorite? Andy McSean - Hey now Timebelle - Singing about love Tiziana - Only human Licia Chery - Fly Mélanie René - Time to shine Deborah Bough - Take me back to 23

This is a sad day. Giuseppe Mango, or simply Mango suffered a heart attack last night during his concert while singing his first big hit Oro and didn't survive. Italy has lost one of its greatest voices and song writers. This blogger is particularly taken by the news as Mango has been one of my top favorite singers since his hit Australia back in 1985. Since then he has created his own style and released some fantastic songs full of Mediterranean flavor and heat of the south. The 1990's in particular were fantastic but also in 2000's he scored hits like La Rondine , one of his best songs ever. I was always keeping up the hope to see him do Eurovision one day..... His songs have been covered also my many foreign artists. His wife and mother of his two kids is Laura Valente, once a Matia Bazar singer.....  He also wrote a lot of songs for other artists including Mia Martini , Loretta Goggi , Andrea Bocelli ,  Scialpi , fabulous  Andrea Mirò , Dennis Fantina an...

December 6 is the Independence Day in Finland and the traditional way of celebrating it is infront of the TV where an hours long live broadcast from the Presidential palace takes place. Being a sober democracy the ladies here don't get many chances to dress up like royals or Hollywood stars so one of the main focus of the evening is What are they wearing? The media speculates and comments the dresses and poor you if you end up in the list of the worst dressed or make some major etiquette mistake. Anyways, Helsinki 2007 hostess Jaana Pelkonen is now a MP and thus invited to the ball. She has been every year one of the most photographed and stylish and best voted ones, and this year she had a surprise for us: She wore one of the dresses from Helsinki 2007 Eurovision, the green one by Teemu Muurimäki. Recycle! Yes. Way to go, Jaana.  For Jaana the presidential ball is a special in many ways; here she met her fiancée in 2007 when she was invited thanks to the job well done in ...

The AreaSanremo selection is now over and the jury has chosen Amara and Chanty for the Newcomers selection. Six more will be selected by RAI. I will dig in deeper into the process when all names are out. Amara (or Erika Mineo) is 30 years old and in the past she has participated in Amici (2005) and in 2008-2011 she was close to getting to Sanremo but in the end never made the final cut. Since then she has done a lot of collaborations and concerts with big names and is working on her debut album as we speak. Chanty (Chantal Saroldi) is 22 years old, born in Tanzania and lived also in Taiwan before settling in Italy. She has already won various minor festivals and is currently studying jazz. In 2011 she took part in Star Academy, the unfortunate reality talent show that was sacked only after three episodes due to poor ratings. 

The Globen was packed last night, thanks to the Idol 2014 final and One Direction as the guest star but one voice was above them all. Hallelujah is the most raped song in the Idol auditions, we learned last night and the chances are very high one goes wrong with it. So they called The Voice to show them all how it's done with dignity: Carola. Indeed she did justice to the song before switching and mixing it to the fabulous The Ark cover from Så mycket bättre, Tell me this night is over . Watch her performance here . Oh, Idol? It's Lisa Ajax . 

Belarus will have its national final on December 26, 2014 and a jury has picked up the 15 finalists after casting auditions. Several familiar names but not Alyona Lanskaya who either didn't pass the casting or didn't participate at all after all. Not that this blogger misses her one bit. As expected the designed winner Milki did it with a song penned by Alexander Rybak. It would a surprise if they didn't win eventually. If they don't, there's always a way to make it happen afterwords. This is Belarus after all. And therefor there's also a lot of broken English and some rather horrid songs in the line up that have no life but in national Eurovision selections. This said, it has been worse so the jury has done quite decent job... Listen with caution:  Gunesh - I believe in a miracle Janette - Supernova Alexey Gross - Stand as one Daria - Love is my colour Valeria Sadovskaya - Summer love Uzari & Maimuma - Time Milki - Accent Yana Butskevich...

Estonian televion has announced the 20 semifinalist for Eesti Laul 2015 , the most alternative and weird - in a good way - national final there is. This year seems no exception judging the song titles and band names; there's everything from Idiot to Superlove and coffeecups. Among the artists some familiar names like NimmerSchmidt, Liis Lemsalu, Wilhelm, Luisa Värk and most of all Eurovision veteran Robin Juhkental .  Eesti Laul 2015 will take place in February with two semifinals and the grand final on 21st in Tallinn.  The song were selected by a record of 219 submitted songs by a 11 member jury including singers Lenna Kuurmaa and Anne Veski. 1. Burning Lights - Daniel Levi (Daniel Levi Viinalass) 2. Exceptional - The Blurry Lane (Kristina Bianca Rantala) 3. Goodbye to Yesterday - Elina Born and Stig Rästa (Stig Rästa) 4. Hold On - Liis Lemsalu & Egert Milder (Liis Lemsalu, Madis Lett, Egert Milder, Henri Kuusk, Rob Montes) 5. Idiot...

Parole in circolo (Words in a circle) is the title of the new Marco Mengoni album to be released after the holiday season is over, January 13, 2015. His fans might suggest that's when the holiday season only starts! It's the first part of this project that continues with another release on later date. The first single off it, Guerriero , was released on November 21, 2014 and has by now reached #1 on every possible chat in Italy with nearly 3 million Youtube views already. It took 1,5 hours of its release to top the Italian iTunes,  1,4 million views on Twitter in 48 hours and 450.000 clicks from Facebook.... Impressive. He's touring again in May 2015. And did I mention the cover of the album (above) is awesome?

What would an Italian entertainment show be without pretty girls in various stages of undress, so called "vallette"? Sanremo festival is a good example of such, often hiring international top models who can't speak Italian but three words per evening, seven changes of dresses and a big smile takes you a long way in Italy. Sometimes Sanremo goes the other way having comedians like Luciana Littizzetto, the total opposite of the previously mentioned (but so much better if you ask me), or sometimes real actresses or artists like Anna Oxa. And now, out of the blue the rumor is out Carlo Conti wants to have Emma Marrone co-hosting with him. Let's see if this will become reality and will Emma be the one to announce who will go to Vienna for Italy and better her placement...? This would be Emma's third Sanremo after placing second in 2011 with Modà with Arriverà  and winning the year after with Non è inferno . As for the juicy gossip Belen Rodriguez was hosting that ...

The host broadcaster ORF will have a national selection for their own contest in Vienna 2015, following the victorious internal selection of Conchita Wurst. Today they have made public the 16 acts that made it. The selection to cut those 16 to six for the national final takes place today, but we won't know the result until February 20 when it will be broadcasted. On March 6 we will hear their real entries as until then they are singing covers or their other songs. The final takes place on March 13, thus making Austria one of the last countries to have its entry for Vienna. The 16 acts are Celina Ann, Clara Blume, Dawa, Folkshifte, Johan Sebastian Bass, Kathi Kallauch, Kommando Elefant, Lemo, Makemakers, Mizgebonez, Renato Unterberg, Royal Combo, The Su'sis, Tandem, wo/Men and Zoe .

Like every year popular artists release Christmas albums. In Finland it's usually 3-5 of the top names annually and 2014 is no exception.  This year we have Teräsbeton i's Jarkko Ahola releasing already his second Christmas album titled Suojelusenkeli - Joulun klassikot 2 . This time it includes also songs that are not exactly Christmasy, like Finlandia by Sibelius, Cavatina and Andrea Bocelli's Sanremo song Con te partirò .  Jippu , who took part in Euroviisut 2008 with Kanna minut makes a comeback to recording world after motherhood with Rakkauden joulu . It is more classic Christmas album with songs like O holy night , Heinillä härkien kaukalon and Sydämeeni joulun teen .  Suvi Teräsniska - who would be great for Eurovision one day - is saying goodbye to music business for awhile with this Christmas album Joulun henki . She got married and is expecting a baby shortly so she will have a well deserved break from a very succesful career. It includes also a ...