Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

  Estonia - Elina Nechayeva - La forza Elina (26) was hosting Eesti laul semifinal last year and returned this year as a singer and won. This classically trained soprano has been to several talent shows before but only now finally won something. She sings La forza in Italian as opera singers do. The problem is the lyrics don't make any sense, they are mainly just phrases stolen from various operas glued together. If they had thrown in words like pizza, spaghetti and pasta no one hardly would notice nor would it make any difference to the sense of it all. This is this year's fan wank and I find it just rather annoying. Any interest I had vanished in 2-3 listenings. But then again most televoters will hear this for the first time and be fooled. This should be this year's shock non qualifier.... When people are more interested in the dress than the rest, we have a problem. The song actually works better as dance mix , because it gives you an illusion there might have...

  Iceland - Ari Ólafsson - Our choice Ari (19) is one of the youngest artists this year and his song is one of the oldest. Pure old school Eurovision and therefor a pearl to cherish. Even more so as he has proven to be a great vocalist live despite his age sounding good and looking so fresh and innocent. He has also proven himself in the social medias and pre-contest promotional events - is there anyone who doesn't like him as a person? This is anthemic, almost religious hymn with lyrics... well, let's forget the lyrics and just enjoy the melody and his convincing performance! The video makes me want to visit Reykjavik, even if it seems to be the size of one block .-) Sadly they didn't bring this Icelandic version though. This blogger would love to see this as shocker qualifier but the odds are heavily against it: starting number, semi one, betting odds... but hey, miracles do happen! And televoters decide. 7/10 Belarus - Alekseev - Forever Ukrainian Nik...

The Finnish Eurovision song conteest 2018 entry Monsters has got some cool remixes: very 80's sounding Initial Talk remix , club anthemic Cutmore remix , Cutmore radio edit and Extended version . Listen to them on Spotify for example.  In an interview her ex-hubby Teemu Roivainen said Domino was his favorite of her three entries because it has such cool remixes. Now when can we hear those?!

  San Marino - Jessika feat. Jenifer Brening - Who we are Jessika Muscat (29) has the faith of fellow Maltese Christabelle: several national final attemps and now she gets finally to Eurovision with the worst of them. Or almost. She is joined by German Jenifer Brening (21) who took the original rapper Irol's place when he turned down the song stating it's not his cup of tea. He would have given this at least some Sammarinese touch. Anyways, the innotative Sammarinese national final selection promised a lot but in the end gave us this. I would have chosen differently but what we have is a rather anonymous and heard before anthem against bullying, well sung by Jessika with Jenifer's rap as bonus. Sadly unforgettable and the only thing that might get attention and viewers to remember this are the robots. If they travel to Lisbon, too. What's their deal anyways?! 3/10 Macedonia - Eye Cue - Lost and found Eye Cue is Bojan Trajkovski and Marija Ivanovska...

Israel - Netta - Toy Netta Barzilai (25) is this year's Francesco Gabbani, the one given as a winner before we hit the stage in Lisbon, she has gathered record breaking Youtube views and Spotify streams and is the one everyone's talking about and also dividing opinions to heat up the discussions. I liked this when I heard it the fifrst time for it's craziness, then I put it aside a bit when everyone was screaming this is the Winner and eventually settled to like it a lot. It's refreshing, different, memorable with a gimmick everyone will note. It's fun! Yet I tend to think this is more like Dancing lasha tumbai , a great runner up rather than a winner. To be that it's maybe just a bit too weird and crazy for the great public who seeing/hearing this for the first time might take it as a joke. But who knows? 10/10 Belgium - Sennek - A matter of time Laura Groeseneken (27) aka Sennek continues the Belgian trend of quality entries and when this ...

  Ukraine - Mélovin - Under the ladder Mélovin (21), X Factor Ukraine winner (after three unsuccesful auditions!) and last year's televoting winner in the national final for Eurovision (but placing only 3rd) took revenge this year with self composed  Under the ladder . The song is catchy and keeps building towards the burning end, he's got a gimmick in his look that makes him memorable, as is the staging. I don't remember seeing an artist start the perform mid stage ending up by the piano in the end - isn't it always the other way around? He seems also very secure on stage and the end of the performance is on fire. He will be a certain qualifier but how far he will go in the final? Hmmm ... 7/10 Czech Republic - Mikolas Josef - Lie to me Mikolas (22) is the first Czech with a real possibility. He was asked by the local tv already last year but turned down the song not feeling it suitable for him. Smart choice as now he's back with a jackpot. A sur...

Italy - Ermal Meta & Fabrizio Moro -  Non mi avete fatto niente Italy sends again the Sanremo winner and their platinum selling #1 manifest against terrorism Non mi avete fatto niente . Albanian born Ermal Meta (37) and Fabrizio Moro (43) both have very succesful and flourishing career already and both have been busy touring and promoting their respective albums after Sanremo skipping all Eurovision related pre-parties - so did Loreen, too, didn't she? I prefer the studio version to the live performance to be honest, when especially Moro goes a bit too shouty for my liking. Despite this one of the strongest songs by far this year with an interesting half spoken verses that turn into light folk rock a la Hop hop somerello , another song with apparent lightness with heavy lyrics. Italy will score another top-10 easily this year. If not, it'd be as unfair as Russia making the final again. Italy could also be fighting for victory in case the jury and televotes sp...

Waylon it getting ready for his second Eurovision song contest by releasing an official music video for his entry Outlaw in 'em - better late than never! But that's not all as his new album The world can wait is out, too. This blogger is loving both of them. 

Latvia - Laura Rizzotto - Funny girl Latvian-Brazilian Laura Rizzotto (23) has lived her life so far between Minnesota, Rio de Janeiro, New York and Latvia. She has studied in Berklee (Boston), California and Columbia Universities so she certainly knows music. And no doubt she's talented singer and songwriter. That doesn't however hide the fact her Funny girl needs some what acquired taste for this kind of music. Generally this could be my cup of tea so to speak, but no. This is dull and uninteresting. Live it works a bit better but about one minute mark my attention drifts elsewhere and I find myself checking the contents of my fridge while she's still singing her song. Very long three minutes. 2/10 Lithuania - Ieva Zasimauskaitè - When we're old I managed to ignore this song all those eternal weeks the Lithuanian selection was going on - maybe because I didn't follow it live and just checked the videos later, if even that. I did watch the fina...

Yesterday's news was YLE was unable to "pay everybody" to Lisbon 2018 Eurovision song contest and thus leaving the entry's writers home, read more here . That caused quite a social media stir and for the reason. After all this is a SONG contest and without the song and who wrote it there was no entry (even if sometimes one wonders if there's a song at all in some performances...)  Today YLE announces it was all a misunderstanding and Linnea Deb, Joy Deb and Ki Fitzgerard all are travelling to Lisbon and will be in the Green room with the artists as well. One wonders who had the guts and common sense to stay away and give room to those you really deserve it....  Well done YLE, whether it was due to the negative flashback or just commom sense. Still I have to press it's more of the first as in the statement they still insist "usually YLE hasn't paid the songwriters to the spot due to the delegation limits set by EBU". So you do mean you have...

Norway - Alexander Rybak - That's how you write a song Eurovision 2009 winner Alexander Rybak (31) returns with a self written That's how you write a song . that will also be the 1500th Eurovsion song when he opens the 2nd semifinal with it. He won the Norwegian selection as a minor surprise but very convincingly. The fans really didn't believe in his chances but when masses vote... what do fans know? This blogger liked the song from the start and it was one of my three favorites and his live performance took away any doubts. The song itself isn't anything special really, true, but he makes it work and it's very enjoyable and entertaining three minutes. Not a winner in Lisbon but I wouldn't be surprised if he does very well in the final, to the left side of the scoreboard for sure. 8/10 Albania - Eugent Bushpepa - Mall Albania was the first to choose and now it feels already soooo long time ago when we first heard Mall . To compensate Eug...