Eurovision

Blast from the past: Belgium 1980

We know a lot about Eurovision; this is knowledge we want to share with you. Therefore we’d like to bring you a blast from the past. Today: the 1980 Belgian entry. Belgium in the Eurovision Song Contest When Belgium first took part in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1956, it was decided that Flemish and Walloon TV would submit a song alternately. The 1979 Flemish entry “Hey nana” was a complete failure. It took the last place. However, the 1978 Walloon entry, sung by Jean Vallée, got the best score so far for Belgium: a second place. A difficult task for Walloon TV RTBf to do it as good as they did in 1978. National final After the success of Jean Vallée, one would have expected a huge national preselection. However, “Eliminatoires Belges du Grand Prix de la chanson Europeenne” was nothing of all that. Jean Vallée hosted a small show in which 7 songs were presented; all prerecorded. There was no voting: after the show, RTBf decided that Telex was going to represent Belgium in The Hague. 1.Bruno Brel sings “Etre heureux rien qu’une heure”2.Domani sings “Toute ma vie”3.Lou and the Hollywood Bananas sing “Et puis, et puis…. rien“4.Kevin Morane sings “Ivre de vie“5.Sonia sings “La star maniaque”6.Telex sing “Euro-vision“7.Timothy sings “Parle-moi grand-pêre” Bruno Brel was a cousin of the famous Jacques Brel. Lou Deprijck was a famous singer in Belgium. Plastic Bertrand’s international hit “Ça plane pour moi” was originally sung by Deprijck. Plastic Bertrand denied that until a judge decided in 2010 that Deprijck was proven to be the singer. source: André Vermeulen, “Van Canzonissima tot Eurosong – 65 jaar Belgische preselecties voor het Eurovisie Songfestival”. Telex Telex was a three man band, made up of Marc Moulin, Dan Lacksman and Michel Moers. The band was formed in 1978; a band combining disco, punk and synthesizer pop to an exclusive sound. Their first album “Looking for Saint-Tropez” was a huge succes. The song “Moskow diskow“. Other hits were “Twist à Saint-Tropez” and “Rock around the clock“. A second album, “Neurovision”, followed around the Eurovision participation. For Telex, Eurovision came at the right moment. Because of the contest, the band was discovered by a larger audience. A few albums followed, but the group split up in 1986. However, there was a return of the trio in 2006. “On the road again” became a hit, but Telex also made their own version of “J’aime la vie“. In 2008, group member Marc Moulin passed away. Euro-vision There are not much songs in the Eurovision Song Contest with the contest itself as a subject. But that is what “Euro-vision” is about. You can find the complete lyrics and translation here. Lacksman, Moulin and Moers co-wrote the song themselves. There was no conductor. As there was no live music, which was not allowed in those days, the members of Telex decided to start the synthesizer-like machine on screen, so that at least the suggestion of live music was made. In the end of the performance, singer Michel Moers made a picture of the audience. Recently, the picture was published in the book “65 jaar België op het songfestival”, by Jasper van Biesen and Jonathan Hendrickx. Results In several interviews, the members of Telex showed their disappointment about the 17th place. Not because they thought it was too low, but because they did not become last. The UK jury gave it 1 point, Greece gave it 3 points but Portugal gave the song its 10 points! Telex blamed Portugal for ruining their chances. photo credits: fotocollectie Anefo

Turin is the host city!!

The 2022 Eurovision Song Contest will be held in Turin. The EBU announced this news today. The contest will be held at 10, 12 and 14 may in PalaOlimpico. Marcus Österdahl (Eurovision’s Executive Producer) said: “Turin is the perfect Host City for the 66th Eurovision Song Contest. As we saw during the 2006 Winter Olympics, PalaOlimpico exceeds all the requirements needed to stage a global event of this scale and we have been very impressed with the enthusiasm and commitment from the City of Turin who will welcome thousands of fans next May. This will be the first Eurovision Song Contest to be held in Italy in 30 years and, together with our Host broadcaster Rai, we are determined to make it a special one.” The host city was announced by this video today: Italy hosted the Eurovision Song Contest twice before: in Napoli in 1965, in Rome in 1991.

Blast from the past: Estonia 2004

We know a lot about Eurovision; this is knowledge we want to share with you. Therefore we’d like to bring you a blast from the past. Today: the 2004 Estonian entry. Semifinal 2004 was the first year that Eurovision knew a semifinal. The best scoring countries of the year before automatically went to the final. As Estonia was not among them, they had to participate in the semifinal first. Ten semifinalists would join the other countries in the final. Eurolaul The Estonian national final for the contest was called Eurolaul in these days. Artists and composers could submit their songs for the final, to be held on february 7th in the ETV Studios in Tallinn. Maarja-Liis Illus (as Maarja) and former winner Tanel Padar (with Slobodan River) were familiar faces for the Eurovision family. The complete field of participants was: 1.”Surrounded“, by Slobodan River, 3rd with 2080 votes2.”Dance“, by Ewert Sundja, 7th with 640 votes3.”Turn the tide“, by Zone & The Cardinals, 8th with 581 votes4.”Whatever you say“, by Charlene, 6th with 785 votes5.”I wanna stay“, by Airi Ojamets, 9th with 393 votes6.”Whenever blue“, by Hatuna & Sofia Rubina, 10th with 188 votes7.”Homme“, by Maarja, 4th with 1320 votes8.”Tii“, by Neiokõsõ, 1st with 8696 votes9.”Beautiful inside“, by Kerli Kõiv, 2nd with 3638 votes10.”I’ll give you a mountain“, by Charizma, 5th with 1157 votes Neiokõsõ The all girl band Neiokõsõ was made up of the sisters Anu and Triinu Taul, Diana Põld, Astrid Böning and Kadri Uutma. The group was made up especially for Eurolaul by producer/composer Priit Pajusaar. For the live performance at Eurolaul, and later the Eurovision Song Contest, Peeter Jõgioja joined the group. “Tii” was their only song, shortly after the Eurovision Song Contest the group split up. Tii It was said that the song “Tii” was inspired by “Sanomi”, the song Urban Trad brought to the second place in the Eurovision Song Contest in 2003. The song was sung in the Võro-language. The title “Tii” means road. You can find the entire lyrics here. Võro is a language of the Uralic language family. It is spoken by 87,000 people in the southern part of Estonia. Results In the semifinal “Tii” received the 12 points from two countries: Finland and Latvia. Lithuania gave it 10 points. In total, the song received 57 points. That was enough for an 11th place. It was not enough for a place in the final for Estonia. photo credits: Daniel Aragay, Wikimedia Commons

Armenian singer Hayko Hakobyan dies at age 48 from COVID-19

Hayko Hakobyan, who represented Armenia in 2007, sadly passed away today, 29 September 2021. Hayko reached the age of 48 years old. The ”Anytime you need” singer caught COVID-19 earlier this year. The first news about his hospitalisation hit the newsstands around 21 September 2021. Today the news reached us that Hayko has tragically died from the complications. Shushan Danielyan, chief of staff at Yerevan State Medical University has conformed the information.

Blast from the past: Serbia 2017

We know a lot about Eurovision. We want to share our knowledge by highlighting former Eurovision songs in a blast from the past. Today: Serbia’s entry from 2017. Selection Serbian broadcaster RTS decided to ask its music editors to select a participant. On February 27th it became public that Tijana Bogićević was going to be the Serbian participant for the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest in Kiev, Ukraine. She was going to sing a song written by the songwriters team Symphonix International. Borislav Milanov, Joacim Bo Persson, Johan Alkenäs and Lisa Ann-Mari Linder would take the challenge to write the song. Tijana Bogićević Tijana Bogićević was 35 years old when she was presented as the 2017 Serbian contestant. Her career started in 2001 when she sang as a backing vocal for Vlada Georgieva. In those days, she also sang in a band called Shanene. She did an earlier attempt to go to Eurovision, back in 2009. It was not a great success: her song “”Pazi šta radiš” did not get any votes in the semifinal of Beovizija, the Serbian national selection. Two years later, in 2011, she actually sang on the Eurovision stage: as a backing vocalist for Serbian representant Nina, who sang “Čaroban” to a place in the final. In too deep The song Symphonix International wrote for Tijana was called “In too deep”. It was a song about someone who madly fell in love. “Won’t somebody save me tonight? Feels like I’ve been sentenced to life. I’m falling so deep, I’m in too deep, I’m falling so deep”, she sings. On March 11th, the song was debuted on YouTube. For promotion, Tijana went to the promo concerts in Tel Aviv, Amsterdam and Madrid. Rehearsals in Kiev The rehearsals in Kiev went well. Tijana sang well; however, there was a problem. According to many people, the song was okay, but it did not really stand out. It would therefore not be an easy match for Tijana to get into the final. Half of the journalists, present in the press centre, predicted a place for Serbia in the final. The other half did not expect Tijana to make it. Results The same thing happened when the real jury had to vote: the juries were divided. The expert jury gave Serbia an 11th place, the televoters wanted the song to be in the final with a 10th place. The televoting juries from North Macedonia and Switzerland even gave it their 12 points. It was not enough. In the overall result, Serbia became 11th and thus did not reach the final. After Eurovision This definitely did not end Tijana’s career. She released her debut album “Čudo” in 2018. It contained many of the songs she released before. The follow up of “In too deep” was the song “Dodirni me“. After that, she scored a hit song in duet with Damir Kedžo, the man who was supposed to represent Croatia in the 2020 Eurovision Song Contest. Their song, “Hram“, became a hit in Croatia in 2021.

Blast from the past: Cyprus 1983

We know a lot about Eurovision. That’s why you’ll get a blast from the past every time. Today: the 1983 Cypriot entry “I agapi akoma zi”, sung by Stavros and Constantina. Introduction Cyprus debuted quite succesfully in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1981. The group Island reached a 6th place. A year later, when Anna Vissi was involved, they did even better: a 5th place. Expectations were high. Cyprus was the country to beat. CyBC (Cyprus Broadcasting Authority) had to look for another top song. Stavros Sideras It was no surpsise that CyBC selected Stavros Sideras to do the job. The 35 year old singer debuted in 1976 and released three full albums before he composed and directed the rock opera “The Archion“, together with Doros Georgiadis. In 1981, he wrote the aforementioned Cypriot debut entry for the Eurovision Song Contest, “Monica”, for the group Island. Sideras did not join the stage himself. As said, he wrote the 1983 entry “I agapi akoma zi”. Stavros kept on writing musicals and making albums. In the late nineties he wrote the musical “Pygmalion: the true story“. Constantina Stavros’ duopartner in Eurovision was Constantina or Dina. Her full name is Konstantina Konstantinou. She was born in Nicosia in 1963. When she and Stavros represented Cyprus in the Eurovision Song Contest she was 19 years old. She was quite unknown in those days. One year after the contest she released her debut album. It was the first of 19 albums up to date. Constantina worked together with Marinella, Anna Vissi, Constantinos Christoforou and many others. In 1997 she wrote the Cypriot Eurovision entry “Mana mou“. The song was performed by her sister Chara and brother Andreas Constantinou. They reached a 5th place. The song and performance “I agapi akoma zi” (Love is still alive) was written and composed by Stavros Sideras himself. The song was arranged by Michalis Rozakis. He was also the conductor for the duo at the contest in Munich. It was a simple love song. You can read the lyrics and translation here. The backing vocals all became (Eurovision) stars in a later time: Stelios Konstantinou was a backing vocal in 1988. Elena Patroclou (Eurovision 1991), Evridiki (Eurovision 1992, 1994 and 2007) and John Vickers (composer of the 1990 Cypriot entry) joined Stelios in the backings. Voting and results There was not much interest in the media for Cyprus, nor in the polls or at the bookmakers’. The voting became a big disappointment. Not even Greece gave points to the song. Seven countries voted for the song. Yugoslavia had the highest amount of points for the song: 6. A total of 26 points were enough for a 16th place.

R.I.P. Claude Lombard

Today, the sad news came to us that Claude Lombard passed away on Monday, september 20th 2021. Claude Lombard represented Belgium in the 1968 Eurovision Song Contest with the song “Quand tu reviendras”. She reached a wonderful 7th place. Claude Lombard was the daughter of Claude Alix, who wrote the 1956 Belgian entry “Le plus beau jour de ma vie”. Lombard was born the 25th of february 1945 in Etterbeek, in the Brussels region. Lombard was quite unkown when she won the Belgian preselection for Eurovision in 1968. The song was sung in French, but a Dutch version, “Eenmaal kom je weer” was also released. Lombard returned to Eurovision in 1973 as a backing vocal, supporting Nicole & Hugo in their song “Baby baby”. She moved to Paris where she wrote the lyrics for a musical. She gave her voice to many cartoons like “Fraggle rock” and the Disney movie “Beauty and the beast”. One of the hightlights in her career was singing as a backing vocal with Charles Aznavour in the eighties. In the nineties she sang with the Pat Benesta Orchestra. Claude Lombard did not disappear from stage. Even last week, she gave a performance in Paris. Lombard was 76 years old. photo credits: Facebook

After the Eurovision fame: Dima Bilan

Dima Bilan won the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest for Russia. Early life Dima Bilan was born as Victor Belan on December 24, 1981. He was born in Ust-Dzheguta, in the Autonomous Soviet Republic of Karachay-Cherkessia. He took part in several music competitions. For example, he won the “Young Voices of the Caucasus” competition. His first performance on television was in 1995, also in a talent show. In 1998, when he was 16 years old, he went to Moscow to participate in the Chunga-Changa festival, where the chairman of the jury gave him a diploma. He chose ‘Dima Bilan’ as his stage name; Dmitriy was his grandfather’s name. So Dima is a tribute to him. Breakthrough and first two albums Once he lived in Moscow, Dima began to record his first songs. The video of his debut single “Osen” became a success. The video was shot in the Gulf of Finland. At the time, under the pseudonym Dima Belan, he was regularly seen on MTV Russia.Although he studied to become an opera singer, he dreamed of a career as a pop singer. The dream came true when a classmate introduced him to producer Yuri Aizenshpis. His first real big success came in 2002, when he took fourth place in the New Wave festival. A new single and video, “Boom”, followed and in 2003 there was Dima Bilan’s debut album “Ya nochnoy huligan”. Television appearances followed, and his single “Na beregu neba” reached number 2 in the Russian charts. The album with the same name went gold in 2004. It became one of the best-selling albums of 2004 in Russia. First steps in the field of Eurovision After this success, producer Aizenshpis registered Bilan to participate in the national final of the Eurovision Song Contest. He sang in English: “Not that simple”. Although he was close, Dima Bilan didn’t win the ticket to the Eurovision song contest in Kiev. He did, however, have a hit with the song. The Russian version “”Ty dolzhna ryadom byt’” became one of the biggest hits of 2005. Several other hits followed. When Yuri Aizenshpis passed away in late 2005, producers lined up to take Dima under their wing, eventually Yana became Rudkovskaya his new producer. That caused another problem with his name, because it was officially owned by Aizenshpis’ company. When this conflict was resolved, Dima decided to officially register under the name Dima Bilan. Eurovision 2006In 2006, the Russian broadcaster wanted to be sure that Dima Bilan would represent the country at the Eurovision Song Contest. They decided to single him out without a national final. His song “Never let you go” did very well: a second place was awarded to him. Never had a Russian candidate finished higher. He subsequently represented Russia at the MTV Europe Awards and won an Award as best-selling Russian singer at the World Music Awards. Winning the Eurovision Song Contest In 2007, Dima Bilan recorded an English-language album with the famous producers Jim Beanz and Ryan Tedder. Again, he won awards at the MTV Russia Award. In 2008 a new Russian album was released. He also took part in the national final for the Eurovision song contest again. During the contest in Belgrade he sang “Believe”. The song was co-written by Jim Beanz. Dima was accompanied by Hungarian violinist Edvin Barton and Olympic figure skating champion Evgeni Plushenko. Dima Bilan managed to win the Eurovision Song Contest. No return to Eurovision The album “Believe” soon followed. In 2010, Dima Bilan had a song ready to participate in the Eurovision song contest: “White nights”. However, he decided not to. Joining again two years later would be too soon, according to Bilan. In that year he did play the lead role in a short film. In 2011, he released another new Russian album. The return to the song contest came in 2012: in duet with Yulia Volkova (known from t.A.T.u.), “Back to her future”. Despite their favorite role, they did not win but had to make do with second place. The Voice After the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest, Dima Bilan released four more studio albums. He was also a coach in several seasons of the Russian version of The Voice. He was in the chair in seasons 1 through 3, in seasons 5 and 6, and will soon be seen again in season 10. He also coached the first four seasons of The Voice Kids in Russia.

Another Summer Night – Kalomira

(Maria) Kalomira (Carol Sarantis) is a Greek-American artist. She was born and raised on Long Island, just outside New York. At the end of 2007, Heaven Music chose Kalomira to be their contestant in the 2008 National Final to represent Greece in the Eurovision Song Contest 2008 held in Serbia Kalomira picked an R&B style upbeat song with a Greek feel, titled “Secret Combination” In the first semifinal, held on May 20, 2008, Kalomira fared well, coming in first place. At the Eurovision final, on May 24, she came in third behind Russia and Ukraine, with 218 points. Follow our Summer Party : Spotify and You Tube Photocredits: EBU

How to make the most of Milan during the Eurovision Song Contest 2022

The battle for hosting the Eurovision Song Contest in 2022 in Italy began the minute Måneskin won the ESC 2021, in Rotterdam. Earlier this summer, we told you how to make the most of Rome and we told you everything you need to know about Pesaro. These two cities are still in the race to become a hosting city, as well as Milan.