Eurovision 2008 - Saturday Final Dinner Suggestion

Yep, Eurobandið time again, This Is My Life, album out now!!

Eurocovers favorite Eurobandið* have released their debut album and it's a real treat for Eurocovers fans. The Second Best Band In The World (after BWO of course) release their CD This Is My Life with 11 tracks including the Eurovision 2008 entry with the same title.

The album also has a remix of the Icelandic contender, some great Eurocovers and other songs of interest.

Don't leave without me now = Ne Partez Pas Sans Moi, Celine Dion's winner from 1988 (for Switzerland).
A ba ni bi - Israels 1978 winner.
Hold me Now - Johnny Logan's second victory for Ireland in 1987
By Your Side = the english version of Regína Ósks Þér við hlið, preselection song from 2006
Fire = Eldur, Fridrik Omárs solo pre-song from 2007
Thinking of you = Fridriks solo song from 2006 Það Sem Verður
Við sigrum að ári! - Making your mind up, Tha' Fizz's winner (U.K. 1981).
In My Dreams is the most interesting cover of all . The Norwegian rockers' Glam hit (9th in the 2005 contest) now is a smoochy love ballad.

Unfortunately, the Icelandic version of This Is My Life is not on the tracklist. So no perfect 10 then.

Excerpts and full tracklist of the album here at Tónlist. And you haven't seen the official video yet, there's a YouTube here, and it's fab.

Eurobandið featured in this and this and this and this Eurocovers post (a lot I know, maybe they'll send some competition giveaway CDs by now), for some sounds go to their MySpace.
* I keep calling them Eurobandið, Euroband sounds so tacky.

On/Off Topic: Ze French Eurovision Song for 2008

Off Topic as is doesn't involve any coverversions. But we're 37 entries into the 2008 contest and I finally have a huge favorite. For those hoping for a Carla Sarkozy appearance it may be a bummer, but I am very pleased The French appointed Sebastien Tellier to represent the country with the song Divine. Electronic Beach Boys meets Human League demo.

Pretentious, moi?
Maybe it is too arty and it doesn't have any poultry involved. I'm quite convinced it will bomb on the night as it probably won't feature any fireworks or scantilly clad dance routines either (although one can hope).
Divine is produced by Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo of Daft Punk fame, and that should be enough really. All Seb needs is a trip to the barber for a cut and a shave.

You can listen to Divine at Sebastien Telliers Myspace.

Divine is already out on the CD Sexuality, in France on the Record Makers Label (founded by Air) and in the UK on Lucky Numbers Music.

Eurovision 2008 - Till Hamingju Eurobandið

Congratulations to Eurobandið for winning last night Icelandic final with This Is My Life. The song, originally Fullkomið líf in Icelandic, can be hear at the bands MySpace. Or download the song Official & Free at Tonlist

The band, with Friðrik Ómar and Regína Ósk has already been featured in these Eurocovers posts.

Eight countries chose their entry last night. You can find out more at the official Eurovision site and many others. Ireland has chosen a turkey named Dustin. No comment, watch here (Youtube).

2008: ANNO DOMENICO - Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, it's 2008 and I wish all Eurocovers readers a fantastic year. May some of your wishes come true and may there always be something to wish for.

Anno Domenico ©
2008 at Eurocovers will be Anno Domenico ©. After last years celebration of the 40 year anniversary of Sandie Shaw's Puppet On A String in The Year Of The Puppet we go back 50 years this time to pay hommage to the best selling Eurovision song Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu (Volare) written and performed by Domenico Modugno. By now you know many details about the history of the song already but there's more in 2008, and of course a host of interesting, cool, rare and odd coverversions of the Italian evergreen.
And there will be info on Volare celebrations held in Italy this year: There will be a Volare stamp, TV shows, concerts and releases spread all over 2008.

2008 will also see a new Eurovision, in Belgrade, Serbia and a record 43 countries will participate in this edition. National selections will see hundreds of artists trying to get a ticket to the Balkan and several of them have recorded coverversions of Eurovision songs. They will all be here.

I have prepared several Anno Domenico © posts already but I had a hard time to start somewhere. Currently the list of Volare coverversions counts 1060 (and rising). The famous and the forgotten, the obvious and the obscure, the polka, the punk & the philharmonic, so much to choose from.

I decided to kick off Anno Domenico © with a favorite version from 1958. Several American artists have recorded the song before Modugno had his breakthrough with his song but none of them stole his thunder. One of them is featured here.

Jesse Belvin (1932 - 1960)
Jesse Lorenzo Belvin was a soul singer from Los Angeles (but born in San Antonio, Texas) and he only spent 28 years on this earth, but not without leaving his marks on 20th music history.
His first chart hit was in 1953 with Dream Girl (Jesse & Marvin). He co-wrote Earth Angel, a 1954 hit for the Penguins, and later for the Crew-Cuts and much much later for New Edition (1986). His second band The Shields, also featuring Johnny Guitar Watson, scored a hit with You Cheated (1958). The most successful Belvin hits were Goodnight My Love (1958) and Guess Who (1959) from his first solo LP Just Jesse.
Tragedy struck when after a concert with stars like Sam Cooke and Jackie Wilson, Jesse Belvin and his wife Anne died in a car accident in Arkansas. It was just before his third album Mr. Easy (his nickname) was released.

Jesse Belvin's wonderful soul-voiced version of Volare, sung in English and Italian, was released on a 7" single in the US in July 1958 (RCA Victor 47-7310). It was his 30th single.

Jesse Belvin recorded for various labels like Specialty, Imperial, Modern, RCA-Victor, King and Knight. His RCA recordings (including Volare) are collected on the recommended 2CD Guess Who - The RCA Victor Recordings (ACE records, UK) which was released in 2004 and is available in any good music store and in most internet CD shops.
♫ Jesse Belvin / Jesse Belvin

You can find a detailed Jesse Belvin discography here.

Also check out these 2007 Eurocovers posts that feature versions of Volare:
Jazz legend Oscar Peterson, Brasilian superstar Leny Eversong, Chorrujumo, 10.000 Eurocovers featuring Milva, Wayne Newton, Dolores Duran, Gery Scott & Earl Grant. Ella Fitzgerald, Luciano Pavarotti & G4 , Lithuanian Mino and La Grande Dame De France: Juliette Greco.


Some facts about Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu (Volare)
The song was written by Domenico Modugno (music) and Franco Migliacci (lyrics). The most used English lyrics are written by Mitchell Parish.
The song was written in 1957 but was first launched at the eighth San Remo contest (Final Februari 1st) where it was performed twice. Once by Domenico Modugno and once by Johnny Dorelli.
Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu won the San Remo song contest and Modugno represented Italy in the third Eurovision Song Contest in 1958 in Hilversum, The Netherlands at the 12th of March.

The contest was won by France's Dors Mon Amour by André Claveau and Modugno ended third with 13 points. 2 times 4 from Belgium and Germany and five times 1 point. And zero poing from Denmark and Luxemburg.

But Modugno laughed all the way to the bank, as his song , soon known as Volare (after the refrain) became one of the top 100 best selling singles of 20st century, a US #1 hit, A grammy winner and one of the most covered songs with several lives in most decades since the original recording.
Volare won the first ever Grammy for a song in 1958. Both for song of the year and record of the year.

More facts to come….

Eurobandið in the Laugardagslögin 2008

Laugardagslögin being the name for the lenghty selection procedure to select Icelands next Eurovision entry (Belgrade 2008).

They have been featured here before (last August), the Eurobandið, and now they will feature in the 8th preselection round in Iceland.
The Icelanding multi week selection has started early, and they're already in the 8th 3-song preselection round, coming Saturday (21.15 CET)

Eurobandiðs song Fullkomið líf is written by Örlygur Smári (Oggi) who also wrote the 2000 Icelandic entry Tell me (Youtube) and the utterly brilliant Segðu mér from the selection that same year.
It promises to be an interesting round though, as the Eurobandið has to take it up against the Hara Sisters, an Icelandic X-factor act describing themselves as Pussy Punk.
The show can be seen on the net, but it's only three songs in a tedious long show.
Better watch the re-run here (the day after) and skip the bla bla bla. And fingers crossed that Eurobandið will do better than Dr. Gunni who's song Ísinn (sung by Heiða) was kicked out of the competition.
http://ruv.is/Laugardagslogin/ features the songs that have been in the competition so far
Eurobandið MySpace features their Icelandic cover of Making Your Mind Up.

UPDATE
Eurobandið made it! Congratulations! Their song Fullkomið Líf (Perfect life) will now be in the Icelandic national final on February 16th 2008. You can hear the song (and all the others that have been in the selection) here.

There will be many Eurocovers stars in the 2008 Eurovision selection season, even some I can't disclose yet, and they will all be featured here at Eurocovers with their coverversion(s) of Eurovision songs.

Older Eurocovers posts featuring Icelandic artists:
The original Eurobandið article, Elly Vilhjálms, Helena Eyjólfsdóttir, Friðrik Ómar, Hera Björk & Bríet Sunna Valdemarsdóttir, Gunnar Olason,