Every day between now and the grand final in May, the team from wiwibloggs will be rounding up the latest titbits from the world of Eurovision 2019. We’ve trawled through Instagram, Twitter and elsewhere so that y’all don’t have to. This is the Daily Digest for Tuesday 2 April.
Mahmood is Switzerland’s golden boy
First he went double platinum in his native Italy. Now Switzerland has fallen for Mahmood too. On Monday evening, Universal Music Switzerland revealed via its Instagram story that “Soldi” had attained gold status in the alpine nation. That amounts to combined sales of 25,000 units (or 7,500 for French/Italian-language songs). Italy’s Eurovision 2019 star has spent seven weeks inside the Swiss charts, peaking at #25. He is currently at #65, just one spot behind Switzerland’s own Luca Hänni with “She Got Me”.
Preview party update
From conquering the Swiss to gigs in Tunisia and Belgium, Mahmood is truly becoming international. Next on his list is the UK. He’ll pop by for the London Eurovision Party later this month. However, across the channel in Amsterdam, they’re down another act. One week after Malta’s Michela pulled out, Eurovision in Concert must also make do without France’s Bilal Hassani. Writing on Twitter, the “Roi” singer said:
Hi guys , i am extremely saddened to announce that i won’t be able to attend the @ESCinConcert in Amsterdam (for reasons that are not out my will or control) i hope to see you all in London very soon, i was really excited for this moment with u all…
Hi guys , i am extremely saddened to announce that i won’t be able to attend the @ESCinConcert in Amsterdam (for reasons that are not out my will or control) i hope to see you all in London very soon, i was really excited for this moment with u all…
— Bilal Hassani (@iambilalhassani) April 1, 2019
Ok Oto
Oto Nemsadze graces the cover of the latest edition of OK! Magazine Georgia. Sporting a cheeky grin, the “Keep On Going” singer is pictured painting a giant Georgian flag. However, we do have to question the rocker’s painting technique. Why is he balancing on one foot? Is this how they do it in the Caucuses?
Ester Peony begins rehearsals
The “On A Sunday” songstress has shared a snap from her Eurovision rehearsals. She’s joined by her co-writer Alexandru Șerbu and pianist A.N.T.O.N.I.A., both of whom were part of her Selecția Națională team.She also appears to have acquired two dancers in the form of Mircea Vlad and Cristian Chis Bruce. Both were part of Bella Santiago’s “Army Of Love” dance troupe. If Instagram is anything to go by, the former has a fondness for training in nothing but skimpy pink pineapple-pattern shorts.
Roko shoots a music video
Fresh from welcoming Michael Rice to Zagreb on Saturday, Roko spent Monday working on the official music video for “The Dream”. Aesthetically, it looks very similar to his Dora performance. The angel wings, however, are noticeably absent. But who knows what will appear on the gigantic greens screen.
Official music video in progress.."The dream" ??? Roko Blaževi?, Moj HRT, Eurovision Song Contest
Posted by Eurosong HRT on Monday, April 1, 2019
Happy birthday Sergey!
Thirty six years ago yesterday, Sergey Lazarev arrived into the world. So, while the rest of us were deciphering real news from April Fool’s jokes, the Russian was making the most of his birthday festivities. After filming his postcard in Israel, Sergey has been taking some much need R&R in Greece. His hosts marked the special day with an extravagant four-tier cake.
Scream at MadWalk
But it wasn’t all play and no work for Sergey. Later in the evening he made his way to the annual MadWalk fashion show. Not only did he walk the red carpet, he also performed his Eurovision entry “Scream”. The official footage won’t be available until after the TV broadcast, so for now you’ll have to make do with the snippets in his Instagram story and elsewhere. We’re certain that the starry audience — we spied Ivi Adamou, Kalomira, Eleni Foureira, Sakis Rouvas and Demy — were thoroughly entertained.
Anna Odobescu checks-in
We haven’t heard much from Moldova’s Anna Odobescu since her music video dropped last month. But we’re happy to report that she hasn’t disappeared. Yesterday, she took the opportunity to post a video confirming her identity and urging fans to vote for “Stay”.
Victor Crone gets social
Estonia’s Victor Crone is another Eurovision star who’s been conspicuously quiet since his national final victory. That’s about to change. Yesterday the “Storm” singer signed with Socialminds, the social media agency which is perhaps best known for its work on Melfest Live.
“Arcade” on the keyboard
Duncan Laurence’s radio tour of the Netherlands continues. His latest stop was Radio Veronica. There he delivered a delicate version of “Arcade”, with just a keyboard for accompaniment.
And “Sister” too
Carlotta Truman — one half of Germany’s S!sters — was also tinkling keys. She shared a brief snippet of what “Sister” sounds like when played on a grand piano.
Jurij sings Salvador
Judging from his Instagram stories, Jurijus Veklenko’s week is off to a busy start. The Lithuanian rep is in Tel Aviv filming his postcard. After a hectic day, he sought solace in his hotel room. Uploading a cover of Salvador Sobral’s Eurovision 2017 winning song, he wrote “What’s my all time Eurovision winner!? #salvadorsobral !! This song just stuck with me from the moment i heard it! It would be a dream come true to sing with him one day”.
What do you think of Mahmood’s international success? Are you excited for Roko’s music video? Let us know in the comments.
Hello Europe ! I think this year Romania will win Eurovision 2019 because their song On a Sunday is so unique and powerfull and if we choose right i hope next year Eurovision 2020 will be in Bucharest. Please Europe vote Romania 2020 and have fun with On a Sunday with Ester Peony the most sexxy girl in Eurovision !
12 Points from Europe to Romania 2020 ! Forzza Bucharest 2020 we loves Dracula country and Transilvania mythology ?
My 4th place respectively <3
The girls gymnastics team that performed with Sergey on stage is called “Wolves”, won the gold medal in Gym for Life in 2017. The girls are from my city!!! So proud!!! ? Here’s their performance and win: https://youtu.be/p3Q443QPZhs
Kinda love how Oto seems to have two looks- Cormoran Strike and CBBC host. He looks good on both. And yay, Mahmood is coming to London
Carlotta on piano yaaas! Gotta see her finish the song now. 🙂
Guys is there any possibility for arcade to be sung only with piano at Eurovision?? Because he hasn’t performed the song with the studio backing track yet!!!! I think if this happens the Netherlands won’t win…. please don’t change thiss
He is visiting a lot of radio stations and in Belgium and the Netherlands it is a habit to play acoustic live versions there.
Don’t worry, he will perform the Studio version in Tel-Aviv and not the versions you heard in the Radio studio’s.
Hi guys, I gladly wasted my time to check astrology signs of contestants, so if you are into astrology, take a look: 😛
Aries- Sergey, Duncan, Srbuk, Jonida
Taurus- no one
Gemini- Nevena, Tamara, Oto
Cancer- Alexandra (Keiino), Darude, Jurij Veklenko
Leo- no one
Virgo- Mahmood, Bilal, Zena, Joci
Libra- Luca, Kobi, Leonora
Scorpio- Katerine, Tom (Keiino), Kate Miller-Heidke, Michael Rice, Serhat
Sagittarius- Anna Odobescu
Capricorn- Miki, Tamta, Conan, Eliot, Sebastian Rejman
Aquarius- Michela, Paenda, John Lundvik, Fred (Keiino), Victor Crone
Pisces- Chingiz, Sarah, Roko.
Couldn’t find data for H atari, Tulia, Lake Malawi, Ester Peoni, S!sters, Zala&Gasper, D-moll.
I am a scorpio like Katerine <3 Yasss
same
Zero taurus 🙁
anyway, my boyfriend was born the same exact year, month and day as Mahmood, at about 30 km of distance. I usually don’t rely too much in astrology, but I can see so many common traits in their personalities, it’s almost scary o.o
I thought Duncan and Chingiz were Aquarius as well 😀 😀 😀
(Sorry, I had to make that joke XD)
No Leo’s this year? What, are we all sleeping or what? 😛
Okay there is actual thunder and lightning outside now. (For real; that’s not a metaphor. But it might be a sign.)
I’m coming out: Heroj is my esc19 guilty pleasure, it’s so bad that somehow it sounds good. Here, I said it. And honestly, Roko looks like a really cool guy. I can’t wait to see the music video (and I hope he keeps it in croatian!)
You mustn’t be mean to people for liking different songs than you. It’s not appreciated.
gold in switzerland is 7,500 copies for italian n french songs not 25,000
Looking good for Italy, Soldi would be one of the best winners ever!
how, Soldi is one of the weakest songs of this year
Nicky you’re super-super wrong but I agree it’s not personally a winner. Italy’s sent better songs than Soldi in recent years.
my opinion is flawed, i have no rights of my own opinion, no rights either of my own favourites
i am a loser and you guys are all great
Nicky, honest question: are you really 28 years old!? You behave like a petulant child on here.
27, i become 28 in november
i have stress problems, also extreme opinion issues
i am not a devoted arcade fan, i swear
Soldi is the most ‘current’ song in the competition, whether that also means that it is timeless remains to be seen. The fact that it is gold in a partly Italian-speaking country doesn’t really say much about its winning chances though.
I cannot imagine that Mahmood is only successful for the Italian canton Ticino . Somebody here from Switzerland?
I’m sure Francesco Gabbani was gold there as well. Every San Remo winner is huge in the Italian speaking world.
Arcade is gonna win, Soldi is a joke compared to that mainstream generic masterpiece what is arcade, with worldclass duncan laurence
Soldi got a poignant lyrics and a modern-urban production. I agree that Arcade is a little masterpiece, but this kind of comparison is meaningless: I can say that “the lyrics of Arcade is nothing compared to Siegfried by Frank Ocean” – then? Does it mean that Arcade is garbage? Nah, still a masterpiece.
Do you even realise how hurtful your behaviour is are you really that thick.
i do realize it now, but i can no longer redeem myself anyway on here
I don’t think you can really call him “world class” when people in his own home country haven’t even heard of him prior to the announcement, just saying
yes lol, and actually i wanted someone well known this year for my country, Caro Emerald would’ve been a great artist for us this year
Sister no. 01 = Carlotta = the blonde one
Sister no. 02 = Laurita = the brunette one (and I guess she’s the older one)
It will be almost as hard to know who’s who, as it was to know about OG3NE.
why bother to care about the Obvious predictable last place of this year LMAO
Carlotta is the blonde one yeah, she has toured with alex christensen, a famous dj, with that haddaway what is love cover, she provided vocals for that 🙂
Wow, Sergey is really hot for his age…lol…as if he is 70 y/o. He is just 36, but probably you are a teenager and you think everybody above 25 is old.
you only gotta be 18 to do that in most places… 18 isn’t that old
Sergey looks about his age, maybe only slightly younger. He looks in his 30s. He’s not that old….
Yes, he obviously takes care of himself tho, which helps keep him conventionally attractive.
Vanilla Mean saying somebody is irrelevant Looooool the joke of the year!!!
I did some research, to see how bias Wiwibloggs are. I’ve counted all the published articles for each country to see how much exposure each contestant gets. For it to be fair, i’ve only counted the articles published after the moment each contestant won their national selection or was announced as a participant. To be included, articles had to mention the contestant in some shape or form. Daily digest, polls, odds etc. were also included. Albania – 8 Armenia – 9 Australia – 6 Austria – 6 Azerbaijan – 8 Belarus – 5 Belgium – 8 Croatia – 10 Cyprus… Read more »
You can always go to another website that reports other news if you think Wiwibloggs is biased. It’s not like this is the only one of its kind.
It’s the biggest website out there. I obviously don’t expect every country to have exact same exposure, but they could at least try to be impartial. Because they obviously have some influence.
They can only do so much with the available information they can get from official sources, some of them being from fellow ESC news sites as well, and others being non-English media, are much harder to obtain and report without the assurance that translated reports, at least for involved artists, are accurate. And of course, not everyone who contribute here are full-time.
If one can volunteer to be a writer or contributor for Wiwibloggs, that certainly would be most welcome, especially if they have access to non-English sources.
agree
I’d love to have your free time <3
Took me 30min. It’s not that time consuming.
I don’t think it was a waste of time at all. Multitasking is also a thing. It’s not like i’ve had anything better to do while i was listening to music.
So, you are telling us you went through more than three months of articles in 30 minutes. Such a talented individual. And by the looks of it you didn’t even do your counting right.
Yes i did. You sort the news by country and count. It’s not that difficult. I might have missed an article here and there, but for the most part it’s pretty accurate. I excluded all the articles that had nothing to do with 2019 contestants. like for example “Team Wiwi’s Top NF Songs of ESC 2019” etc.
Most of the songs that are most talked about a it’s also because they were some of the firstly chosen songs like Italy Albania and Spain
And your point is what? I can see from your list that they made effort to represent everyone, more or less, and it normal that biggest favourites get more attention.
Nothing, just an observation, how biased Wiwibloggs are. Also tell that to Czech Republic, Moldova or Latvia.
I see, but how can they report about someone if they don’t do anything, what to write? That’s why I think that daily digest form is great idea to cover everything in short form.
Czech Republik is one of my favourites, so I should be sad that… wait, no. Im actually not. To get attention, you need to do something – and as JUST THIS ARTICLE states there wasnt much to talk about from Moldova, for example. Same with czechia. Some delegations invest more in media, some less. Czechia has always been one with less social media work.
For others they write about the meaning behind the lyrics, 10 facts about an artist etc… I’m sure they could think of something. Russia gets covered even when he takes a sh*t.
I disagree.
Y’all pressed that it’s your faves that get preferential treatment, but if it was the other way around y’all would be the first ones complaining how Wiwi’s are unfair.
Obvious Russia was getting preference
Hey wiwi: you should invent news out of the blue not to be bias, apparently
You mean like they do for Russia or Italy? For sure.
Mahmood is a hologram and Sergey has been made up by Illuminati to conquer the World.
To me, it doesn’t matter much how much “preferential treatment” an entry get. I’m grateful that members of Wiwiloggs actually invest their time on collecting the news, translating them and posting articles so all of us may know what each country is doing (and some clearly don’t have much to report recently like Moldova). That saves me a lot of time scrolling through the instagram. This is not like a presidential election . Don’ take it too SERIOUSLY. The performance in Tel Aviv is what’s gonna decide how high an entry will finish. And when some countries receive a better… Read more »
Well, for some of the acts there are basically not enough sources to draw news from, but some other acts are all over the place. This fact aside, wiwibloggs declares on the banner they have an “attitude”, so you can always go for other sources to get different news.
As for “the preferential treatment”, I think it’s possible. I don’t know if you remember but they heavily covered Saara Aalto and everything about her last year but at the end it didn’t make a difference for her.
You are free to write articles for Wiwibloggs yourself. They are always on the look out for good writers, and for people who have lots of free time. 🙂
Funny to see the difference between the (for the moment) 2 favourites Duncan and Sergey. While Duncan is focussing on his music, Sergey is racing around Europe like a madman focussing on marketing.
Sergey is on N-Tour, he sings everywhere. The fact that Sergey is more open about his personal life, I guess it’s a cultural thing.
Lol, if you follow him before, you would know that Sergey is always proactive and energetic like that, I would say workaholic a bit, it’s not connected with marketing towards Eurovison, though it’s advantage in this case.
In fact, Sergey is way more passive with tours and various activities than usually 🙂
Sergey is open about his personal life? Not that I care, but I do know that Duncan is bisexual, and has a boyfriend. About Sergey we can only guess…
the almighty Duncan, he’s above us, we cannot find a better winner than him in future eurovision contests tbh
Xenophopia towards eartern european countries in unbelievable on this site. And the amount of nonsense , hate, and stupid comments that go along with it. Sergey is on tour right now, like every singer he promotes his music as much as he can. Every artist does that, especially to promote their tours or albums. What’s strange or negative about it? If you don’t like Sergey or his song that’s fine, but please don’t come up with moronic accusations like that
wow…that’s one way to interpret my comment. Seems you are are the one accusing, not me. I was just making a comment about a different approach, I didn’t use the words strange or negative, nor did I accuse anyone.
But if you want to hear my personal taste (as that what this gossip site and its comments are for anyway). I don’t like Sergeys song, it’s overproduced and commercial in a way I don’t like. Duncan’s song feels genuine which I do like.
I didn’t know that preferring a song made someone a Xenophobe.