Retro Sunday: Happy birthday Marcin with Israel 1999

Today's Retro Sunday is dedicated to our favorite Polish man. Or how about our fav man period? Because today is in fact Marcin Mrozinski's birthday. Yay and hooray and congratulations!

And from both of us to all of you, Marcin, here's a couple of Israeli blokes wishing you Happy Birthday.



OK, so it's probably not the best song that ever participated in Eurovision. But it's one of those songs that are just in it for the fun. That make you smile and jump around and forget about all the trouble you've seen. And that's really what a birthday song should do. Also, we do know you get the concept of both fun and boybands.

Look at all those happy faces, thinking they are just the coolest guys on earth for bringing techno into Eurovision. Well, we have to say we're kinda happy that didn't set off completely, but it did secure Israel a good 5th place and us a bit of a happy moment. And mind you, they do have their own Macarenaish dance, which is very good for succeeding in this contest in GEE's opinion. A little brushing up and they would have been fine.

So, Marcin, best of wishes. It's your party and we do wish you a fabulous day. Remember to thank your mother from us :*

(And for all of you lucky bastards that are not so far away from Warsaw, rush off to the ROMA Theater to see Marcin starring as Marius in Les Miserables. Should be very enjoyable).

X-Factor ready to be Eurovisionized

Ok, here's the deal, glamourous GEE blogger girls have better things to do on a Friday night than hiding behind a pillow trying not to watch self-absorbed teenagers ridicule themselves on national TV. We have a life you know, friends to see, places to be, G&T's to be consumed. At least that was the case until the new season of Norwegian X-Factor introduced good old Eurovision Queen Bettan "Bobbysocks" Andreassen as one of the judges on the show. And now it turns out that she has invited Alexander Rybak as a sidekick when selecting the finalists in the "over 25" group. OMG! Seems like all our Friday nights in the weeks to come suddenly became all booked up... Stay tuned peeps!

Will this lovely couple find Norway's next superstar? Hell yes!

Didrik and the ostriches

OMG, we really can't believe Norway is still wondering why Didrik Solli-Tangen didn't win ESC this year. But as we try to make people see the notion of quality, another question of ridicule hits us wham in the face: Why didn't Didrik's new single "Best Kept Secret" reach the top 20 or iTunes top 100? Seems like everyone are just super shocked Didrik didn't make money doing what he doesn't like doing. Wow, can you not just participate in ESC and then become a super star no matter what you sing? Really?

Take the musical manager of Norway's largest music radio channel Petre, Mats Borch Bugge, for instance.He thinks the single isn't selling online because people rather would buy the whole digital album when it's released. Er, sorry, what? Those tendencies are new to us. Along with Norway largest radio channel P1, Borch Bugge also confirms he won't be playing Didrik's album on air, but still he thinks it's gonna sell? Come on, what desert is your head buried in, man?

While Didrik tells us he doesn't care about the reception of the song (could see that coming), Universal's only comment is that the single isn't selling, basta cosi. And Didrik's manager Eivind Grøstad is again showing his brilliance telling us they have to work really hard to get air time on radio and that they have to compete with international artists. Oh, good luck with that, hon.

So what should we learn from this? Definetly that quality and dedication is needed, not just a free pass to participation in ESC and some so called good friends. And perhaps also that Per Sundnes doesn't have that sense of quality and that we do hope Eivind Grøstad never will be manager of anything we care about.

Enough with the ostrich mentality here, people. Didrik sucks. Get over it.

What great expectations?! The Netherlands and their 3Js

We're approaching Eurovision season and GEE can't wait. What treats will be presented to us this year? Well, again we don't see them coming from Netherlands, that's pretty sure.

WTF are you looking at? Do you think we LIKE Eurovision?

Boybands have never been GEE's cup of coffee, but at least we know this much: They're supposed to consist of fresh boys, not depressed old men. We mean, who killed the cat and how close were you anyway? Apart from that, we guess the Dutch 3Js have everything that we hate so much from this genre: The pathos, the eyerape and the misunderstood notion of singing on top of each other. And yeah, then you would add that they seem to be singing in a rather undelicious language (Sorry, Dutchesses) and have hooked up with the most boring tailor on earth. They haven't picked their song yet, but what 3Js have presented earlier in their career,  is so gray and tiresome we're all lost in dreamland already, dreaming of all the better times ahead for The Netherlands. Once, after 2011.

Expectations this far:
Grumpy men trying to be boys trying to be amorous trying to be sensous? Oh, Lord. Expectations are approaching the bottom of the lake and disappearing fast. But hey, that means we will be easier impressed if they go ahead and prove us wrong.

Now, though, this is just sadder than Sad Sam and Dawson Leery combined:

Retro Sunday: Iceland 1999

It's funny how most of the entries from 1999 just look and sound so incredibly dated. We mean, it's not that long ago, did we really look like this? And back then the winning song was accused of being old fashioned, like the cutting edge contemporary stuff with oontz-oontz beats performed by Spice Girls lookalikes with bare bellies were any better. We sort of prefer timeless ABBA tadamtidam piano riffs and cheesy Schlager/Dansband saxophones.



Regardless, the runner up that year wasn't half-bad. Selma from Iceland was a real charm bomb on stage despite of her ghastly outfit and that ridiculous twirly hairdo, which we in horror remember copying thinking it looked smashing. Kudos for managing to sing half decent trough the hectic aerobic routine as well. Perhaps a more fitting title for the song should have been "All out of breath"?

It must be pretty annoying for the Icelandic to lose the victory twice to another Nordic country, like they did both in 1999 and 2009. But hang in there Iceland and keep sending top notch songs, justice will prevail sooner or later!

Going to Italy

Off to Italy. Will we be leaving Eurovision behind? Probably not.

If you didn't notice, GEE blogger girls were living the busy life in May. We were working and partying and hardly had time for eating (which was great for the dress fittings). Safe to say, we didn't have time for our neglected men either. And when Guri's husband quietly suggested he was living in a dressing room as we were running around changing into our glorious changing outfits while Astrid's man hid in another town, it hit us: We are not the most popular of girlfriends right now.

That's why we will be taking our men to our fab house in Italy for a couple of days. It's a country outside of Euovision as they should know and there will be plenty of love and food and wine and grappa for them there.

But as we were getting ready departure, rumors grew stronger that Italy might be participating this year. Now, that would have been heaven for two girls loving Italy more than anything and still missing Toto Cutugno like crazy.

So then, dear readers, we will not be able to leave Eurovision behind during our days in heaven after all. We will be trying to convince every Italian we see to participate again. We will be paying Berlusconi off. And we will look for Toto.

Lucky our Italian kitchen is big enough to keep our fab men occupied in the meantime. And don't we just love them for that.

For you, here’s Italy at its best. So far:

We need you, you (you)

So, guess this has been the weekend where all the MGP stars showed us what else they can do. We already know Maria can dance, but did you also know A1 can sing?

Eh, wait a moment.. That's the ONLY thing they can do. But at least now they also can sing in Norwegian prime time TV shows. Since GEE never hit the boyband wave, we were actually quite surprised by how charmed we were after meeting these guys in May. Guess common distrust of the Per Sundnes methods really can unite the most unlikely group of people.

We bring you the last part of the show, starting with Ben Adams talking about revolution. LOL, that's one thing we never thought he'd do. But apart from that, they still hit our spots in this show, so much loved by us to begin with. And this Mark Daniel Read really proves once again that he is a little bit better than most boybandies. Setting aside the slight worry A1 might be on a rolldown when they have to participate in family shows like this, we approve of their energy and star behavior. How lucky is the Norwegian state to be housing these charm buckets? (Nope, we didn't mention Christian Ingebrigtsen in our praising. Consider it a political statement connected to FrP)

Take a look, skip the first few second of grey, notice the audience gals about to faint in the front row, be mad at Ivar Dyrhaug for not wanting to sing with Ben Adams and please fast forward over the blonde spreckled hen trying to sing Dolly Parton for a while there.

Retro Sunday: Ireland 1980

We've been waiting. Such a long time. To mention Johnny Logan. But oh, whatta man he is. Or at least was. While everyone seems to be hooked on him wanting to hold them, we'd like to draw attention to his later grandeur as heartbroken hippie.



In 1980 Johnny, king of pathos, was a sad boy with an intense need of self destruction. He could just wait and wait because he'd waited so long and was so lonely already that nothing mattered anymore. Really, nothing. But we have to say, we can't even begin to understand how his beloved kept away from this piece of eyecandy. The fabulous black and white suit is super classy as it blends in with the amazing art deco stage of Hague. And the hair! We love it more than Michael Kelso and young Paul McCartney combined! Add a super sexy dark clad sax player in the back there, and you get why people keep watching this (we choose not to comment on the choir chicks, you can see it as a political statement).

Won't you just look at the despair in Johnny's eyes as he tells us how he's lost everything. Well, he kind of has now, but he was a winner once. The best winner of them all.

(We've included the video with introduction for you, so you can see the lovely photo of Johnny at the pub in the right corner there and more of the cool stage backdrop. How very classy Eurovision was back then).

So do you think you can dance, Maria?

Last night on the premier of this season's Norwegian Dancing with the stars/Strictly come dancing, our favorite Eurovision Diva showed us that she is not just a one trick pony. By the look of it, Maria Haukaas Mittet (yep, she's newlywed) actually can dance as well!

(pic from vg.no)


By scoring a decent 30 points with the judges and finishing on top of the scoreboard during this first round she's off to a flying start. So hold on be strong guys, this lady will be airing on a TV screen near you for yet many weeks to come!

Is it true?

Italy returning to Eurovision has been nothing but a distant dream for all us Eurovision lovers around the globe over the past few years. But all of a sudden the prospect of this actually happening seems a tiny tad more plausible as many different sources today reports that the winner of the Italian X-factor talent show might go on to represent the country in next year's ESC. Yay, times a hundred and ten! For the time being we are trying to stay cautiously optimistic, nothing has been confirmed yet so we will have to wait and see what happens. There seem to be a rumor at some point every year that Italy might return to the contest, but when the official participation list is released, Italy is still missing...

But boy, we sure hope it's the truth and nothing but the truth!

Retro Sunday: Armenia 2008

We have soon healed our wounds of Armenia not winning this year, so let's take a look at another glorious entrance from the queens of Eurovision. Everything from the pumping drums to Shirusho's sensous moves, shiny heels and short fringy dress was very, very right in the Quele Quele act from Armenia in 2008. If it weren't for Dima Bilan making us believe in everything good, we would have been just as disappointed back then.

Never mind the crawling men around Shirusho's legs. It probably is intimidating being around her. And this is how enthnic influences should be presented the Eurovision way - like only Armenians could. Fire up your pyros and get dancing - after all, autumn is not entirely upon us yet.