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3 Singers I Discovered Through Eurovision

Since the Eurovision Song Contest is tomorrow I thought I'd do a post on singers who I discovered through Eurovision. People think of it as a bit cheesy in the UK but I enjoy watching it and it's good for hearing foreign singers! Our entry this year is Love Will Set You Free by Englebert Humperdinck. He seems a bit of a strange choice but we'll see! lol. The contest takes place in Baku, Azerbaijan this year, since the previous winners were Azerbajani duo Ell and Nikki  with their song Running Scared.  So here we go!




Sertab Erener

Sertab won Eurovision for Turkey in 2003 with her song Every Way That I Can. She's had a long running career and was already very successful in Turkey. Sertab is a soprano and  has released 8 studio albums, plus a remix album, two compilations and one as Painted On Water (a band she is in with Demir Demirkan who co-wrote Every Way That I Can). She released her first English language album No Boundaries in 2004. She has a new album out this year called Ey Şuh-i Sertab but the information is in Turkish (on her Turkish Wikipedia), so I can't give you any more info than that!



                                                              Eurovision performance


                                             
                                  
                                              Every Way That I Can (Galleon Remix)- Official music video


Update 10/5/14: The original music video I posted has gone, so I've posted the remix video instead.


For more information visit these links:

Official site (Turkish)

VEVO (videos)

Sertab Wikipedia (English)

Painted On Water (English)*


Elena Risteska

Elena was a contestant in Eurovision in 2006 representing FYR Macedonia. She came 12th with her song Ninanajna. The version she sang for Eurovision was mostly in English and the lyrics have a different meaning to the Macdeonian version (which is on her album 192). The Macedonian one is about how Elena's lover likes turbo folk whereas she likes pop and hip hop, and the English one is about how she wants to make her lover's fantasies come true. 

Elena was popular in Macedonia and other Balkan countries before entering Eurovision, she won the reality show Play- Search For A Star and released her debut album Den i Nok (Day and Night) in 2003. After Eurovision she brought out her second album 192. She has released another album since then, Milioner (a Serbian language version of her Macedonian album 192) and did an English version of the song Milioner called Million Dollar player featuring Leroy Chambers.



   
                                                              Eurovision performance


                                                     

                                                       Ninanajna- Macedonian version

If you'd like to know more about Elena, check out these links:

MySpace (now empty)

Facebook

Fansite

Official Youtube


Hadise

Hadise Açıkgöz  represented Turkey in 2009 with the song  Dum Tek Tek and came fourth. She's from Belgium but has Turkish heritage. Hadise was also already a popular singer, she had been a contestant in the Belgian TV singing contest Idool 2003 and  released her debut album Sweat in 2005. She's had 5 albums to date including Sweat, (two Turkish language and three English language), the others are Hadise, Fast Life, Kahraman (translated as Hero) both of which came out in 2009 and her latest Aşk kaç beden giyer? 

Eurovision performance:





Official video


Here are links for Hadise:

Official site

Official YouTube channel



Plus:

Anggun

I didn't discover her through Eurovision but she's one of my fave singers and she's representing France in the contest this year, so I've included her.

Anggun (full name Anggun Cipta Sasmi)  is an Indonesian singer who sings in Indonesian, French and English. She's been singing since she was a child and beame famous in Indonesia during the 90s. She moved to Europe (first England, then France) and achieved international success in the late 90s with her albums Au Nom De La Lune and Snow On The Sahara (the same album in French and English). 

Anggun has released 4 Indonesian language albums including Dunia Aku Punya and Anggun C. Sasmi..Lah!!! and 5 internationl ones in French and English (the same album in both languages), Chrysalis/Desirs Contraires, Luminescence (same title in both versions), Elevation/Élévation and Echoes/Échos. Her music is a mixture of styles, rock, world, dance and more recently R'n'B/urban. Anggun is a French citizen and will represent France with ECHO (You and I).

Official ECHO) (You and I) video




                                                       One of my fave songs- A Change

Official site (French/English)

Official YouTube




*These links are no longer there (as of May 2017). Rather than delete them I've "struckthrough" the text to indicate that the link is dead or re-directs. :)

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