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| Dima Bilan |
Today, The Grandma has been talking with The Watsons about Dima Bilan, the Russian pop singer who won the Eurovision Song Contest representing their country in 2008 singing Believe.
Russia has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 22 times since their debut in 1994. Russia won the 2008 contest with Dima Bilan performing the song Believe.
One of the most successful countries in the contest in the 21st century with a total of ten top five placements, Russia finished second with Alsou in 2000, Dima Bilan in 2006, Buranovskiye Babushki in 2012 and Polina Gagarina in 2015; third with t.A.T.u. in 2003, Serebro in 2007, Sergey Lazarev in 2016 and 2019, and fifth with Dina Garipova in 2013. In 2018, they failed to qualify for the final for the first time in their history.
Before talking about Dima Bilan, The Grandma has offered a new Cambridge Key English Test A2 Example to The Watsons.
Viktor Nikolayevich Belan (born 24 December 1981), known professionally as Dima Bilan is a Russian singer, songwriter, and actor.
Bilan represented Russia at the Eurovision Song Contest 2006 with Never Let You Go, finishing second, and he won the contest in 2008 in Belgrade, with the song Believe. He has had several Russian number one hit records.
In mid-March 2006, Bilan was chosen internally by Russian broadcaster Channel One to represent Russia at the Eurovision Song Contest in Athens, Greece. Out of 37 participating countries, Bilan took second place with the dark pop song Never Let You Go, equalling one of Russia's best ever showing at Eurovision-Alsou's Solo was runner-up back in the 2000 contest.
In September 2006, for second year in a row, Dima Bilan won Artist of the Year and Song of the Year at MTV Russian Music Awards. On 2 November Bilan represented Russia at MTV EMA in Copenhagen.
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| Dima Bilan won Eurovision in 2008 |
On 15 November 2006 Bilan received award for Best Selling Russian Artist and performed at the World Music Awards in London along with Michael Jackson, Beyoncé, Rihanna, Nelly Furtado and Bob Sinclair.
In February 2007, Bilan started to record his first international album in English in Los Angeles, Miami and in Philadelphia in collaboration with producers Jim Beanz and Ryan Tedder. One of the new tracks will be a duet with Nelly Furtado. Also in 2007 he premiered the first single from his new album -Number One Fan.
According to Russian and Eastern European radio airplay chart, Number One Fan topped the charts for eight weeks. Video for this song was shot in London by famous British director Trudy Bellinger who has also made videos for acts including Girls Aloud, Sugababes and Sophie Ellis-Bextor.
On 4 October, Bilan premiered his second single from the forthcoming album, Amnesia, at the MTV Russia Music Awards 2007. During this show, Bilan won three awards, for Best Performer, Best Song and -for the third consecutive year- Best Artist.
More information: DW
In 2008, Bilan released three albums -in Russian, English and Spanish. He also released an English album in 81 countries in co-operation with Interscope Records (Universal Group). He worked on his English album, with some tracks produced by Jim Beanz and Ryan Tedder (OneRepublic). Also his new Spanish album included a duet with Nelly Furtado.
On 20 February, Bilan went to Miami and recorded a few tracks for his Spanish album with famous producer Rudy Perez. The Spanish album will include a duet with Nelly Furtado and a Spanish version of his first international single Number One Fan.
In 2008, Bilan once again represented Russia in the Eurovision Song Contest in Belgrade with the song Believe, accompanied by Hungarian violinist Edvin Marton and Russian olympic and three-time world champion figure skater Evgeni Plushenko.
On 24 May 2008, Bilan won first place in the contest, receiving 272 points and seven twelves. His victory's integrity was questioned by Ukraine's officials later in May.
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| Dima Bilan won Eurovision in 2008 |
During 2009 Bilan has continued with concerts and he also performed during the Eurovision Song Contest 2009, before handing over the title of Eurovision Song Contest winner to Alexander Rybak of Norway.
In 2010 Dima recorded a demo version of the song White Nights, which would be competing in the Eurovision Song Contest 2010, but he did not enter the contest saying that it would be too soon to return to the contest after just 2 years after his win at the Eurovision Song Contest 2008.
In the Summer of 2010, Bilan produced and starred in the short film Театр Абсурда. In the film, Bilan performs monologues in which he shares his opinion on the moral values of the people who live in the Russian capital, as well as quotations from Ecclesiastes, and scraps of the diary of Jim Morrison. The film was released on the Internet in late 2010.
Bilan has recently competed at Russia's Eurovision 2012 song selection for the Eurovision Song Contest 2012 in Baku, Azerbaijan. He entered the competition with t.A.T.u. member Yulia Volkova with their song Back To Her Future.
They finished in 2nd
place with 29.25 points from the winning entry, Party for Everybody by
Russian ethno-pop band Buranovskiye Babushki who was 38.51 points ahead
of them.
More information: Wiwi Blogs
In December 2012, Bilan signed an open letter attacking the author of a St. Petersburg bill against homosexual propaganda, along with pop stars like Philipp Kirkorov and Valery Syutkin.
Also, Dima Bilan appeared in the Eurosong 2013 -a MAD show, the national selection of Greece, as a guest, along with other 5 Eurovision winners, which include Ruslana, Marija Šerifović, Alexander Rybak, Helena Paparizou and Vicky Leandros, in order to choose the artist and the song that would have represented Greece in the Eurovision Song Contest 2013 in Malmö.
Dima Bilan is one of the four coaches of the Russian reality talent show The Voice in seasons 1–3, 5–6.
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| Dima Bilan won Eurovision in 2008 |
Dima Bilan is one of the three coaches of the Russian reality talent show The Voice Kids in seasons 1–4. His team's artists became the winners of this show in the third (Danil Pluzhnikov) and in the fourth (Elizaveta Kachurak) seasons, respectively.
Believe is the winning Russian entry for the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest in Belgrade, sung by Dima Bilan. The song was composed and written by Jim Beanz, a.k.a. James Washington, & Dima Bilan.
Earlier, Bilan also represented Russia at the Eurovision Song Contest in 2006, with the dark pop song Never Let You Go, where he took second place.
On 20 May 2008 Bilan sang in the first semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2008, and the song was voted into the final by public vote. It was performed 24th out of 25 songs in the final on 24 May 2008.
The Russian figure skater, Olympic gold medalist and three-time world champion Evgeni Plushenko, skated on artificial ice on stage as part of the song performance, while the Hungarian composer and violinist Edvin Marton played his Stradivarius.
This song won the contest, finishing with a total of 272 points, becoming the fourth ex-Soviet Union country to win the annual contest. Dmitriy Medvedev, the president of Russia, admitted that he himself watched the contest and called right away to congratulate Dima.
In March 2008 a video was produced for the song Believe. The whole team took part in the production -Dima Bilan, Evgeni Plushenko, Edvin Marton and Yana Rudkovskaya, producer of Dima Bilan.
The action of the video starts in a hospital where a mother finds out that her son has leukaemia and needs an expensive surgery. Then the action proceeds to a bar where Dima Bilan is watching TV and finds out that a child needs help. He immediately calls his producer, Yana Rudkovskaya, and tells her that they have to do something to raise money to help a child survive. They decide to give a charity concert with all the three participants performing.
At the end of the video you can see the boy after the surgery. He smiles, gets up from the wheelchair and runs to greet the people who saved his life. Dima, Evgeni and Edvin meet the boy with presents happy that the money raised at the concert saved a child’s life. The video is strongly connected to the song delivering the message that everything is possible in this world if you only believe.
More information: Eurovision
Even when the thunder and storm begins
I’ll be standing strong like a tree in the wind
Nothing’s gonna move this mountain
Or change my direction.
I’ll be standing strong like a tree in the wind
Nothing’s gonna move this mountain
Or change my direction.
Dima Bilan
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