GREECE

The Greek Final was due be held on February 22nd at the ERT TV Studios in Athens where the 3 selected songs would be presented as video clips and a winner solely chosen by televoting. However on February 15^th it was revealed that 2 of the songs had been effectively disqualified due to the record company’s non-payment of funds to subsidise the trip to Eurovision. This left only one song left in the running and was therefore declared the winner. Going to Lisbon will be Yianna Terzi singing the song "Oneiro Mou" (My Dream)

Unfortunately we know nothing about the visuals about this song. There is no official video as yet and only really have the cover art for its single release to go on. This has is quite dark looking although it is quite light and floaty like it is either way up high or underwater. The only thing I can deduce from the song is that it will needs quite a few backing singers and possibly some on stage drums.

The song is very Greek in sound and has a very ethereal, other-worldly feel about it. The backing singers do a lot of work in this song and they are going to need to be very strong, especially as the backing is so sparse. The tune of the song is not that complex but the ay Yianna sings it with lots of runs and trills at the end of phrases emphasises that atmosphere. The chorus is quite strong although what it needs is a bigger build up in the orchestration so that you know it is coming. The song carries on in a typical way until just after the 2 minute mark where there is quite a lengthy drum-lead instrumental. This of course opens up the scope for something in the staging. The song ends after a final reprise of the chorus and does so quite suddenly and a little lackadaisically for my taste. Once you have heard the first minute of the song you’ve basically heard it all which means it gets quite boring quite quickly.

In one way it is nice to see Greece going back to something a bit more cultural and trying something a little bit different, however due to the unfortunate circumstances of the song’s selection I end up with more questions than answers. The whole feeling of the song is very nice but it gets very samey very quickly. It is in desperate need of more oomph during the different segments of the song. In fact getting someone to do a trancy remix could be what it needs. Of course I have quite a few reservations about how this song could sound live as well as how it would look visually. On initial reflections this is not bad song but needs a lot of work to make this stand out.  As is, I don’t think this should qualify but looking at the other countries in its semi, it may well do.

ARTIST – Yianna Terzi

SONG – Oneiro Mou (My Dream)

MUSIC - Michalis Papathanasiou, Dimitris Stamatiou

LYRICS - Aris Kalimeris, Yianna Terzi