CYPRUS

The Cypriot entry was unveiled on March 5th with its premier play via the evening news bulletin whist the video was simultaneously being released on youtube. Way back in December, the broadcaster CyBC announced that Greek singer Tamta would be representing the island nation. Her song is called “Replay”

In the accompanying music video, Tamta is in a variety of situations, none of which give us much of a clue as to how this might be performed live. She is also in a variety of clothes although all of them deliver a lot of looks. The monogrammed outfits might prove popular as a merchandising opportunity of nothing else! My favourite look is that of her whit the silver cap and black suit although I don’t think her look on stage will look anything like this. There are a lot of slow motion going on and shots of Tamta in different poses whilst singing at the same time. I had imagined her dancing and singing at the same time, but that’s not to say she won’t do this on stage.

The song is an fairly straight forward and very commercial dance pop song with hints of reggaeton and latino rhythms. The structure of the song is very simplistic and because of that it is easy to get hooked into. There is a sizeable staccato verse followed by a much more melodic pre-chorus. The chorus itself is basically the word ‘replay’ on repeat AND highly compressed and synthesised. This cycle is completed twice, each lasting about a minute each. The final minute starts with a shorter and slower mini verse and a shorter and slightly higher pre-chorus before going back into the pre-chorus and chorus proper

Although it is hard to judge what the performance style and vocal ability by the video but the song is very strong and very catchy. It is very easy, and quite right too, to make comparisons to last years song, and on the surface hey are very similar in structure but I would say that this is much more instant than Fuego. I think that with a similar team on her side Tamta can ride on the same wave of success as long as the song has its own vibe and not just copying last year’s success. It will be interesting to see if there is a band of dancers like last year or if she will need more intricate backing singers for the chorus and pre-chorus. Will they synthesise that chorus live?

This should qualify with ease, not just because it is a good song, but because it’s semi contains several friendly countries. As much as I think this could be a winner part of me wonders if the one-a-year Eurovision fan might think this is just a bit to reminiscent to Fuego and decide not to give this their vote.

ARTIST –  Tamta

SONG – Replay

MUSIC -  Alex Papaconstantinou

LYRICS - Alex Papaconstantinou