GREECE

The Greek song was unveiled on March 6th via a special programme on ERT2 that was also broadcast live on facebook. Last month, the Greek broadcaster internally selected Canadian born Katerine Duska to represent them at Eurovision. Her song is called “Better love”.

The accompanying music video, is rather visual if not a little on the abstract side. Katerine is seen in a number of different settings wearing a rather oversized pink dress made of what seems to be mesh or netting. Other wise there are scenes involcing lots of female models mostly dressed in shades of white and tan with hair akin to Crystal Tipps doing lost of strange movements and carrying odd props. As far as I can see I am not sure how any of this could be translated to the stage.

The song is an anthemic number which really shows off Katerine’s rather unusually toned voice. Her voice is very smooth but also quite low in its tone which sounds doubly odd when attempting the higher notes. The song has a really good flow and the parts of the song flow in and out of each other really well. The verses are quite wordy, with an almost spoken word feel whilst in the pre chorus the there are less words but more melody. This leads into the chorus which is basically the words ‘better love’ repeated but the beat is very prominent here which keeps the flow going. After the second chorus there is a small bridge before running into the chorus a few tie. However I have to say the more free form bit of the whole song to me is a bit of a let down and I feel I would rather have this part straight after the bridge then ending with a chorus rather than the other way around.

Katerine’s voice sounds great on the track but with all of these internally selected song that come without live performances I wonder how she will cope singing the song live. If her live version is anything like this and can get the crowd behind here this could be a real anthemic number that could really translate don the camera lens. The video is very odd and I hope the stage idea is more literal than figurative although the colour palette of the video is quite pleasant. Depending on your preferences and pre-conceived ideas the fact that this doesn't sound particularly Greek could sway its critics one way or another.
In a semi with many voting friendly countries this really shouldn’t fail to qualify, unless the vocal performance is dodgy. I also get the feeling this is a very safe jury choice and has of the melodic cues of ‘Nobody but you” from last year which was very much the jury favourite. It’s a bit of a grower – but don’t let the video put you off!

ARTIST –  Katerine Duska
SONG –  Better love
MUSIC -  Katerine Duska, Leon of Athens, David Sneddon
LYRICS - Katerine Duska, Leon of Athens, David Sneddon