It’s the time of year again the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest in Stockholm with this year’s Cypriot entry Minus One, flying our Cypriot flag, with the up-tempo track ‘Alter Ego‘.
The pop-rock band, which is made up of five members will be looking to lead Cyprus to their best ever finish in Eurovision history.
Vocalist, Francois Micheletto, will be assisted by fellow band members Harrys Pari, Costantinos Amerikanos, Antonis Loizides and Chris J, who will be collectively playing the drums and guitar.
Minus One have produced their song with the help of Swedish producer Thomas G:son who helped Sweden to a Eurovision triumph in 2012 with their song ‘Euphoria’. The involvement of the Swedish producer highlights the Cypriot ambition to impress at this competition.
The band’s mini-tour taken them to London and to our LGR studios, we found out that the band was definitely enthusiastic about their entry. Our likeable and really approachable lot of band-mates, felt proud to fly the Cypriot flag, extremely privileged, to be representing our island this year.
The group directly sent over to us the mp3 master straightaway, sharing it with our listeners on LGR.
The boys thanking our listeners & fans for the support they have been receiving, since the release of the song.
Jokingly, the boy’s responded to potentially Cyprus hosting next year’s Eurovision in Nicosia, if they actually won it, saying this is likely to concentrate their time, straight after Eurovision finishes.
The radio friendly song is a ‘competitive well-made song’, surely helping qualifying chances in the song’s semi-final performance of our Cypriot tune. If you have yet to fully listen to our song, well it’s a solid modern pop-rock up-tempo track.
The really good melody to the track and chorus which is catchy at first listening, that’s incredibly useful improving the band’s qualifying goal to the Eurovision final… and looking to secure one of the Top 10 qualifying spaces from the first semi-heat.
It’s professional and very slick, in terms of the staging performance and concept, makes use of cages (!) and the hi-tech digital wolf (!), definitely referencing the ‘howling in the moonlight’ chorus part of the song. This review believes this could be shaping up to be the epic performance, with the tune #AlterEgo giving us one of the more effective Cypriot entries in years.
It’s all looking alright; it’s a loud up-beat song, very fast, the quick camera cuts, is adding to the faster, lively track’s feel. There you have lead-vocalist Francois ‘howling’ just like in the song’s audio file, giving it really fun value, as the song is progressing.
They have indeed safe pair of hands, Artistic Director, Sacha Jean-Baptiste (she’s previously put her hand to Eurovision’s victorious winning entry ‘Euphoria’) in terms of staging concept.
The official video to the track has 917,106+ hits on the band site surpassed in weeks of its release; this represents a good start to the group’s campaign already.
The video is pretty slick and well-directed by Cypriot Emilios Avram. There is a proper wolf, he’s called ‘Ares’ (we are reliably informed), and this fits really well, with the song’s concept, ‘howling’ (like-a-Wolf!). You have this video entirely being filmed on the outskirts of Nicosia, you have an intriguing, twisted reality, or living space, with sofa, doors, luggage, 1980’s iconic phone hand-set, stair-ways. Also the mysterious lady, with her ‘gothic’ black outfit, is adding a little rocky edgy atmosphere.
The CyBc internally selected the group last November, to be this year’s representative, clearly, impressed by the pop-rock outfit at last year’s Cypriot national stages.
The UK won’t be tele-voting at the first qualifying, instead are voting in the second semi-heat.
But you can vote if you are watching, in the countries which make-up semi-final including Greece, which competes with Argo, and the song ‘Utopian Land‘.
You can give your support to our Cyprus tune, by catching the Eurovision first Semi-Final on Tuesday 10th May, which airs on BBC 4, at 8pm. The final is on Saturday 14th May, we all hope to see the Cypriot flag, flying rightfully high, on the scoreboard.
LGR want to wish Minus One and our Cyprus song the best of luck in the competition.
