London Greek Radio

Last night Cyprus and Greece celebrated qualifying through to this Saturday night’s Eurovision Song Contest final. This year’s Eurovision will be held in Kyiv, Ukraine, at the International Exhibition Centre IEC.

Demy (representing Greece) and Hovig (representing Cyprus) made it to the Top 10 qualifying songs after enduring a very competitive semi-final phase. The semi-final rankings will not be announced publicly until after this weekend’s Eurovision final, which maximises fans’ suspense.

It is a result which spelt the Greek’s return to the contest’s final after last year’s very early exit. It’s a solid come-back, for this country who’s always qualified except that minor-blip, which we can now begin to erase from our memories.

Demy looked absolutely stunning in her pale outfit as she performed her song ‘This is love’. It’s a progressively up-tempo track which is catchy and radio-friendly. The track was composed by Eurovision veteran Dimitris Kontopoulos, with creative staging by Fokas Evangelinos, the Greek’s dynamic Eurovision team.

The 25-year-old Greek pop singer seemed to enjoy her time on the stage, joined by her dancers Iasonas Mandilas and Paris Paraskevadis-Planets. She was also accompanied by off-stage backing-vocalists Erasmia Markidi, Evgenia Liakou, and Marcus Giakoumoglou. For those who missed it, we can confirm it was a very slick and well rehearsed performance.

Cypriot singer Hovig also celebrated a successful night. His performance involved an excellent staging concept which complimented his song greatly. He performed a modern radio-friendly track with electronic beats, written by Thomas G:Son, a well-known Swedish composer and producer in Eurovision circles.

28-years-old Hovig, a Cypriot artist of Armenian heritage, shows he was proud to have this chance to fly the Cypriot flag. The Cypriot broadcaster internally selected Hovig and G:son for this year’s Cypriot song.

Hovig was vocally very solid and interacted well with his dancers Marios Charalambous and Pavlos Lazarou Kertepene. The artist seemed relaxed and sung his cool song, mastering the stage’s full width to tell us his story, about gravity.

The Cypriot artistic director Charis Savva put much effort in to make sure he nailed the performance, and clearly it worked extremely well. The Cypriot’s have pulled out all the stops to be noticed and they were.

Greece and Cyprus confirmed they will be performing second-half draw for the final, with 26 countries competing. Demy and Hovig have to wait till Thursday to find out the other qualifiers. What we know for certain is that they have earned their place next to the big 5 automatic placers: the UK, Spain, France, Germany and Italy in the final this weekend.

The Eurovision Song Contest Final airs this Saturday at 8 pm UK time; you can follow it live on BBC 1.

For those who missed the first semi final, you can catch the Top 10 qualifiers being revealed, here:

Article written by Tony Neophytou

It has been confirmed that singer Demy will represent Greece in the Eurovision Song Contest 2017 which will be broadcast from Kyiv, in Ukraine. A song has yet to be publicly released however reports confirm that a song will be selected shortly.

Broadcaster ERT officially confirmed internally selecting Eurovision composer Dimitris Kontopoulos and creative stage director Fokas Evangelinos who were give the job of selecting an artist; they’d chosen Demy to fly the Greek flag.

25 year old Athenian born Demy is a Greek popular artist and Greek fans and local media are already referring to them as the dynamic dream team; suggesting the country has confidence in this years competition entry.

According to an official press release which was released by ERT, Demy aka Demetra Papadea will sing three songs composed by Dimitris live on Greek television on Monday 6th March. Moreover the official music videos to each song will also be revealed on this date.

The public won’t have a chance to listen to any of the songs before that live event, which leaves fans in eager anticipation. Viewers shall be tele-voting for their favourite song through SMS and phone-calls to make sure the best song chosen very wisely.

The information we have been given on the 3 songs is as follows: choice one ‘Angels‘ is a radio-friendly pop-rock ballad with lyrics written by Demy’s siter, Romy Papadea. Choice two ‘When the morning comes around‘ is an ‘American style ballad’ by lyricist John Ballard. The third choice ‘This is love‘ is up-tempo track, jointly written by Romy Papadea and John Ballard. The tunes have already been recorded with ERT’s string Ensemble orchestra whilst the video-clips have taken the song’s creators to the Ukrainian city of Odessa.

With Dimitris and Fokas behind Demy, this year feels for like it could be a strong come-back, for Greece. Not least to try to erase last year’s very early exit.

Fokas was in fact responsible for Elena Paparizou’s ‘My number one’ winning entry in the 2005 Eurovision Song Contest which was held in Kyiv. 12 years later we are back in Kyiv with Fokas (and Dimitris Kontopoulos) heading the team leaving fans with high expectations. Not to mention that Eurovision followers are hoping Kyiv itself is a lucky city for Greece as our only ever win happened there.

Demy is signed to the Panik records family; she won Best New Artist in 2012’s Mad Music Awards. Her hits have included Poses xiliades kalokairia, Tha meineis feugontas, Nothing better, O hlios featuring Alex Leon & Epsilon, Mono mprosta, I zoi, H alitheia moiazei psema, Kratise me and Emeis.

Demy is currently appearing in the musical Mamma Mia! alongside Despina Vandi. She also starred in Fame The Musical, Priscilla, The Sound of Music, and Addams Family.

The Greek entrant will compete in the Eurovision Song Contest’s first semi final, which will air on Tuesday 9th May, televised live on BBC 4, advancing hopefully to the Eurovision Final on Saturday 13th May 2017.

Article written by Tony Neophytou

The Eurovision Semi-Final Allocation Draw carried out on 31^st January, at the Column Hall of Kyiv City State Administration, in Ukraine, officially launched the start to Eurovision season.

The Cypriot and Greek entry performers have been drawn to sing in the First Semi-Final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2017, airing on Tuesday 9^th May live on BBC4 at 8 p.m. GMT.

We last visited Kyiv in 2005, that proved absolutely one of the best Eurovision song contests ever, with Elena Paparizou’s song ‘My Number One’ which won the Eurovision, bringing the only Greek victory in the competition.

The Semi-Finals will span Tuesday 9^th May to Thursday 11^th May concluding with the second semi-final, on that occasion. The Eurovision Final will go out live on Saturday 13^th May at 8 p.m. GMT to be held at the Kyiv International Exhibition Centre (IEC).

Cyprus and Greece is amongst 18 countries, conclude the first semi-final. How it works really… The Top 10 qualifiers who pass the round in each allocated semi, with 50:50 Tele-voting, and professional jury points. The semi-heats producing our lucky 20 qualifiers on both Tuesday and Thursday will be entered in the live final.

The 37 Semi-Finalists have been allocated into six pots, based on historical voting patterns as calculated by the contest’s official tele-voting partner Digame. Drawing from different pots helps to reduce the chance of so-called neighbourly voting and increases suspense in the Semi-Finals.

The UK, Spain, Germany, Italy, France, and host’s Ukraine thanks to Jamala’s winning song last year are direct finalists. The Big 5 has that upgraded status, as Eurovision’s biggest financial contributory members to the European Broadcasting Union, organisers of the Eurovision.

Hovig aka Hovig Demirdjian will represent Cyprus in Kyiv, internally selected by the CyBc broadcaster. He is a Cypriot pop singer with over 10 year’s music career; he went all the way to the live shows of Greek X-Factor in 2009, and has never given up on his quest to represent the Cypriot flag at the song contest. He will sing our Cypriot tune called ‘Gravity‘, composed by Swedish producer Thomas G:Son. His song has a Eurovision feel and potentially radio-friendly hit song, suggests the song-writer.

The official video is due to be released in March and we can’t wait to get our hand on it to share it with our listeners on LGR and through lgr.co.uk.

Demy aka Demetra Papadea will be the Greek representative, with her tune due to be separately selected by the tele-voting public, on Monday 6th March 2017. She has three songs exclusively written for her by the Eurovision legend Dimitris Kontopoulos with creative staging director Fokas Evangelinos, our dynamic team.  So what happened, Dimitris and Fokas appointed Demy, suggesting she was the best choice to the powers that be that’s how we have Demy, to fly the Greek flag to make a strong come-back to Eurovision this year…

She is signed to the Panik Records family, with a substantial volume of pop hits.

This year’s Greek trio is dubbed the ‘dream team’ surely working very hard to come up with a competitive song. Dimitris and Fokas, have a long illustrious run in the song contest with many Top 10s including Sakis Rouvas, to Sergey Lazarev, Russian entrant in 2016’s Eurovision Song Contest, finished Top 3 on finale night.

The viewers in the United Kingdom are able to vote for their favourites in the first semi-final, airing on BBC 4, so too, Italy and Spain. Meanwhile, Germany, Ukraine and France are voting in the second semi-final of Eurovision on the Thursday evening.

This year’s ‘Celebrating Diversity’ theme will define Kyiv Eurovision welcoming 43 countries, to the annual music event. Executive Supervisor of the Eurovision Song Contest, Jon Ola Sand said: ”The notion of celebrating diversity builds on last year’s theme of ‘Come Together’ and is at the heart of Eurovision values: it is all-inclusive and all about countries around Europe, and beyond, joining together to celebrate both our common ground and our unique differences, as well as the love of great music”.

The running order will be determined by the producers of the show and approved by EBU’s Reference Group in mid-March.

Article written by Tony Neophytou

Cyprus has confirmed that Hovig Demirdjian will be the Cypriot representative for the up-coming Eurovision Song Contest 2017 which takes place in Kiev, in Ukraine.

The Cypriot broadcasters internally selected their choice announced through a press release on Friday 21st October; He will fly the Cypriot flag at next May’s annual music event.

Hovig, 27 years-old, was born in Nicosia, a Cypriot artist of Armenian origin. He will sing a song composed by Thomas G:Son, a Swedish song-writer. He produced 2016’s Cypriot entry, co-writing the Minus One ‘Shine’ track, and qualifying well enough to the final, did pretty much alright in fact. His involvement shows ambition to impress at the competition, with his notable many credits including, Sweden’s victory of 2012 in the song contest.

The date for the release of the song has not yet been specified for listeners, which leaves Cypriot fans in eager anticipation. The LGR website will have the song on its release date in the months leading up to the competition.

Hovig is a professional singer and song-writer with 10 years under his belt. This versatile performer is handling pop to Laika and emotive ballads. Excitingly enough, for this reviewer London Greek Radio Dj, his Laiko tune ‘Ego Gia Sena’ goes in to his favourites list, on the LGR air-waves. Well, this is somehow adding a more pleasant touch, because we know the artist a little bit, from his work.

He is very well liked by the Cypriot public, his evolving fan-base, largely beginning with his long-run on live shows of the Greek X Factor. The same year Miss Ivi Adamou was in the series, herself flying the Cypriot flag at 2012’s Eurovision Song Contest.

Hovig finally realises his long time goal pursuing his shot at Eurovision and he’s certainly had a try at it a couple of times before at the local finals. He had a song ‘Stone In A River’ finishing 4th, at 2015’s Cypriot heat stages, likewise, his ‘Goodbye’ tune rated 3rd during 2010’s pre-selection.

This is looking very likely that third time is the charm now he’s attained his goal proper.

He feels absolutely honoured to sing for his native Cypriot land, and is very much looking forward to it.

On his Facebook page, Hovig posted, ”Nai! (Greek word for yes), that’s all I said to CyBC when they popped the Eurovision question.

”This year, I intend to work very hard, day and night, to deliver the best possible performance in Kiev.

Cyprus is a diverse, and a hot island. Diversity runs in our ideas, our people and our music.

Our small island is an oasis of awesome talented people with amazing Mediterranean temperament.”

He concluded, ”Eurovision is happening guys and it’s going to be fun. Let’s do this!”

The press conference held at the Nicosia’s RED, where Hovig performs a lot, was made up of the Cypriot delegation’s Evi Papamichael and Kleitos Kleitou both expressed their hopes and confidence about our Cypriot chances in the song contest.

Hovig thanked them for selecting him as the artist and promised he will do his absolute best at the sing-off event. He thinks Cypriot talent is immense, he puts it, it’s a small nation but it’s really huge talent-wise, if you take in to account the extent of so many talented individuals.

Hovig will be certainly looking to equal the island’s solid qualifying record lately, following Minus One and John Karayiannis the year before, acts which made it to the final outright.

He will do whatever it takes to get to the final, Hovig, emphatically put it. This task is very likely to be very tough for sure, and will need lots of hard-work to make sure he passes to the last round, he’s very focused to knuckle down to achieve this, he points out.

Gson said he felt privileged, and honoured, to be writing his second Cypriot song in two years.

Meanwhile, CyBc CEO Thanasis Tsokos gives us a little quote by saying, ”Eurovision surely exists in the Cypriot nation’s DNA…” He’s of the opinion Cyprus’ participation is vitally relevant to encouraging, and promoting young Cypriot talent. It pays off economically and other ways, to being part of such a big thing. To which, he added, for a small state, like we have with the Cypriot state it is very important to be physically present, at these events.

He believed in Hovig’s talents and abilities and predicted he will qualify okay, adding, he forecasted rightly the same thing about Minus One, Tsokas told us.

We at London Greek Radio will be following all of the developments in the weeks to come and looking forward to have the song in our hands, where you will hear it first, and as always to happily support #teamcy and #eurovisioncy in the run-up to the contest.

The Semi-Finals will span from 9^th May 2017 to the 11^th May 2017, with the Final to take place on 13^th May 2017, where he will be hoping to stamp his authority on the rest of the Eurovision nations.

Article written by Tony Neophytou

This year’s Cypriot song ‘Alter Ego’ by the band Minus One has qualified in the first semi-final to this month’s Eurovision Song Contest, in Stockholm. This year’s entry, our favourite Cypriot rockers have certainly made Cypriots very proud with qualifying outright, very well deserved victory this was.

Surely it was nerve-wracking until we learnt their fate…

Just at the point when host Måns Zelmerlöw gave us the last couple of qualifiers ‘And the ninth finalist is Cyprus!’ The boy’s alongside the lovely Evi Papamichael Head of the Cypriot Delegation reacting with absolute euphoria, waving our flag.

”They called us second-last so we almost got a heart attack. I think if we really win this, they will probably name an airport after us in Cyprus”, Minus One jokingly reacted to the post-Semi-Final press conference, which found out their second-half draw to this Saturday’s live final night. You will see our Cyprus song, jostling with 14^th position in the running order of things…

The impressive group Minus One and the up-tempo track ‘Alter Ego’ went through the first semi-final Top 10 qualifiers (out of 18 countries competing). They will be joined by Russia’s Sergey Lezarev (his song ‘Your the Only One’ being penned by Greek Dimitris Kontopoulos) Armenia, Hungary, Netherlands, Austria, Malta, Czech Republic, Croatia, Azerbaijan).

The Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades reacting on twitter to Cyprus qualifying, congratulates group on their huge result in the competition. His tweet read as follows ‘#CYP @MinusCy you rock! Congratulations and Good Luck in the Final @Eurovision’.

The track was co-written by Minus One and Thomas G:son (he composed ‘Euphoria’ which was Swedish winning entry in 2012). The involvement of the Swedish producer highlights the Cypriot ambition to impress at this competition.

If you have yet to listen to our song… it’s a strong rocky-pop tune with a light-edgy feel to your Eurovision song but still radio-friendly appealing. With a quite good melody, really catchy chorus at first listening, it’s pretty effective, and incredibly solid type of Cypriot entry flying our flag, for our country’s performance…

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.

The consummate professionals sold the song really very well with very slick staging, special effects and pyro fireworks adding to the song’s visually good performance. The staging, complete with cages, strobe lighting, ‘black & white’ screen shots, sharp camera angles and cuts, and digital wolfs appearing, during the song’s climatic finish… which forced you bluntly and very nicely to have this down as a very memorable song and act, at voting time.

Lead-vocalist Francois at one point is literally ‘howling’, emphasising the ‘howling in the moonlight’ parts of the song’s chorus, gave it really fun value. This performance by the band gave us a really epic and captivating feel, surely one of the most effective and exciting by far Cypriot stages in this competition for years.

The Artistic Director, Sacha Jean-Baptiste (she formerly staged Eurovision victorious winning entry ‘Euphoria’) was the very creativity behind helping to visualise the song’s concept on the stage of the Ericsson Globe Arena.

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.

These likeable Cypriot boys had taken time to visit our LGR studios before the workload of Eurovision week, telling us they felt proud to fly our flag, privileged and extremely honoured to be given the chance this year.

You can give your support to our Cyprus entry, by catching the Eurovision Song Contest Final on Saturday 14^th May, which airs on BBC 1, at 8pm. We hope to see our Cypriot flag, flying rightfully to the top parts of the scoreboard.

LGR want to wish Minus One and our Cyprus song the best of luck in the competition.

Article written by Tony Neophytou

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.

Article written by Tony Neophytou

Argo fly the Greek flag at the Eurovision Song Contest 2016 in Stockholm with this year’s entry ‘Utopian Land‘, which has a very positive message to the song’s concept, which represents Hellas, at the annual music competition.

The new group from Thessaloniki is made up of six members with vocalists Cristina Lachana, Maria Elbrus, Hip-Hop artist/song-writer Vladimiros Sofianides, Kostas Topouzis, Elias Kesides and Alekos Papadopoulos, who collectively are playing Pontic Lyra, percussion and tabor. Argo was quickly assembled by a few members of another group ‘Europond’, to specifically write and perform this entry.

Dancer Vasilis Roxenos will step in for Elias, and beefs up the songs live staging concept, this full quota of six people therefore, will give us the Greek feel and identity and style, to our song.

Maria Lyrakaki, will choreograph the song’s staging concept, with lots dancing and movement, which fuses Pontiaka elements and modern dance, it’s quite effective and very Greek obviously, that’s something which this ‘LGR jury’ review, approves.

The up-tempo track fusing Modern and traditional Pontiaka music elements, definitely stands out as a very Greek, Eurovision song. The instrumental intro of the song, sounds really, really good and sort of mysterious, introduces Christina to give us a solo ‘amane’. There’s also the bridge part 2:01 to 2:20 which gives us the very loud beating of the drum, its intensity only works to emphasis the raw ethnicity of the track’s feel.

It feels very brave as an effort and entry, mostly, because it tries to fuse a lot of things, rap, hip-hop, ethnic, linguistic switches, with the meaty hip-hop parts sung in Greek and Pontiac dialect, to English chorus changes…

The song’s positive message fights for an optimistic future or, ‘utopia’, and calls on our collective will really, to battle amongst other things, the refugee crisis.

Those Hip-Hop verses are sung entirely in Greek & Pontiac dialect, they have a purpose, to give us that message and the rapper certainly, believes in his song. The English chorus feeds the optimistic line of the song’s ‘fight for a utopian land’ and asks you to go with them on the ‘fun’ adventure.

Interestingly, the band’s members are refugee descendents of Pontus, Sukhumi, Abkhazia, and Georgia.

The official video which accompanies our song embodies the full ethnic Pontiac costume and dance, helping to emphasise music roots to our ‘Elliniki simmetoxi’.

We are the rise of the rising sun, dance with us and have some fun.

We are the rise of the rising sun, fight with us for a utopian land (Chorus)

The video’s positive message is of looking only to the future with optimism, and constantly moving forward. This concept, sees, athlete type aka Apostolos Lazaridis running, he gives his glance back and continues his forward movement, to the ‘rising sun’, which is the groups’ ultimate route with this song’s theme.

The powers that be ERT Greek Television and the channel President Dionysis Tsaknis internally picked Argo, which favoured local produced Greek song, to represent the nation this year.

The UK will not be voting in the first semi-final but instead will be voting, in the second of the semi-finals. Only the host Sweden, France, Spain and other first semi-final nations will get to vote including Cyprus, which also competes alongside the Greek song for those qualifying spaces.

Argo competes at the Eurovision First Semi-Final which airs on Tuesday 10th May, performing early in the 2nd slot at the incredible Ericcson Globe Arena.

Article written by Tony Neophytou

It has been confirmed that this year’s Eurovision Song Contest will see Greece and Cyprus facing the Eurovision’s first Semi-Final, which airs on Tuesday 10th May 2016.

The countries found out their fate at Eurovision’s Live Allocation Draw, on the 25th January at City Hall in Stockholm.

The way the semis are set-up, will mean only 10 qualifiers will make it out of each semi final and progress to the 14th of May Final, a few days later. 43 countries will be participating at this year’s Eurovision, of these 20 semi final qualifiers will make it to the final night. Hoping to clinch their place will be our Greek and Cypriot entry, competing among 18 countries, in the first sing-off.

The five direct finalists will be again, UK, Spain, Italy, Germany, France and Sweden who won the right to host after Måns Zelmerlöw winning entry, ‘Heroes’.

This is what we know so far: Cyprus entry have Minus One represent the nation with a song called ‘Alter Ego‘, which the boys co-write, with Swede composer Thomas G:son. The tune only recently recorded in Stockholm, amidst temperatures of only, in fact -1 °C, will be officially premiered for the first time on 22nd February, really soon it appears. The five piece band made up of 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.

The Greek entry is almost certain to be selected internally by the Greek State Television, or ERT. Sources have also suggested; the song will be of a Greek feel, or ethnic style, illustrating the nation’s incredible music to the rest of the fellow Eurovision nations.

At the Ceremony of drawing the semi-finalists, this year’s official Eurovision Slogan was revealed, ‘Come Together’, Martin Österdahl, Executive Producer of the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest said: “The Eurovision Song Contest is never about borders, politics or ideologies. It is about reaching across all the boundaries that separates us human beings from each other”.

The show producers will allocate definite running order of the songs of each semi, likely by the final week of March.

Article written by Tony Neophytou

Minus One have been named as the Cypriot representatives for the up-coming Eurovision Song Contest in 2016, which will be held in Stockholm.

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.

The date for the release of the song has not yet been specified for listeners, which leaves Cypriot fans in eager anticipation. The LGR website will have the song on its release date in the months leading up to the competition.

Minus One have already started producing 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.

In terms of performances at previous Eurovision song contests, Cyprus have never won and tend to finish in the wrong end of the leader board.

Head of Delegation Evi Papamichael helped decide who would be representing Cyprus for next summer’s contest and believes the combination can produce a winning formula. She said: ”Minus One and Thomas G:son are, I believe, a winning combination and will hopefully leave our Cypriot flag waving until the very end in Stockholm”.

The band narrowly missed out on this year’s competition with their entry ‘Shine’ and will be hoping for a vast improvement. They have since been performing at stages such as Downtown live in Nicosia and Savino in Larnaca.

The tournament Semi-Finals will span from the 10th May to the 12th May, where they will be hoping to stamp their authority on the rest of Europe.

Article written by Tony Neophytou

If you are wondering what the ultimate Eurovision song of all time is, BBC radio 2 has the answer.

Helena Paparizou and her song ‘My Number One’ was voted as the all-time favourite in a BBC poll. The song competed against the other 60 winners of the competition and Paparizou succeed, taking first place once again.

10 years after its release ‘My Number One’, the song that took Europe by storm in 2005, proved to be the most popular of all the Eurovision songs ever.

Abba’s ‘Waterloo’ landed second despite Abba’s still very active fan base.

BBC Radio 2 noted: “This was Greece’s first ever victory in the competition back in 2005 and it actually led to mass celebrations on the streets of Athens. After the show, nationals descended on the streets to wave their flags and sing her song. The folk-dance love song then went on to gain top 40 chart positions in countries across the world, was later covered by a heavy metal band and was even featured as a soundtrack in a karaoke video game.”

Helena, singer and songwriter, was a member of the group Antique which became extremely popular after their participation in the Eurovision Song Contest back in 2001 with the half-Greek half-English song ‘Die for you’.

As of late, Paparizou has released her new song ‘Angel’ and once again her fans are responding enthusiastically, with more than 20 thousand views already, the song is promising to be another great hit.

Listen to Helena’s latest hit here:

Article written by Efcharis Sgourou