After months of speculations and rumours Greece at last chose its Eurovision entry for Kyiv. Demy presented her three songs, and This is Love was the winner, which will be the Greek entry for the 62nd Eurovision Song Contest.
Demy was internally selected by ERT to represent the country in Kyiv. All the candidate songs in tonight’s Greek final were composed by Dimitris Kontopoulos along with two different lyricists, John Ballard and Demy’s sister Romy Papadea. The result was determined by 70% televoting and 30% representatives of the Greek diaspora in nine countries: Belgium, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Germany, Armenia, Italy, Australia, Austria and Ukraine.
The Greek national final was held in ERT’s studio. Apart from Demy, Dimitris Kontopoulos and Fokas Eveangelinos who will make the stage presentation for Demy in Eurovision stage was present there. The audience consisted from members of the two Eurovision fan clubs in Greece (INFE and OGAE). Dimitris Kontopoulos and Fokas Evangelinos already achieved big success in the contest, as all their previous attempts have been in the top 7 of the scoreboard.
This Is Love leaked in the web during the past week however ERT decided that the song was still eligible to compete as it was a demo version not in any way similar to the one tonight and as such they concluded it wouldn’t have any advantage.
The songs
The official video clips of Demy’s bidding songs were filmed in Odessa and Athens last month and have a common element which is love.
- Angels: This is the mid-tempo song. The video shows Demy’s from the balcony of the Opera of Odessa seeing different people of different ages overcoming their problems and coming together through her song.
- This is Love: The only song most of the people have already heard. The picture is black and white with the only exception her red dress. The song is up-tempo and dance and we can sing along as we see the lyrics of the song on red color.
- When The Morning Comes Around: This is the ballad. Demy stands alone in the center of the building on a pink dress and then as the song goes on she wears a red dress and sings her song with passion through the city of Odessa as leaves are flying along her.
The show
Tonight’s hosts were Antonis Loudaros and Eleni Bouzala. The show opened with the two hosts in a car singing some previous greek entries and having fun with each other. After that, Sakis Rouvas gave Demy his best wishes and shared his own experiences from the contest. Then, we saw a pre-recorded video about Fokas Evangelinos and Dimitris Kontopoulos’s previous works in the Eurovision Song Contest with Ani Lorak, Helena Paparizou, Sergey Lazarev and Philipp Kirkorov sharing their experiences on their collaboration with the greek duo.
Later, the results were in. All the juries voted for This is Love, except from the jury from Azerbaijan who voted for When The Morning Comes Around”. After that, with the votes of Greek viewers the winning song was This is Love.
Greece in the Eurovision Song Contest
Greece debuted in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1974 represented by Marinella and the song Krasi, Thalassa kai T’agori mou and she finished 11th. It was just three years later when the country had their first top.5 finish with Mathima Solfege. In 1992 Greece achieved one more top 5 place with Olou Tou Kosmou I Elpida. In 2001 Greece achieved their first top 3 result with Antique and the song I Would Die For You. In 2005 Helena Paparizou returned to the Eurovision stage this time as a solo artist and took Greece to victory in Kyiv. Her song My Number One won with 230 points and remains the only Greek victory in the contest to date. After that Greece had a row with very good results, ending in the top 10 every year until 2012. Last year in Stockholm Greece failed to qualify to the grand final of the competition for the first time in its history.
Watch the video of the Greek entry for this year’s contest and tell us you opinion in the comments below:
