Category Archives: Cyprus
Cyprus: Despina Olympiou’s “An Me Thimase” Released
The third entry to be revealed on February 14th was from Cyprus, as Despina Olympiou and her team at broadcaster CyBC released “An Me Thimase (Αν Με Θυμάσαι)“, or “If You Remember Me”, written by Andreas Giorgallis and Zenon Zindilis. How appropriate that this love ballad was released on Valentine’s Day? Read the rest of this entry
More Internal Picks: Hannah and Despina for Slovenia and Cyprus
As all eyes were seemingly on the National Finals in Malta and Iceland or one of the Semifinals in Norway, Hungary, and Sweden, two other nations unveiled their representatives for Malmö. In Cyprus, veteran performer Despina Olympiou was selected by broadcaster CyBC, while in Slovenia, American-born Hannah Mancini will pick up the mantle of her adopted country. Read the rest of this entry
Preview Video Mania!
Like I said a few days ago, now that most of the 2012 Eurovision entries have been released to the public, their official preview videos tend to follow nipping at their heels. Now that the official Eurovision YouTube channel is getting in gear, we’re beginning to see tons of these new promotional clips from all over the continent, with many more to follow. Let’s take a little audiovisual jaunt through Europe, shall we? Read the rest of this entry
Cyprus has decided: it’s “La La Love”!
Way back in August, Cypriot broadcaster CyBC announced that they had selected Ivi Adamou to carry their banner to Baku. Earlier this month, three candidate songs were revealed for the teenager from Ayia Napa. And tonight, we finally have an answer to the long-standing question: what will Ivi sing? Read the rest of this entry
The Weekend Round-up, January 8
It’s been a busy week in the world of Eurovision, with preselections, song announcements, and other news from Cyprus, Slovenia, Latvia, and beyond. Let’s take a quick look at the past weekend, shall we?
Cyprus: On Friday, CyBC officially unveiled Ivi Adamou’s three candidate songs for Baku. “Call the Police”, “La La Love”, and “You Don’t Belong Here” have all been pretty well-received by fans, and we’ll find out which song Ivi will perform on January 25th. More information (including the songs themselves) is available here.
Latvia: The first of two semifinals took place on Saturday, January 7th, and ten songs were whittled down to the five that will make up half of February 18th. The qualifying performances are:
- Samanta Tina & Davids Kalandija – I Want You Back
- Paula Dukure – Celebration
- Andris Abelite – We Can Change The World
- Ruta Duduma – My World
- Grupa ‘PeR’ – Disco Superfly
The second semifinal will be held next week, but considering that the only song performed in Latvian was eliminated this week, it’s a pretty safe bet that Latvia will be sending another song in English in 2012. (The only time they’ve dipped into the Latvian language pool was with 2004’s “Dziesma par laimi“, which failed to qualify for the Final. LTV has also sent songs in Italian and Russian, but the vast majority of their submissions have been in English.)
Slovenia: After months of heats aired by the program “Misija Evrovizija”, the final two acts have been confirmed. Eva Boto and sister act Nika & Eva Prusnik will go up against each other on February 26th, when RTVSLO will hold “EMA 2012”. Both Eva and the sisters will perform three songs each, and the winning song will be chosen out of those six performances.
Ivi Adamou Reveals Three Songs for Cyprus
As expected, Cypriot broadcaster CyBC released the three candidate songs for Ivi Adamou, who was internally selected to represent the island nation back in August. In alphabetical order, they are:
1) “Call the Police” (written by Lene Dissing, Jakob Glæsner and Mikko Tamminen)
2) “La La Love” (written by Alex Papaconstantinou, Bjorn Djupstrom, Alexandra Zakka and Viktor Svensson)
3) “You Don’t Belong Here” (written by Niklas Jarl, Alexander Schold and Sharon Vaugh)
A National Final will be held on January 25. Cyprus has only made it into the Finals twice since the Semifinals were introduced, and one of those was due to an automatic qualification. They haven’t made it into the Top Ten since 2004’s “Stronger Every Minute“…will Ivi bring them back to the left-hand side of the scoreboard?
Ivi Adamou picked for Cyprus
I don’t know about all of you, but I’m still recovering from my post-Eurovision funk. Coming down from the high that Düsseldorf provided is an arduous process, especially considering that ESC news goes so suddenly from a fire-hose to a trickle after the main event. We’ve seen an occasional follow-up single (as I’ve highlighted in a few past entries), some speculation about who’s in and who’s out (still no confirmation on Armenia, as of right now, and it seems that both Morocco and the Czech Republic are still out for the moment), and fanciful rumors about our hosts in Azerbaijan (will a new venue be constructed in eight months, or will people just wise up and put a roof on the Tofiq Bahramov Stadium?), but little concrete news has been confirmed.
Until now, that is!
CyBC, the broadcaster from the island nation of Cyprus, has not only confirmed the country’s participation, but they’ve also given us our first official name for the event in Baku: 17-year-old “X-Factor” alumna Ivi Adamou. (And yes, that’s the same series that brought us 2011 participants Loukas Giorkas, Kati Wolf, and Jedward, so take that as you will.) Since Ivi’s appearances on the show back in 2009 and 2010, she has released 2 EPs, a full-length album and a handful of singles. Here is a link to one of her more popular hits, “Sose Me (Save Me)“, and the video to her first single, “A*G*A*P*I (L*O*V*E)”:
More details are still to come from Cyprus, but it seems that a small National Final will be held around the New Year, with Ivi performing somewhere between three and five songs.
And for those of you who might be surprised that news is already coming in, just remember that the Netherlands confirmed the participation of the 3Js back in mid-July of 2010, and we knew Cyprus’s plans this early, as well. So much for post-ESC Withdrawal! Once more unto the breach, dear friends…
Christos Mylordos – "San Aggelos S’agapisa" Released in Cyprus
Although Cyprus was one of the first nations to announce their singer for the 2011 ESC, they only released their song and promotional video just yesterday. Christos Mylordos, a native of Nicosia, will sing “San Aggelos S’agapisa (I Loved You Like an Angel)”:
So, we’ve got an ethno-rock-ballad from the Cypriots with a video that could have been ripped from a Colombian telenovela! This one was a bit tough to catch onto at first, partially because it has no real definable chorus, and partially because…well…it’s in Greek. But as I trolled through YouTube videos trying to find a high-quality version to post on the site, I got to re-listen to the song a handful of times, and it’s actually been growing on me! Christos is a newcomer to the Cypriot music scene, having recently won a nationally-televised music show. His winning performance on the program was of a song in English, which left many ESC fans underwhelmed. Fortunately, the powers that be (whether that was the network, the record company, or Apollo himself) have him singing in Greek (the first Cypriot entry since 2008 to be in the language).
All in all, this is a well-constructed, albeit dramatic song, that everything but the kitchen sink has been thrown into. However, “San Aggelos S’agapisa” is a lot stronger than I think people were expecting from Cyprus, and depending on the staging, this might end up being a shock qualifier. From this perspective, though, things might be a bit tough for Mr. Mylordos. Although Cyprus made it to the Finals last year with “Life Looks Better in Springtime”, singer John Lilygreen was actually Welsh…if Christos makes it out of the Semis, he’ll be the first Cypriot-born performer to do so since 2005, and no singer from the nation has qualified for the Final while singing in Greek. Stacking the deck even more harshly against Christos is the fact that constant ally Greece is performing in the first Semi, while Cyprus is in the second. This one could go either way, folks…
The ESC Insider 
Toe-to-Toe ESC Smackdown!
Apr 20
Posted by Samantha Ross
As I’ve said before, April is typically Eurovision No-Man’s-Land as we wait for rehearsals to start. Why not fill the time with a bit of friendly competition?
So many of this year’s artists got to where they are today by standing on the shoulders of giants. Or, at the very least, covering other people’s songs at National Finals or “Idol”/”X-Factor”/”The Voice”-type programs. By sheer luck and coincidence, many of 2012’s Eurovision performers have either covered the same songs as one another, or simply performed past ESC classics. So, in order to pass a bit of time, why don’t we figure out whose versions reign supreme?
As the Chairman would (almost) say..."Allez Musique!"
Read the rest of this entry →
Posted in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cyprus, Estonia, Georgia, Germany, Italy, Serbia, Slovenia, Special Comment, Sweden, Uncategorized
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