Greece is staging a proper NF for the first time since 2015 (2017 was a song selection for Demy) and I’m a little excited. There are some good songs in the mix. I hope whatever they end up sending will be worthy of representing Greece (luckily, there’s just one Melfest reject in the mix, so we almost won).
Before the entries begin, we’re treated to some ESC songs sung by our hosts, Sakis Rouvas and Helena Paparizou (all backed by a live orchestra, by the way). First, there was Waterloo (because Eurovision), then Hold Me Now (the better Johnny Logan song) and finally Krassi, thalassa ke t’ agori mou (thankfully). And then there was talking, though not too much talking, surprisingly. And a compilation of old Greek entries, which was really nice. What wasn’t nice was being hit with an ad before the songs even started. What wasn’t nice either was having another compilation of Greek entries (30 minutes have passed by that point), then their 2024 entry being lipsynced and then more ads omg, I hate it. It’s been 45 minutes. Just start the songs already - it can’t be that hard. Finally, 53 minutes after the show began, the first song began to start. Even Sanremo would be on song three by now.
I liked this in the studio, but it was disappointing live. It ended up being a little repetitive and the performance wasn’t eye-grabbing enough, plus he was a bit weak live. And at least he was a bit of a looker, so there’s a positive.
This is objectively not very good, but this is pure hilarity. This is cheesier than a can of aerosol cheese I bought one day out of morbid curiosity, but he really sells it live. It throws every rock trope at you without care and I just can’t help but love the courage needed to do this. It even has a completely unnecessary key change and a stompy breakdown section. It might look like I’m being negative, but I’m not. It was genuinely entertaining.
Here’s the first song with some nice ethnic wailing. He’s a really good vocalist and sells the song well, but he isn’t helped by the song being a little on the weaker side at times. With a nice revamp, it could be really good though. There was definitely a lot of potential here.
And we’re back to uninspired songs. I’m simply uninterested in this from start to finish. The song is boring and the live performance doesn’t do anything to elevate it. He isn’t even that great of a vocalist, which is kinda necessary when a song is so barebones.
The song has a lot of potential, but I don’t think any of it was realised live in this NF. It came off as overly static and didnt convery the beauty of this song. Of course, it’s not like this will be the final performance - I’m sure they’ll elevate it a lot for the ESC performance.
Constantinos clearly has a great range in his ESC entries, and this would be another different one. Unfortunately, there’s something lacking here to elevate it above “pretty nice”. I can’t even say, it just lacked some bang. Though you mostly have to consider the potential songs have in an NF like this and there’s definitely potential here.
Yes, I get it, you’ll “take the high road”. We all got it the first time you said it, there’s no need to repeat it five quintillion times again. There are a couple lines in the verses, but it’s literally just “I’ll take the high road” repeated over and over and over again. It even has a stompy breakdown section, which is a trope that has recently started to annoy me (thank you, Cookiefonster). And the man adds nothing to it. In fact, he actively takes everything away. I didn’t like it at all, and it should take the high road away from my life.
Not bad. This is a nice EDM song that doesn’t go overboard. The vocals were on point, other parts of the performance were on point and the song is actually good too. This is definitely one I could listen to again and I think I’d like to see it in ESC. Though the staging would need to change for sure, there’s very little creativity with the staging, though, once again, this NF doesn’t have great production values.
This was weirdly low-energy for a girlbop. The prerecorded crowd shouts are cringe, and she did nothing to sell it to me. In fact, you’d have to pay me to play this again. I don’t like this at all.
This is a proper mess, but it’s fun. And I’ll always support having one disaster bop in the running just for fun.
This sounds like two different songs in the chorus and the verses. I don’t exactly hate it, but it has that classic Swedish sound to it. At least she’s a decent performer, and the staging is a little eye-catching. I’ll be upset if it wins, though, because I don’t think it would do anything in the semifinals.
Why do so many songs this season have good verses and bad choruses? Have I never noticed this before? The verses promise a lot more than the choruses deliver on, which is hugely disappointing, but she performs it really well. She even slayed the high note, nice! Without those choruses, I’d be completely in support of this winning.
This sure was a set of songs. I can’t say I overly hated anything except for my bottom 2, but I didn’t really love anything either. Nothing here grabbed me by the throat and forced me to love it at first sight.
There was so much faff when the voting opened, I won’t even describe all of it. It was mostly recaps of old Eurovision, as well as montages of snippets from ESC 2006. The best part was Helena performing her 2001 and 2005 entries, though 2001 was a nice jazzy remix with lounge vibes, while 2005 was more faithful to the original. Oh, and Theo Evan, the entrant for Cyprus this year, performed Fuego.
It’s results time and they aren’t doing a scoreboard, oof. Instead, they’re just calling out the top 3. Of course, Klavdia won, as everyone predicted. I think it’s well-deserved. Greece is usually pretty good at staging, so I’m sure the song will get a presentation it deserves in Basel. Good luck, Klavdia.