Gear down, Greece

It is not my bag to wish bad luck upon anybody else. The failure of others is not the fuel that feeds my engine. But last year, I hoped that Greece would do badly.

I don't dislike Greece in any way, au contraire. Greece has always been one of my top countries in this contest, and even when the Greeks couldn't care less for the ESC, they contributed with some fab songs. Making a list of my top Greek entires would be hard, as I would want most of them in top five and there is not room for all.

Lately, however, the Greeks have developed an unhealthy appetite for silly and simple-minded ditties. They shake and they shake and they roll in the sand and have fun on the beach and not too much more than that. (Anna Vissi was a very welcome exception, but Sakis and Sarbel - and to some extent Helena - all shaked it as much as they could.)

I prefer the slightly more sophisticated stuff from Greece. I have a soft spot for classics like "Anixi", "Olou tou kosmou i elpida", "Emis forame to himona anixiatika", "Mou les"... Gyrating around doing silly choruses scores a lot less in my book.

Of course, there is a reason the Greeks have selected to go down this road. Shake it shake it at the beachparty til you drop have given them way more points than anything before that. "Mou les" got points from the odd, intellectual jury group and then buckets full of zeroes.

I still like "Mou les" more. And I hope the Greeks would calm down a tiny bit, before they find themselves all exhausted.



Christie Stassinoupoulou - Mou les - Greece 1983
14/20