For third preview in a row, we’re in south-east Europe, and it’s a country that has brought us its fair share of Greek-flavoured party bangers over the years. This year however, they’ve moved away from the party banger sound but have very definitely got a Greek-flavoured song. Their last attempt at a non-party banger Greek-flavoured song ld to their first (and to date only) non-qualification to the grand final. Will this fare better?

Last year Greece made the final with a party banger, but in a rarity, it wasn’t Greek-flavoured at all – it could really have come from any country. I wonder if that was part of the reason the Greek broadcaster insisted this year that submissions had to be both performed in Greek and sound Greek. A possible knock on effect of that requirement seems to have been to leave us with this song as the default entry as the other submissions were disqualified (due to non payment of submission fee) and the national selection show cancelled!

I don’t think that means Greece have ended up with a bad entry by any means – it certainly fulfils the brief of sounding Greek. It’s quite a haunting track, and I think it has a strong hook in it. What I don’t know is how this will come across live as there haven’t as yet been any public live performances of this. Qualification wise, Greece has a very strong track record and this will undoubtedly pick up votes from Cyprus, Armenia, Albania, Spain and the UK who are all voting in that first semi-final. The question is though will that be enough? It it the super tough semi, and there is a question mark on how widely this might appeal (particularly in terms of televote). It certainly is better than the last very Greek-flavoured entry (which didn’t qualify) but I couldn’t call this one either way!

Official music video:

Greece at the Eurovision Song Contest:

 First entered: 1974

Appearances (excluding this year): 38

Best result: Winner 2005

Last year’s result: 19th