Before I get too far in this post, I should be clear that 24 in my countdown is a decent placing – there are many songs I like. I say this as there are many passionate fans of this entry who may be a little outraged that I have placed this at 24. I will say I do enjoy it but I do also have a couple of issues with it.

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Elena Tsagrinou is a Greek singer and has sung as part of a band before going solo, and also has worked in TV as both a presenter and an actress. “El diablo” has quite an illustrious writing and production team behind it, including Laurell Barker (writer of many Eurovision songs) as well as a group of Swedes who also have a pedigree in writing and Eurovision songs. On top of this, the song has been getting quite a lot of extra international publicity courtesy of the Church of Cyprus getting very hot under the collar about the song.

I enjoy this but as mentioned earlier, I do have a couple of niggles with this song. Firstly, and I realise everyone has also said this, but the moment I first heard the song (and the chorus in particular), I instantly thought of a couple of Lady Gaga songs (“Bad Romance” and “Alejandro”) and that has now stuck firmly with me it’s hard to unhear them when the chorus kicks in. I really like those two Lady Gaga songs – though they are over 10 years old now. The second irritant is the childish sounding “I love el diablo, I love el diablo etc” that appears at times – it just winds me up!

As we know, Cyprus is currently the country with the most appearances without a first win at Eurovision. They came close in 2018, and they are all set for a potentially decent place in Rotterdam, though I do think that the win may be beyond them this year.

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Cyprus in the Eurovision Song Contest