Through our Best of the Bunch series, we gave a recap on the Eurovision entries from 2006 to 2015 and gave you the opportunity to choose your Best of the Bunch. As you may remember, the current Best of the Bunch winners were put into our ‘Ultimate Eurovision’ but it’s time to see which of the latest three entries have remained as your favourites! In our Best of the Bunch: The Trials series, we are going to recap the entries from a certain nation starting with 2016 and continuing through to the latest Eurovision season of 2018. Your job is to simply enjoy the music, and vote for your Best of the Bunch winner!
Today we’re looking back at the three most recent entries from Greece. After one of the most successful histories at Eurovision in terms of final qualification, we’ve seen a couple of hiccups in recent years, which we will discuss today. To explore more of the recent history of Greece at Eurovision, you can always check out our Best of the Bunch post for Greece, where we look at the entries between 2006 and 2015. Today we will be starting in 2016, so let’s begin!
Greece 2016
After a couple of average placings in the final, it was time for Greece to amp things up a bit and return back to the Top 10 – a place where Greece often found themselves in the mid-2000’s. An internal selection took place, and it was decided that the group Argo, formerly known as Europond would represent Greece at the contest with their mixed language song Utopian Land. The song contained phrases in Pontic Greek, and although there was some English in the song, it was very much a traditional soundtrack mixed with modern elements. Unfortunately, the entry was undercooked, and Europe agreed, with the song finishing in 16th place in the Semi-final. This also marked the first time Greece had not been in the final since the introduction of semi-finals.
Greece 2017
A year later, and Greece went back to their old tricks and picked something a little more modern, and something a little less Greek. The nation selected one of their biggest popstars Demy to represent the nation, and fans were ecstatic. A national selection was held to pick which song she would sing, and the winner turned out to be This is Love, a fairly generic pop entry which was a stark contrast to the ethnic sound of the song of the previous year. With such a strong fan base, it was unsurprising that we saw Greece return to the final, however only qualifying in at 10th position. In the final, Demy finished in 19th place with 77 points.
Greece 2018
That brings us to 2018, where the Greek broadcaster decided that they wanted to feature the Greek sound more predominately, perhaps inspired by Portugal’s win of the contest in national language. Although a national final was scheduled, due to a series of withdrawals and disqualifications, the broadcaster was left with one entry, with that being Yianna Terzi with her song Oniro Mou. The song was completely in Greek, which we hadn’t seen since their 2010 entry. There were high hopes for this entry to turn the run of average results around, but unfortunately being in such a strong semi-final, Greece once again failed to qualify from the semi-final. In the end, they finished in 14th place in the semi-final with 81 points.
So now you’ve seen all three performances, it’s time to vote for your Best of the Bunch!
If you want more Best of the Bunch from Greece, check out our original series:
If you want to check out who made our Ultimate Eurovision, check it out here: