"The much anticipated "Gravity" by Hovig may help raise people's opinion of Cyprus at the Eurovision Song Contest.
Cyprus came to play, y'all. Working again with Eurovision guru Thomas G:son, the island country has been unusually assertive in its Eurovision Song Contest rollout this year. The announcement of Hovig as their act came rather early in selection season and they have been working the social media hype machine quite heavily for the debut of their entry "Gravity":
Let's get the comparisons out of the way first. The melody reminds me heavily of Awolnation's "Sail" while the lyric delivery is reminiscent of "Radioactive" by Imagine Dragons. In Eurovision circles, I'm getting a strong vibe of Loic Nottet's "Rhythm Inside" while the video suggests we may be getting a stage performance rivaling what Sergey Lazarev did last year with the magic wall.
Let me be clear: none of those things are bad. Last year's entry from Cyprus was verrrrry similar to the Killers and various Eurovision rock performances and Minus One advanced to the final.
The challenge Hovig and Cyprus faces at the moment is the other half of the Eurovision field. This song is the 20th out of 43 to be announced, with a lot of heavy hitters waiting in the wings. "Gravity" is one of the strongest entries of the 20 revealed so far, but we haven't heard what Armenia, Australia, Serbia, Russia, Greece, or Azerbaijan have been working on.
"Gravity" could be setting a benchmark for 2017, which seems to be the goal of Cyprus. Good work."