"Greece falls back on a Eurovision standby with Demy's "This Is Love" - will Europe love it enough to send it to the finals?
Country: Greece
Song Title: "This Is Love"
Artist: Demy
First Semi-Final: Position 10
Last year's entry: "Utopian Land" - Argo (DNQ - 16th Place, SF1)
Last year, for the first time since 2004 (when semi-finals were introduced), Greece missed the Eurovision finals. That's a pretty big deal - no matter how much I've thought their songs have been overrated, it always seemed inevitable that Greece made the finals because they had the voting bloc to back them up. With that potentially no longer the case, that's definitely got to leave them feeling desperate to get back into the good graces of the voting viewers. Is Demy's "This Is Love" enough to get them there?
If you're trying to get into the Eurovision finals, there are worse ways to try than sending a generic Eurodance ballad. This is almost a little too generic - this feels like it would soundtrack a Mary Kay or Payless commercial 2-3 years ago((and the red text in this video reeeeeally doesn't stop this from feeling like a Gap or Target ad)). Mike seemed to feel similarly about it in his first listen, and I wouldn't say my ardor for this song has grown any since it debuted.
Here's the deal, though: as with so many of Greece's many entries over the years, I'd say a solid performance of this song is all that may be needed to get it through to the finals. The first semi-final is packed with really good songs, but knowing the various voting blocs, I'd say only 7 or 8 feel like solid locks for the finals. That leaves 2 or 3 slots for nations like Greece (whose song may not be as good as, say, Montenegro((I SAID IT))) with a strong performance and stronger voting block((seriously, who keeps putting Greece and Cyprus in the same semi-final?)). I'm going to roll my eyes when this makes it, but it's that predictable.