THE VOTES are in and Cyprus’ entry in the 55th Eurovision song contest has been chosen.
On Sunday night, CYBC voters and a panel of music judges chose their favourite song, “Life Looks Better in the Spring”, performed by Jon Lilygreen and The Islanders and composed by Nasos Lamprianidis and Melis Constantinou. The song is a guitar led ballad with a gospel backing group.
“Angel”, sung by Zeno Zintilis and composed by Konstantinos Christoforou came second, and in third place was “Goodbye”, performed by Hovig Demirjlan. Out of 75 initial entries, 10 were short-listed for the final on Sunday night, when CYBC viewers could cast their votes.
This reporter’s favourite song, “Island of Love” by Soulthrow came fourth with seven points, and featured an eclectic melange of ska-punk, hip-hop and a man in traditional Cypriot clothes playing a bouzouki.
The competition has been fierce and not without controversy. One band withdrew and was replace on January 26th, while another was disqualified by CYBC for releasing their record before the final, leaving only nine entries on the night.
“Play” by Miglena Staneva which was due to be performed by the Bulgarian electro house group, Deep Zone Project, was uploaded to file sharing websites and YouTube.com before to the night of the final.
According to reports, the files were quickly removed from Youtube.com and the file sharing sites, but a CYBC appointed special committee decided to disqualify the song since many fans had already downloaded them. This was met with disappointment by fans who considered The Deep Zone Project to be contenders and who have left comments on Eurovision web forums.
It is noteworthy that all of the finalists’ songs were performed in English, except for one which was a mix of English and Greek. According to his MySpace page Jon Lilygreen comes from Newport in Wales. Despite his strong voice and solid performance, some commentators on the Eurovision contest’s news website, esctoday.com doubt if it is unique and exciting enough to win the competition, and in contrast to CYBC viewers’ 12 points, many have given Lilygreen zero.
The 55th Eurovision Song Contest will take place on May 25th, 27th and 29th in Oslo, Norway. Cyprus’ entry will perform in the semi final on 27th. The event is organized by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).
