Greece: Katerine Duska – Better Love

Martin: Welcome back, Greece, and congratulations on winning the first semi-final!

OK, that might be a bit premature. There are still some question marks here. “Better Love” has layered vocals that might be tricky to reproduce live, and there’s every chance the staging will be unnecessarily arty and overthought, because it’s Greece at ESC, after all.

But in Katerine Duska, they seem to have made a very wise choice of singer if they want to make a big splash on the scoreboard after half a decade of treading water. Not only does she have the vocal credentials to deliver the song live – assuming she can remain free of the cold she had at Eurovision In Concert – but she already comes across as really understanding what she wants to get out of the whole experience, both professionally and in terms of having a lot of fun meeting the other contestants along the way. Smile and the world smiles with you, you know? (Even if that didn’t quite work for Ari Ólafsson.)

“Better Love” isn’t a stunning reinvention of everything a Eurovision song can be, but it is a super solid slice of contemporary pop that should appeal to juries and the public in equal measure, and it’s been a while since we’ve been able to say that about a Greek entry.

Shi: I love this one. As someone who is obsessed with everything Greek, I often struggle with Greece at Eurovision, precisely because they tend to be very… Greece at Eurovision. But “Better Love” sounds like Katerine Duska wrote it with Katerine Duska rather than ESC in mind, and it’s always nice seeing countries doing something completely different to what they’ve done before.

Felix: I heard it twice and couldn’t remember a tune, so I assumed there was none, but that’s true for most other songs that are considered contemporary. Eventually it started sticking though. And I do remember that I have nothing against it while it’s on. It just doesn’t do a lot for me.

video and title image source: eurovision.tv