Sunday, February 19, 2006

Helena Paparizou - If You Believe Me

Swedish born Helena Paparizou is of Greek origin and is best known for winning the 2005 Eurovision song contest with her song "My Number One", but for some years previous to this, Helena was known as a member of the Sewedish/Greek duo "Antique" with Nikos Panagiotidis, and they had various hits in Sweden and Greece in the early part of this decade, including hits such as "Opa Opa" and "Die For You" - which was the Greek Entry in the Eurovision in 2001 wheere it came a respectable third, at the time Greece's best ever placing.

Antique split in 2003 and Helena (or Elena as she is known to the Greeks) recorded her first solo album "Protereotita", completely in Greek which became a massive success in Greece with the hits "Anapantites Klisis" and "Antithesis". In 2005, Helena was chosen as the Greek representative in Eurovision for a second time, and travelled to Kiev as the favourite with her uptempo track "My Number One". After a slow start in the voting, Helena soon pulled away from the others and went on to win the whole contest, the first time for Greece. "My Number One" then duly became a hit all over Europe, including her native Sweden where it reached the top spot. New album "My Number One" was released which featured some new English language compositions, some of her older tracks trabslated into English, and some Greek language tracks too. She continued the success with the hits "The Light In Our Soul" and "A Brighter Day", both of which became hits in Sweden. Her latest release, "Mambo" was the Christmas number 1 in Greece, and is set to be her new single in Sweden.

"If You Believe Me" originally started life as "Anamniseis" on the Greek version of her album, and the track is very typical of Helena's style. If you like this track then I'd suggest checking out some of her other material as I think you will be pleasantly surprised. I'm sure 2006 will have lots in store for Helena, but it will take a lot to beet her amazing year of 2005. Good luck to her though in trying...

2 Comments:

Blogger Adrian said...

Her Greek album is really good. There's a song on it called Zise which is pure Greek / Mediterannean dancepop fun. Really recommend it.

07 February, 2006 17:26  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

she is Greek not Swedish.... on the other hand I don't see anything Greek on "Zise" as it's a cover of a latin song!!! lolol

06 May, 2006 09:35  

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