581/917 Mariana Efstratiou: To diko sou asteri (Greece 1989)

When one thinks of Greece in Eurovision, one often thinks of their current trend of combining the modern pop rhythms with local dance styles and instruments. It wasn't always like that. In the 1980's the greek songs tried often to be more of a general european pop songs and the local flavours were very much hidden in the arrangements, or not even there. The greek entry from 1989 is a better example of this kind of song.

Mariana Efstratiou had represented Greece already in 1987 as a backing singer for a group called Bang, who sang a very ungreek Stop!, a song sounding disturbingly like Wham's (wonder where group Bang got their name from) Wake me up before you go go. Another good example of a greek song trying not to sound a bit like greek.

Efstratiou wrote 1989 entry Το δικό σου αστέρι together with Yannis Kyris. The song was an airy and pleasant ballad in the contest, that was dominated by rock and pop pastiches (Rock me by Riva, Vi maler byen rød by Birthe Kjær) and power pop ballads (En dag by Tommy Nilsson and Nur ein Lied by Thomas Forstner). The song was arranged perfectly to match the Lausanne orchestra making the live version of the song much more effective than the lame studio version.

Mariana Efstratiou was like her song. A little shy, not trying to make an act and simply doing a perfect fresh performance making the greek entry unpretentious and enjoyable three minutes of the contest otherwise full of neon lights and drum machines. It was awarded by 56 points and well reserved 9th position among 22 entries.

Seven years later Mariana Efstratiou was back as a totally different artist with a totally different song. But that will be another entry in this blog sometime in the future. But I promise you, it will not receive as high point as I award her 1989 entry.

My points 5/5.