Cyprus chooses a female fronted pop banger once more
Cyprus came dangerously close to winning the Eurovision Song Contest back in 2018, when Eleni Foureira finished in second place with ‘Fuego’. The year after, they tried a similar formula with another uptempo pop track performed by a female artist, Tamta’s ‘Replay’, finishing 13th. Last year they wanted to send male artist Sandro with dance infused tune ‘Running’, but he did not get another try after the contest was cancelled. This year, they try the upbeat, female fronted pop formula again with Elena Tsagrinou and the song ‘El Diablo’.
‘El Diablo’ is written by OXA, Jimmy ‘Joker’ Thornfeldt. Thomas Stengaard and Laurell Barker, who had previous Eurovision success with Switzerland’s top 5 finish in 2019. ‘El Diablo’ sounds like it was tailor made for Eurovision. There is nothing really original or unexpected about it, but at the same time it is completely irresistible. The chorus is an absolute banger with a superb hook and and explosion in the production. Admittedly, the verses aren’t nearly as strong. It is often hard to make out what she is even singing about and the lyrics you can understand aren’t particularly strong. The whole song kind of sounds like different ideas hot glued together as one tune, but the instant catchiness of that powerhouse chorus easily makes up for that if you ask me. Sure, if you want to, you can hear some similarities to some of Lady Gaga’s biggest hits, but nothing outrageous that warrants a plagiarism case.
A big pop number like ‘El Diablo’ does need a big performance on the Eurovision stage. A similar concept to the music video (that looks an awful lot like Zara Larsson’s ‘Love Me Land’) could work in the live performance too. At this stage, I am not convinced Cyprus will return to the top 10 of the scoreboard with ‘El Diablo’, as the track might be too generic and often been done before to go all the way, but a spot in the final should definitely be within reach with a decent performance in May in Rotterdam.
MORE EUROVISION REVIEWS HERE: CZECH REPUBLIC – FRANCE – ISRAEL – LITHUANIA – THE NETHERLANDS
MORE EUROVISION 2021 REVIEWS: CZECH REPUBLIC – FRANCE – ISRAEL – LITHUANIA