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GREECE – Asteromata – Klavdia
Dear reader, in spite of my best efforts I did not get six reviews pre-scheduled in advance of the Easter break, and the interwebs were flaky where I was, so I have some catching up to do!
Authenticity is a strange beast at Eurovision. You bring the spirit of your country with pure emotion and no compromises whatsoever, and if you’re very VERY lucky you win the contest with a record number of points and we all proceed to head off to look at ceramics and sardines in Lisbon.
Considerably more often however, Europe just looks a bit confused and says “What?”
So what of Klavdia? She has the look of an auditionee on an X-Factor clone, perhaps she’s the unassuming and rather plain girl who works as a receptionist at an office in Paphos, but when she opens her mouth to sing one of the panellists pantomimetically drops their jaw on the floor, the audience are on their feet and the local Simon Cowell gets Euro signs in his eyes.
This stunned reaction carries her effortlessly through the audition phases and on to week 6 of the lives, at which point the local Simon Cowell realises he probably can’t sell the product after all and puts her on first singing a poorly orchestrated cover version of Klown with choreography from hell. So not too different from the original.
Still, this isn’t an X-Factor clone, this is Eurovisionia, and for better or worse Klavdia will be carrying Asteromata all the way through the competition.
The best recent parallel I can find for the song is Oneiro Mou, which was left behind in that ridiculous bloodbath of a first semifinal in 2018. Now, the second semi in 2025 does look like significantly less of a challenge to navigate, and I’m not going to rule out Klavdia finding her way into the Saturday show (though if she does, I reckon she has “either second in the running order, or twenty-third sandwiched between the winner and the runner-up” written all over her).
It’s totally and completely authentic, but for my western ear at least it isn’t accessible. It’s not for me – we’ll no doubt find out in May who it is for.
Nick’s score: 5