Die for You featured in the 2001 Eurovision. I didn't actually realise that until only yesterday. Up until that point I'd known Die for You was a Eurovision song (and a surprising one at that) but hadn't known when it featured or who had sung it.
Somewhere after the UK last hosted the Eurovision (back in 1998) and 2002 I lost interest in the Eurovision for some reason. I still recorded it on video, convinced that having a library of videoed contests would prove useful in years to come, but didn't watch a single contest live until 2003.
Consequently Die for You was one of many songs I only heard on audio downloading it from the original Napster service. I did a search for Eurovision. "Antique - Die for You" was one track returned in the search.
It's an unusually satisfying track to listen to. It's flicks all the switches in the space of 3 minutes.
There are still some astonishing clichés in it. The chord progressions in the chorus crop up in lots of different songs and classical music. It’s short hand. Just listen to the instrumental break at the end of the first chorus.
The beat is fast enough to walk quickly to (very useful for listening to when running late for a meeting) which although not a cliché in itself, does afford the composer enough time to run through a couple of verses and choruses before racking up the tension and resolving with a good shameless key change before the end.
I can’t quite put my finger on exactly why I like it, but there’s a hint of the kind of excitement I get whenever I visit a forward thinking European country where the air is fresh and the skies are blue. I don’t quite know how I get that from the song, but I do.
What's surprising for me (having only just watched this video for the first time today) is what the singer went on to do for Greece only a few years later. The comparisons between the two performances are really quite surprising, at least they surprise me at any rate. Maybe I'll make that video the subject for the next post.
Die for You, sung by Antique, came third for Greece in 2001 with 147 points. And no, I don’t know that off the top of my head, I copied it from a book.
3 comments:
"Die For You" is a bit of a gay classic. I used to really like Antique when they first came out - their first album "Mera Me Ti Mera" is great, some real good songs on it alongside some cringeworthy lyrics ("Open your heart, give me your hand, come with me now, we'll make love in the sand"). Agree about the performance, she wasn't that great.
BTW, why did you delete my previous comment? I was just trying to be helpful...
This is simply, one of the most glorious, warm, sun-kissed, free-spirited, bouzouki-soaked sounds that is always a sheer delight to hear. Yes I know it's derivative, yes I know the second verse is just a simple repeat of the first but it's JUST LOVELY.
I have to confess that back in 2001, I didn't like this song at all. Many members of the Eurovision fan community were going overboard in the days leading up to the big night claiming it was certain to win. All I eventually saw was an insubstantial effort more concerned with glitz than any real substance, and I was disheartened to see it finish on the podium.
These days, my views have moderated. I agree with you that it has a pleasant, sun-dappled quality that I undervalued at the time, and it does have quite a catchy chorus. However, I still think it's an overrated, empty song which is competently but coldly performed by Helena Paparizou on lead vocals.
The same thing didn't harm her chances four years later, of course, but I'm always put off by her lack of warmth.
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