Pictured is the national flower of Cyprus, cyclamen
Cypriot TV skipped the national finals and picked up Hovig internally as their entrant, and ordered the song from Swedish Thomas G:son, just like last year. Hovig was the very first artists known for this season, announced already in October 2016 but we had to wait for the song, Gravity, until March 1, 2017. Now both 2016 and 2017 entrants are from their latest national final in 2015 where over 50 artists took part, so we have material for years to come still....
Hovig Demirjian (28), is of Armenian origin as you can easily guess from his name. He was aiming for career in marketing and business but music took over and he switched to jazz and vocal studies, after learning to play guitar and piano by himself. In 2009 he was off to Greece and X Factor where he placed in the end 7th. He returned to Cyprus and released a string of singles and toured also Greece, middle east and Russia of all places. He has tried to get to Eurovision already twice, in 2010 (3rd) and in 2015 (4th). Now he didn't have to compete to get to Kyiv.
The song is, on the bright side, not the typical G:son Mello reject. The beat is very cumbersome, if that word can be used - a far cry from gravity! Nothing much happens while the beat goes on. It's a bit dark and all I can do is imagine him walking ahead with a heavy load on his back.... images of slaves building the pyramids with those huge bricks of stone run through my mind... A bit depressing, too. This is one of the toughest songs to place in the ranking. So it ended up here. It's not annoying. This could be a zero pointer as who's going to vote for this unless the staging is something spectacular? Except Greece. And Armenia. Both nicely in the same semifinal....Or am I missing something here? 4/10
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