Like previous years, ESC COVERS will again share a blog post from Morten Thomassen of OGAE NORWAY with his views on the positions reached by all 35 2026 entries. ESC Covers google translated it from Norwegian to English.
When we enter the top 10 of this year’s songs, we first come to our Greek friends who, despite a “boom” in 2023, have been among the best countries with an 11th place as the worst position this decade and, as if that weren’t enough, have gained so much confidence in singing in their own language that the last three contributions have been in Greek.
Thus, this year’s entry was called “Ferto”, which means something like “Get It”, a song that the artist Akylas had helped create himself, otherwise he goes by the name Mytilineos, so it’s probably understandable that the first name should remain as the artist name.
Besides singing, he plays the ukulele and it was through videos on TikTok where he tried to learn this instrument that he became known and, wouldn’t you believe, he has also been on a televised musical competition, in his case The Voice.
But, things didn’t really pick up until he participated in the Greek final this year where he won and finally got all of Europe (and Australia) to take part in this guy’s rather colorful world, for someone who likes those who really go all out in terms of clothing, the kid Mr. Mytilineos is a pleasure to watch, there are obviously no limits here.
On stage, this guy is just as crazy as you would expect and he plays around with computer games and Greek myths and other madness until it’s enough and with a voice that actually lasts the entire song, it’s quite possible he has a backing vocalist hidden behind the stage, but that has quickly become the rule rather than the exception in this competition.
All in all, this was a real party both on stage and on the TV screen, which was enjoyed by enough people and not unexpectedly he was twice as well liked by the audience as by the professionals, but that was exactly what one could have predicted, juries are usually quite immune to songs that tend towards the more silly in content, I wonder if they shouldn’t also have criteria for audience-friendliness and hit potential on their list of factors they will judge.
It seems that our Greek friends have come to terms with having their own national final and it wouldn’t surprise me if there was a song that sounded completely Greek to us next year.
Featured image – ESC Covers