Back in November, Elena Tsagrinou was the first non-returning artist to be confirmed for Eurovision 2021. And now she has a release date for her Eurovision song. Elena has announced that her entry “El Diablo” will be released on 25 February.
Elena Tsagrinou — who will represent Cyprus in Rotterdam — confirmed the news with posts on social media.
View this post on Instagram
The post is accompanied by a red-hued photo showing Elena in silhouette. She’s wearing a slinky long dress and holding a heart-shaped balloon.
Printed on the balloon is “Mama mamacita tell me what to do“. This could be a lyric from the song, with Elena calling on her mama for advice regarding her devilish romantic situation.
In her post, Elena has also revealed that she’s about to shoot the music video for “El Diablo”.
Cyprus has assembled their own team to support Elena with her Eurovision 2021 entry. “El Diablo” is written by the Swedish songwriter Jimmy “Joker” Thornfeldt, the Canadian songwriter — and Eurovision regular – Laurell Barker, Brazilian-born songwriter Oxa, and the Danish “Only Teardrops” songwriter Thomas Stengaard.
The “El Diablo” staging will be created by the Austrian artistic director Marvin Dietmann. In addition to staging Austria’s winning Eurovision entry in 2014 for Conchita Wurst, he was also behind their 2016 and 2018 entries – “Loin d’ici” by ZOË and “Nobody But You” by Cesár Sampson.
Elena Tsagrinou’s Eurovision journey
Last year, broadcaster CyBC confirmed that Elena Tsagrinou would represent Cyprus at Eurovision 2021. This followed the news that 2020 act Sandro would not be returning.
Elena got her start at the age of 14 when she competed on Greece’s Got Talent. Soon after that she joined the band OtherView and had a number of hit singles. Elena went solo in 2018 and soon established herself as a force to be reckoned with in the Greek pop scene.
But singing isn’t all she can do. Elena is also an experienced television host. From 2014 she was a coach on the TV music show Just the 2 of Us and in 2016 and 2017 she co-presented The Voice of Greece. Since October of 2020 she’s presented her own show K-POP Stars on MAD TV.
Eurovision isn’t a random gig for Elena: She’s a fan who understands the significance of what she’s about to undertake. Over the summer, Elena went public with her love of the contest, telling HELLO! Cyprus that she would love to go — but only if she had the right song.
“Eurovision is an institution and I’ve been following it for several years – it is amazing to see so many artists and so many different types of music in one big and spectacular celebration,” she said. “If the right song is found, it would be a great pleasure and honour for me to take part in the competition.”
What do you think? Are you excited to hear “El Diablo”? What theme should the music video have? Tell us your thoughts below!
Wiwi commenters love to hate. Probably the rudest of all Eurovision fans. Do you haters need a nap or a hug or something!! Eurovision is supposed to be love and fun, not cruel and mean. Is also so funny how the ones comparing everything to Fuego can’t actually find actual language to describe why any upbeat song or song with a big chorus is a copy. Tamta’s song wasn’t Fuego 2.0 neither was She Got Me – despafuego. They aren’t the same at all. It’s just pop music with big choruses. Do you guys want to sleep at Eurovision or… Read more »
You know… mamacita is not a word using to refer to someone’s mother in this kind of songs….
I am ready to singing – A yeah A yeah A yeah el diablooo
And I’m a chica solo who likes dirty dancing with el diablooo!
Being released a little earlier than I thought,thought we would be kept waiting untill the song submission deadline. so good news. we will actually be in cyprus (hopefuly) watching eurovision in a beautiful villa,so if my favourite country does well there be a huge party! cant wait to hear
I’m feeling good about this one. The single cover makes it look like the song and performance will be a lil risque. Can’t wait to listen to it!
Same people said about Replay and Tamta
All her spicy will melt your icy,
batches you know it’s true.
Fuego clone or not(not actually), it’s a fantastic bop and that’s why you’ll hate it even more.
sis looks like the 8th member of bts in the header photo
I know this makes certain people mad so I’m just gonna say it. It’s another Fuego clone. Move on.
She is soooo good. I knew her from the band OtherView
‘Mamacita tell me what to do’ is a lyric i guess.
Eurofans are so toxic…. Give this girl a chance…
exactly. they just hate her because she is not Cypriot.
I assume its just a joke in the article but for those who dont know its probably best not to translate mamacita to someones actual mother unless you want some damn awkward silence.
What it means?
It is usually said in latin american music to refer to a female lover
Thank you!
Fuego: Amazing summer pop
Fuego 2.0 (Replay): A more modern summer pop
El Diablo (maybe Fuego 3.0) Creepy summer pop
I kind of hope this doesn’t qualify if only to motivate CYBC to get actual Cypriot artists to represent them…I swear some must even be signed to Panik music as well.
And so what? A good song is a good song I suppose. All 41 countries are doing their best to come up with a good one.
Basically Cyprus is outsourcing everything, the quality becomes pointless. I was supposed to give Cyprus a slack but at this point they’re San Marino 2.0.
they are a really small country and instead of sending the same 3 people every year they are at least bringing quality and diversity.
right, as their HoD said there were some Cypriot entries that applied, but this package was the best out of any. I really don’t get why should they pick a worse package just because it’s Cypriot – that’s not how eurovision works. Hate when people judge them for it, but in fact if they kept sending Cypriot acts people would hate them since it would be Montenegro 2.0 (so basically garage production). I’m sure if a Cypriot comes forth with a great package they would send it, they are not refusing it, they are just being real of what is… Read more »
2012 and 2016 were fan favourites before the contest and Hovig had a song that seemed like a genuine qualifier. All the attached artists were Cypriot.
I know a lot of countries outsource songs and songwriters but at this point Cyprus is doing with the singers themselves on a continuous basis. If it was just Eleni and Tamta people wouldn’t be complaining so much. Moreover, Cyprus is not analogous to a micro state like San Marino.
Yeah but the fact that some Cypriots did a good job (with by the way again foreign song writers) doesn’t mean that they had a Cypriot which was good enough this year. What is not clicking they were presented a few packages and the best one was this one, it’s as simple as that. 🙂
Cyprus has more inhabitants than Iceland and Malta, who do manage to send more than 3 different Icelandic/Maltese artists.
ready for all the salty people in this comment section to say Fuego 4.0!!!!! if the song is vaguely uptempo and have an instrumental drop, just like y’all clowns did to Replay and Me Tana. smh
To be fair, “Replay” was every bit of a “Fuego” clone, or at least an attempt to replicate the success that their 2018 entry had by bringing in the same people who produced Eleni’s song. Sandro’s “Running” was a slight tilt, still going for the banger route but complete axed away the “Fuego” sound that “Replay” had.
girl its not a Fuego clone. they are both uptempo pop songs led by female singers with a stereotypical structure, and there are about 1 million of those in existence.
Replay was a Fuego knock off. They had the exact same key change moment. You could sing Fuego lyrics onto the Replay music and it would fit.
Running was a completely different song
No you couldn’t. Waw do you know how many songs have the same key change moment. It was just more obvious, because everyone was looking for similarities instead of looking at Replay as a stand alone song, which it was.
Thank you for pointing this out! When people WANT something to be a copy so that they can tear it to shreds, they nitpick and hear way more similarities than they otherwise would. I don’t see some of these people saying Chameleon is a Fuego clone, but it follows the same structure and is a female pop song with a drop. Make it make sense ugh
“Running” most sounds like Eurodance pop songs you’d hear from the 1990’s, which isn’t a bad thing.
The point is that, both “Fuego” and “Replay” are of the same feather so the latter more than deserves being called a clone, especially so soon after its predecessor.
Considering it’s from the same producer as Fuego, Alex Papaconstantinou, it more than enough of a claim for the title of “Fuego clone”.
As a result, both songs make for good mash-up remixes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7mqlU_0FMA
I just hope that the song fits the artist. The Roop for example are perfect for Discoteque and seems natural. When a country chooses an artist and gives him a “fast food” song made in Sweden, this has so many risks.
I’m still baffled by the reason why Sandro was not selected for 2021; “CyBC wanted someone who represents more Cyprus as a country”.
Singer: Greek
Songwriters & producers: Swedish, Danish, Canadian and Brazilian
Staging: Austrian
All the best for Elena, it’s the broadcasters reasons to drop out Sandro that I’m wondering about
I think we all know Sandro was dropped purely because he didn’t get the kind of hype artists like Eleni Foureira or Tamta got. Sandro didn’t fit the “yaaas kween” mould that Eurofans crave so CyBC threw him in the bin for someone who would. All the best to Elena of course, it’s not her fault. But it just seems like desperation to go back to what appears to be another reggaeton bop. I really hope Cyprus doesn’t get into a cycle of sending the same kind of song every single year just because Fuego nearly won. I’m hoping Sandro… Read more »
Well it’s true that Sandro didn’t make such a hype as Eleni or Tamta and the song wasn’t a clear fan favourite, but they would have had a whole year to get him a new song
I bet the reason he dropped was because his song wasn’t gaining much traction, and I guarantee Cyprus would have failed to qualify last year. CyBC probably wanted to cut their losses, but I wonder if there was bad relations between them and Sandro.
Sandro was dropped because he was an absolute pain to work with. Team Cybc likes to have control. You can blame them for that but if you ask me they’re working in the right direction. Sandro just couldn’t see the whole thing as the opportunity that it was and came across as ungrateful. The mess that his song turned out to be was in parts his responsibility.
I wouldn’t even say Running was a mess, I’d say it was a complete and direct ripoff of Lose Control by Meduza.
To the people downvoting me: listen to Lose Control, come back here, and tell me that they aren’t basically the same song.
I think the issue was that Sandro didn’t seem all that connected even to Greece and that he was not at all an established singer on any musical scene. Eleni, Tamta and Elena may not be be Cypriots but they are legitimate forces to be reckoned with on the shared Greek-Cypriot music scene.
I’ll try to avoid double commenting in a row so I’ll just answer all of you in this one: I actually read that someone (I don’t remember who) said he wasn’t easy to work with, but is it a bad thing after all, if a singer has a view on what they would like to present as an artist? This team behind ‘El Diablo’ could have made a good song for Sandro to go with so that he would be comfortable with it. For me ‘Running’ as a song was something that might qualify, but not for sure. It’s the… Read more »
Such a shame that none of the people involved in this act (I mean singer, songwriters or even staging director) is from Cyprus… I understand that such situations happened in the past, but I’m not the biggest fan of that
Let’s hope that the song will be at least nice
it’s been like this every year since 2017 lmao
Are you ready for Fuego 3.0 comments??!
So … is it going to be laurell barker trying to rip off ‘fuego’, then?
Lol yes
um she already did that with she got me