slowly declining - Every album is worse than the one before. As one of my favorite Greek singers I hold him in high regards and maybe I m more critical of his music than I am of others. There are a couple of great songs including opos tha feugis and xeria psila but that s about it.
Greece s brightest pop star in search of the big bucks - Mihalis Hatzigiannis caused quitte a sensation when he first appeared back in 1998 into the music scene with the discreet , enigmatic Paraxeni Giorti . Here was a young , handsome singer with a melodic voice who penned his own material and was gutsy enough to grab a guitar and perfom his songs live on the various tv shows he was asked to participate. A lot has changed since then and today Hatzigiannis is by far the most popular popstar in Greece .The radio is playing big chunks of his new album 24/7 , his sold-out concerts take place in huge stadiums and big names like Dallaras are asking him to write them songs for their comeback LPs . Yet what was once fresh and promising is now tirering and formulaic . New album Filoi Ke Ehtroi contains a series of simple , uplifting pop songs played with the same 2 or 3 chords and lyrics about how , when you have the girl you love on your side, you can reach the sky , do anything you want , climb that mountain . Although there s nothing wrong with that , the problem is that it doesn t ring true . There s a feeling that Hatzigiannis sat and wrote the next semester s top hit singles and not songs to express him being in love ( or heartbroken on a few occasions) . The pop tracks work a little better than the suprisingly weak ballads( Esy , Epetios ) although you can guess the refrains of Omorfi Mera , Heria Psila and Ola I Tipota before actually hearing them for the first time . The album will appeal to teens and people who buy a couple of cds every year to listen as they ride their car but will leave cold anybody searching for an artist to connect to . Overall , Hatzigiannis is gifted with talent but lately seems rather bored to use it and challenge himself and his fanbase in anyway . If there s a foreighn euivalent of him in the pop world that must be Eros Ramazzotti . You would never call a Ramazzotti song anything but nice but you know you have heard the same song a million times before from other artists and from the particular one as well. Who would have guessed that so soon in his career , a Hatzigiannis record would sell so much and mean absolutely nothing ....