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You're my lover, undercover - We would like to share this newest 12points.tv CD review: Helena Paprizou's compilation album. 

Helena Paparizou - Greatest Hits & More (2011) ****

It´s December, so it is litterally raining compilation albums, and when it comes to Eurovision artists this is an excellent oportunity to take notice of the essentials.

I cannot say it anyway else: Helena Paparizou's work is quite something! For her early work, when she was still part of Antique, you'd have to get your hands on another compilation CD, the Very Best (2004), that is quite pleasant too. Greatest Hits & More, that was released recently, comes as a very nice follow up to complete your La Paparizou collection!

Let's start with the More-CD. The first track, Baby It's Over, impresses. What a delightful song with such a lot of European hit potential, that it might even compensate for the Greek deficits. Play the song once and it will be in your head for at least three days. And if this for any reason wouldn't work for you (impossible if you ask me), then there still is Love Me Crazy, which is so eey-eey-eey great and just as easily gets stuck in your head.

The compilation part of this album presents us 40 of Helena's hits. Well, there was some cheating going on there, as not all songs really made it to the charts. Where Antique was a bit predictable now and then, Solo-Helena sounds grown-up like a pop diva should: always dramatical (she is Greek after all), sometimes luciously bombastic, sometimes rocky, sometimes in English, sometimes in Greek and sometimes just a sweet little nothing inbetween. It seems rock is very popular in Greece though, in my ears that part seems a bit empty and dated. My advise: Helena, more europop, less rock, please!

But anyway, Helena offers quite some variation on these three discs, showing she is the real pop diva from Greece with still quite some potential for the rest of Europe. As far as I'm concerned she should do a Carola or a Charlotte and just make a comeback on the Eurovision stage. She also has her roots in Sweden too after all. Just get some advice from the other two ladies...

Helena, come back!!!