In 2018, Cyprus achieved their best ever result in the Eurovision Song Contest, coming in 2nd place with Eleni Foureira’s “Fuego,” and they’ve been chasing that success ever since, hitting the left hand side of the scoreboard in my heart every year since. (In fact, they came 16th with “El Diablo” in 2021 and NQ’d with studio stand-out “Ela” in 2022.)
They made it back to the Grand Final and the left-hand side last year with Australian Andrew Lambrou’s “Break a Broken Heart,” and the delegation has clearly decided that if it ain’t broken they won’t fix it, having selected another Australian singer this year.
At the age of 17, Silia Kapsis is 2024’s youngest ESC representative. Last year, neither of the representatives who were 18 or younger qualified for the Grand Final. Will Silia reverse that trend or will “Liar” be the first English-language Cyprian entry not to qualify since 2005?
Looking at trends in Cyprus’s recent Eurovision entries, they’ve had relatively reliable success with girl bops, songs in English, and strong live vocal performances. They’re attempting to tap into this formula again this year, with Silia’s “Liar” checking off two of the three boxes. Due to her youth, we don’t have a track record to help us predict whether or not she’s up to the challenge. She’s released a couple of singles, but it’s not clear that she has the live performance experience necessary to fill the stage in Malmö. We’ll all find out this May if Silia’s going to bring the performance chops necessary to maintain Cyprus’ momentum in the contest.