My Eurovision guilty pleasure is the wonderful entry from Cyprus in 2012, La La Love. 2012 was the first year that I watched the contest, and besides having one of the most iconic winners and ushering in the modern era of Eurovision in my opinion, wasn’t the best song-wise (besides the Russian grandmas of course). But this one just hit and got me good, and I still remember it fondly.
I’m predisposed to like glitzy pop sung by a female vocalist, and this ticks all the boxes. Ivi Amadou is gorgeous, and just a little bit of choreo was enough in 2012, clearly. The song itself is incredibly catchy, and I know that there are some folks that go crazy for this one, myself included.
Is the song sung well? That’s debatable, but I love it anyway! The most amusing part for sure is the slightly wonky rhyme scheme in this song, a combination of the lyrics themselves and her vocal affect in the song. “Nothing to fear / When you are near” has a special vowel coloring to it that sounds a little goofy to me, but I think it has a charm all its own.
But yeah, just throw her in a cute dress, have some vaguely Greek staging, have a pop banger, and you’ve got a song I've still got a soft spot for from the beginning of my time watching Eurovision!