Reality shows and contests have become an undeniable hybrid entity in our lives. Pop singers and television stars, once the untouchable, mercurial demigods of the airwaves, are now infinitely more accessible to their trembling fandom via the internet, select iPod broadcasts, reality shows, and other related high-tech, digital communication gaga.      
Two reality-talent programs that aired on Greek airwaves this winter–Mega channel’s Just the Two of Us and Antenna’s X-Factor, the Greek franchise of the U.K.’s talent search show–locked Greece and Cyprus in a primetime ratings chokehold for months. Both shows featured high-visibility pop stars and vocalist wannabes in their flashy competitions each week. Just the Two of Us paired current chart singers with selected television personalities to sing duets, which were then judged by a panel of experts.  Viewers at home were also able to vote for their favorite couples by phone.
Just the Two of Us proved just the boost she needed for Eleni Foureira, the latest bouzouki-club sex-bomb sensation who took first place with her partner in song Panayotis Petrakis, star of the hit Greek television series Ta Mystika tis Edem (The Secrets of Eden). Christos Holidis, club singer of many years along with peroxide blonde talk show host Maria Bekatorou finished second. Both contestants now have new albums out.
Foureira appeared from nowhere in summer of 2010 and visually poleaxed the MTV Greece and MAD TV viewing audiences with the videoclip “Mia Nikta Mono” (One Night Only). Her follow-up video was the cornea-scorching, napalm-hot hit, “Chica Bomb” which was recorded live at the 2010 MAD TV video awards show. Foureira and “Chica Bomb” captured the imagination of the country and they became the indelibly-etched, pop-vixen chanteuse and heavy-rotation hormone-anthem of every disco and house party in the nation for months.      
Although this winter Foureira shared the nightclub stage with veteran bouzoukia siren Natasha Theodoridou and teen idol Kostas Martakis, her CD’s content definitely leans more towards pop sensibilities than traditional bouzoukia songs. Apart from the de rigueur “Mia Nikta Mono” and “Chica Bomb”, the entire CD leaks microchip keyboard samples and digital technology. Her current hits “Ase Me” (Leave Me Alone) and “To’ Ho” (I Have it) are yet more well-constructed, up-tempo, dance floor pieces, as is the majority of the album. Foureira’s first CD is a good example of the current Greek mindset in the pop music arena: short pieces, big hooks, heavy BPM backbeats, and crisp digital mastering a la Western counterpart girl groups and singers such as Pussycat Dolls, Sugababes, La Roux and the singularly hystone-operon tweaking, R&B teen phenomenon Willow.
With Greece’s current economic psychosis in full bloom, an unusual psychological phenomenon has taken over the music scene–and elsewhere. Instead of scrambling to join the rest of Western world in all its markets and services, a visible nationalistic defensive posture seems to have taken over the mindset of many Greeks. Until a few years ago, almost every pop singer in Greece with a new CD included at least two tracks in English in an attempt to break into foreign markets. This seems to be no longer the case, at least in these two releases. Is it a case of righteous indignation of penurious conditions, damage control or simply riding the storm out on your home turf? You decide.  
Holidis is a straight bouzoukia singer, with no pretensions towards the European/North American pop market. His product is targeted towards the Greek market exclusively and he is terribly popular among the clubland and bouzoukia goers. His strong showing in the Just the Two of Us show–and that of amateur bouzoukia singer Alexandros in the finals of X-Factor–also points to this new-founded quasi ‘wagons-in-a-circle’ mentality.     
Be that as it may, Kakomathimeno (Spoiled) is a beautifully performed and recorded CD from a young bouzoukia singer at the top of his game. The album’s title song was, and still is, a standard in the country’s nightclubs. Album highlights include “Fovamai” (I’m Afraid), “Kakomathimeno”, and “Den Milas”  (You’re not Talking).