CAREER

CAREER.

2003-2004: Protereotita Elena Paparizou on the cover of her first album Protereotita. Despite the group's success, Antique broke up in 2003 on good terms, as the band had 'run its natural course', and Paparizou set about going solo. She signed a solo recording contract with Sony BMG (Greece) and, in December 2003, released her first solo single, Anapantites Klisis (later re-recorded in English as I Don't Want You Here Anymore), a song written especially for her by singer/songwriter Christos Dantis. The single sales were strong, and it received gold certification in Greece. During the winter of 2003-2004, Paparizou appeared alongside one of Greece's biggest male singers, Antonis Remos, at the Studio Pireos nightclub. In spring 2004, she released her first solo record, Protereotita from which Antithesis, Anamnisis, Katse Kala, and Stin Kardia Mou Mono Thlipsi became hit singles. The album achieved double platinum in Greece after the huge success in Eurovision Song Contest. Her success brought her to the Fever nightclub for the winter season 2004-2005 alongside Sakis Rouvas.

2005: Eurovision Ruslana and Elena Paparizou Because of her popularity in Greece, where she ended up spending more and more time, Paparizou was approached to represent the country for a second time in the Eurovision Song Contest 2005. She performed My Number One, Let's Get Wild, and OK on the Greek national final, with My Number One winning the televote. There was also a song called The Light in Our Soul, but it was later disqualified due to it being released prior to the contest, thus breaking the rules. The song went onto win the final contest (with backing vocals provided by Cypriot former Eurovision-participant Alex Panayi), and brought the contest to Greece for 2006 for the first time in the contest's history. Paparizou re-released her first album Protereotita in Greece, with a second CD containing her Eurovision entrants, and English versions to previous songs, such as I Don't Want You Here Anymore, Antithesis, OK, and If You Believe Me as well as a ballad version of (Ehis Kero na Mou Feris) Louloudia. The 10 track CD was also available separately for those who already owned her debut album. A 16-track compilation of the Eurovision entrants and songs from her debut album was released in many parts of Europe such as Scandinavia, Switzerland, Poland, Russia, Hungary, Slovenia, the Netherlands and Turkey under the title, My Number One. In the summer and fall of 2005, Paparizou toured in Australia and North America with Greek artist Nikos Kourkoulis, selling out many venues. She was also named the official ambassador of the Greek Ministry of Tourism, and My Number One was used as backing music to their international television advert. In the fall of 2005, Elena went to studios and recorded a new CD single called Mambo!. The single included Mambo as a Greek and English version, Panta Se Perimena, and Asteria. The CD single stayed on the Greek charts at number 1 for 10 weeks, including Christmas week, and reached platinum status. The track was also released in Sweden in April 2006 and became gold selling more than 25,000 copies, following a succession of hit singles there taken from the album, My Number One. Paparizou's debut album was re-issued for a third time in Greece to contain a third CD (in addition to the actual album and the Eurovision disc), containing both English and Greek versions of "Mambo!" and three other new Greek songs.

2006: Yparhi Logos and The Game of Love. Elena Paparizou's Greek album Yparhi Logos At the end of 2005, Paparizou went back to studio to work on her second Greek language album and her first official English language album. The album has been released in Greece, Cyprus, Germany, Japan, Taiwan and Turkey. Paparizou's second album in Greek, Yparhi Logos, was released in Greece on April 12, 2006. The album consists of two discs, the first featuring 14 brand new tracks, including Mambo! and the second featuring nine live tracks from her Mad Secret Concert (including covers of Don't Speak by No Doubt, Outside by George Michael, Smooth Operator by Sade, Like a Prayer by Madonna, and Just Walk Away by Céline Dion), as well as five new non-album tracks, and a remix of the title track, which is the second single. The video for that single, Yparhi Logos, aired on the day the album was released. The first time people got to hear the song was when it premiered live form at the Arion Music Awards. Gigolo is another song on the album, which is the third single, as it has been sent to Greek radio. The album Yparhi Logos was #1 and is double platinum in Greece. On May 20, 2006, Elena graced the stage of Eurovision once more, to sing her song My Number One as the opening act. She later on sang Mambo!, and then presented the award to the winners Lordi. During a press interview there, she said that people should expect to hear a lot of Mambo! and Gigolo in English over the summer, as she tries to pursue her international career. Paparizou has already released Mambo! in Sweden on a two track CD single peaking at number 5 on the charts. Sweden is the first of many countries in which Paparizou will be releasing Mambo!. The other countries in which Elena Paparizou plans to release Mambo! are: Austria, Switzerland, Poland, Turkey, and Spain. Other records companies in France, the United Kingdom, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Japan, China, United States, Canada, South Africa, and Australia will also promote the song. The Scandinavian promotion of the song will be from Bonnier Music. To gear up for the worldwide release of Mambo!, Elena has filmed a new video targeted for a more international audience. Across Europe, Mambo! is starting to be heard and seen; the video has premiered in France and is now showing in Poland and Romania. The song has peaked at number 1 on the RmF radio show for a successful two weeks and also peaked at number 1 on Polish Radio Kolor for many weeks. In Belgium, Mambo! has peaked at number 18. In Sweden, Mambo! has peaked at 5. The single is due to be released in more countries in Europe shortly but no official release date for the single has been confirmed. Mambo! is slowly making its way up the European airplay charts as the song is played in more countries. The promo of Mambo! was released in the UK and was released on 13th November by UK record company AATW (All Around The World). A remix of Mambo! was included on the new dancemania CD which was released in the United Kingdom on 4th September. However, the single failed to make any impact on the UK Charts, entering for one week at number 185. This was largely due to helena doing no promotion in the uk, through this lack of promotion the song wasn't played on the tv and radio much, to the extent where she could even release it as a brand new song now and nobody would know any different due to the lack of promotion. Elena Paparizou's English album The Game of Love On 22 August, My Number One was released in the United States by Moda Records. The CD single contains 10 mixes and the radio edit. Mambo! will be released there later on in the year along with remixes. Elena's solo debut international album The Game of Love, was released in some parts of Europe and in South Africa in late 2006. Releases in France and other markets are also expected in the coming months. The album contains six songs from her Greek album Iparhi Logos translated into English. There are a further 6 new songs, and the song Heroes. Heroes, which was the official song for the 2006 European Championships in Athletics held in Gothenburg, Sweden in August, and was released in Sweden and Finland shortly after. There will album be a bonus song in Greek on the CD called O, Ti Axizi Ine i Stigmes (Le Bonheur). The bonus song is originally by Manou Hadjidaki, and was a big hit in France in 1962. The song The Game of Love has gained critical success, striking great interest from Greek pop music critic, Benita Ong. Gigolo was the second single to be released from the album after Mambo!. The video for the song premiered in Greece in mixed Greek and English, and there may be a fully English version of the video followed for other markets. It was also recently revealed that Paparizou has recorded a song called Fos for the soundtrack of the Greek Barbie movie. There is now a video for this song. The song Teardrops was released to Greek radio stations reached number one in Greek Airplay Chart.

2007: Yparhi Logos: Platinum Edition & World Wide Promotion Starting in early 2007, Elena singed a contract to be the new face of Nokia Greece for 2007. Elena Paparizou's repackaged Yparhi Logos: Platinum Edition On January 21, 2007 Elena was awarded a European Border Breaker Award in Cannes, France. She was one of the ten new artists who received the Award which were created by the European Union four years ago and are given every year to ten artists who manage to have success with their first album abroad. Elena won the award for her success with her first solo album Proteraiotita: Euro-Edition.The awards took place in Cannes on 21st January 2007 during the Midem Festival and were televised by MTV Europe. Elena recently recorded three tracks for the soundtrack CD to the Greek television series Mazi sou, including the theme tune to the series. A video has been made for the track Mazi Sou which has fared well in Greece, and the track has spent several weeks atop the Greek radio airplay chart. Elena re-released her album Yparhi Logos in May, 2007, as Yparhi Logos: Platinum Edition. It contained a bonus CD Single with six new songs and the hit "Mazi Sou". The second new single from the album (after Mazi Sou) was called "Min Fevgeis" and was released to radios on April 23. It also was released as a solo CD-single as "Fos". The CD-Single "Fos", went straight to number one in Greece following its release, making it Elena's fourth number one hit there. The Cd-Single was certified gold in its 12th week charting at number 2. Her international album The Game of Love will also be repackaged for the French market this winter as she will start promoting her album in Europe. The repackaged version will feature Le Temps Des Fleurs by Dalida. It will be her first release in France. There are also plans to release it in Belgium and Canada More promotion will follow around the world after that. Elena was nominated for 5 awards for the 2007 Mad Video Music Awards. [6] They include "Best Pop Video" (Gigolo), "Best Female Video" (Gigolo), "Video of the Year" (Gigolo), "Artist of the Year", and "Best outfit in a Video" (An Eixes Erthi Pio Noris). She won two awards for the "Best Female Video" and for the "Best outfit in a Video". Elena started the show with the song "Let the Sunshine In" and later sung her song Min Fevgeis. She is also nominated for 4 awards for "Cyprus Music Awards". They include "Best Female Singer","Album of the year", "Greek Album Sales" and "International Album Sales" Elena recently performed at "Bingolotto" , at Sweden, where she sang her hits Gigolo and The Game of Love. She also performed at Wind's Party, in Greece [05.06.07], where she performed a lot of her songs like Gigolo and Teardrops but also ABBA's Gimme Gimme Gimme Elena has released a new song “3 is a magic number” in Sweden. Originally a hit from Blind Melon back in 1996. Elena appeared on a Swedish television advertisement for a mobile phone and for this purpose she released the song as a digital single. The song immediately entered the charts in Sweden and stayed in the there for 5 weeks peaking at number 18 getting more than 180,000 downloads. Elena has released a new song called "To fili tis zois" in Greece. It is the soundtrack from the brand new Greek movie "To Fili Tis Zois", which will be shown on cinemas on 8th of November. It first aired both on MadTv and MadRadio 106.2, on Wednesday 26 of September. Elena has also recorded a duet with popular TV presenter "Nikos Aliagas" for his album released in Greece which was certified gold. The song is called "I Zillia Monaksia" a cover of the Pascal Obispo's hit " L' envie D' Aimer". For the promotion for Nokia Greece, Elena has released a new song called "Ola Ine Mousiki" part of their new advertising campaign.