Last month, Athena Manoukian won Depi Evratesil 2020 with the song “Chains on You”. Following her win, she announced via Instagram that she was going to return to the studio to revamp the track for the contest. We got a small snippet of what to expect last week, but now we have the full revamp and music video!
Late last month, the team working on the revamp for Athena Manoukian’s “Chains On You” began to tease the revamp for the Armenian entry. In the clip, a short snippet of the instrumental confirmed that the revamp will feature heavier bass and more Armenian instrumentation. In fact, producer Artem Valter teased “808s [that] will hit the Eurovision stage HARD”.
The video was directed by Arthur Manukyan, and Athena was styled by Mary Stepanyan.
You can now see for yourself if what the team were cooking up:
Athena Manoukian was born in 1994 in Athens, Greece and is of Greek-Armenian decent. Although she has never performed at Eurovision (Junior or otherwise), she has some interesting ties to the contest. In 2008, she participated in the Greek national final for the 2008 Junior Eurovision with “To Fili Tis Aphroditis”.
In 2017 she wrote the music and lyrics for former Eurovision winner Helena Paparizou’s “Palia Mou Agapi”. The track featured on the singer’s 9th album Ouranio Toxo, which reached number one in Greece (no pun intended) and is certified Platinum.
In 2018, she made the Six Chair Challenge stage of X Factor UK, having made a splash with her audition with Beyoncé’s “Crazy In Love”. Following this, expressed interest in participating in the contest, either for Armenia or Greece. Answering fan questions on her Instagram story, she was met with a number of requests for her to participate in the contest for both Greece and Armenia. Fast forward to February 2020, and she is now the Armenian representative for Eurovision 2020!
What do you think of the revamp? Will Armenia return to the final in 2020? Let us know! Be sure to stay updated by following @ESCXTRA on Twitter, @escxtra on Instagram and liking our Facebook page for the latest updates! Also, be sure to subscribe to to see our reactions to the news in the run up to Rotterdam!