One of the greatest qualities that an artist develops to a great extent is adaptability. But no matter how much he develops it, it is not always easy to succeed in any project.
An actor may be able to sustain himself by adapting to new times. For a singer it is not easy at all. Not even just difficult. If you look at the stark examples of mainstream music, you'll see that.
Sakis Rouvas, Antonis Remos, Elena Paparizou, Despina Vandi, Anna Vissi. Five of the biggest names of the past two decades have failed to leave a song in the last 6-7 years that is terribly memorable. Maybe only Remos, but even he has 1-2 songs. These are not personal opinions. It's the numbers. The songs that these heavyweights have released since 2016 have never made the top ten YouTube trends for example.
But the fact that they have such a discography of great hits in their past is what keeps their artistic impact.
But for musical genres that didn't go with the mainstream, such luxury is rare. Typical cases are the five singers you will read about below. Children of the first decade of the new millennium, they put out an album or two, had 2-3 big hits, but in 2020 it is hard to trace their paths.
All 5 of them served the music on their own terms, not submitting to managerial and commercial tricks and had an attitude that showed an absolute awareness that what they achieved was unlikely to last for long. Not because their music didn't leave an imprint. Just the same...just because this is the scourge of music, at least as far as Greek music is concerned.
George Alupogiannis
«What have you taken from the sun and you remind me of the fire...» said George with his beautiful rock voice and this is his most famous song, along with perhaps The Greatest Things that had a top video clip. In recent years he's been doing some live performances in music venues.
George Mylonas
With Let A Lie he became one of the most played artists on the radio in 2007, if we are not mistaken. It's highly likely that if it was released today, it would have been a much bigger hit. Somewhere in early 2010 is when his trail goes cold after a few albums were released, then he collaborated with Mouzourakis and then...he goes missing.
Zach Stefanou
Show Me The Way, Reach The Bottom and In Space Drapers are his three most «listened» tracks. With the first two he even became one of the big hits of the year. The first one has certainly been heard in every group that gathers on a beach around a fire, it has been played by every late guitarist, it has become a cause for many to cry.
The most paradoxical thing about Zach is that he is only 36 and we still wonder why we don't hear him more often.
Michael Emirlis
Of the 5, he is the one from whom we remember the most successes. The Margarine Packs is clearly the first, but there's The Cuban, The Cause of Evil, Don't Talk to Me About Cinnamon, What You Like, etc. In recent years Michael has made some, rare it is true, appearances on music stages, but he has chosen to move more into the music production side of things and not be seen so much.
Stavros Michalakakos
Out of the 5, he is the only one to have emerged from a reality show, the second X-Factor to be exact, which he won. However, if there was one thing everyone could agree on, it was his voice tone, which did not fit the usual standards of such reality shows. If Stavros had been in America, for example, he could easily have had a career similar to Nick Waterhouse's, for example.
