Review Summary: an incomplete love letter to the aegean islands
If there ever was an artist to claim the title for the biggest Greek music superstar, Konstantinos Argiros would be an obvious choice, regardless of the actual musical output. To put this in words that non-Greek audiences will understand, it’s akin to claiming that Ed Sheeran is a prevailing force in the industry. Come to think of it, those two artists share some interesting parallels: they’re both powerhouse folk-pop singers with engaging vocal abilities, both have songs that dominate radio upon release, both have albums that aren’t quite great but sell by the strength of their hits, both have a peculiar infatuation with hip-hop that doesn’t play to their strengths and both are enjoying equal amounts of commercial dominance and overexposure that quickly leads to fatigue. One of them just so happens to be Greek and the scale of that success and omnipresence is not as gargantuan.
Or is it? It’s pretty telling that
KABANES, his newest record, is talked about only in regards to its commercial milestones rather than its own merits. Don’t get me wrong:
KABANES being “the first Greek-language album to chart on the Billboard World Albums and Top Album Sales charts” and being promoted as such is not a bad thing at all and it even highlights the desire of non-Greek audiences to engage in albums like this. That’s good and all, but there’s a question that remains unanswered: Is this album worth listening to? And to that, I say: Not so much.
Here’s the thing: this is Argiros’ eighth studio album, but his
first one that sounds like a cohesive artistic statement, as opposed to his previous albums that were either woefully inconsistent (his “three-part” record
22) or just a glorified collection of radio mega-hits (2018’s
To Kati Parapano). And that artistic statement is an admirable one: trading the modern laiko-pop stylings for traditional Greek island tunes (a genre of music called nisiotika) and tributes to the country's rich repertoire. The problem is that the concept doesn’t translate into compelling music:
KABANES is a sprawl of nineteen tracks, seventeen of which are covers of timeless Greek classics; the opening title-track is a brand new original track and the closer is just a new version of his previous album’s opening number. Overall, it’s not something to write home about.
Yes, Argiros has an immense young audience that may not be familiar with these classic songs and any effort to introduce those sounds to a younger demographic is laudable. But listening to the entire record, I was personally yearning for the original compositions, especially since Argiros doesn’t sound especially invested in this style. He will occasionally hit a spring in his step and sing with actual energy and conviction on top of those traditional instruments, with ‘MATIA SAN KAI TA DIKA SOU (BALOS)’ being an obvious highlight. The aforementioned title-track is nothing to ignore, either; its inescapable radio presence will surely make it insufferable in a few months’ time, but it’s still a very fun and youthful love song about asking a partner for lifelong commitment that may actually set expectations for the album too high. The rest of the tracklist dishes out one cover after the other and while they’re perfectly serviceable, they can’t hold a candle to the source material. Prime examples: his adaptation of ‘NTARI NTARI’ is undermined by a lifeless vocal performance that doesn’t echo the joyful vocals that Yiannis Parios’ brought to the song back in 1982. His rendition of ‘SIMERA GAMOS GINETAI’ is equally listless, flattening the song’s message of how marriage is both an emotional moment of familial separation on the bride’s side and a celebratory moment for her newfound life. On many of these covers, such as ‘ELA NA PAME S’ENA MEROS’, his voice is impeccably polished but feels
emotionally detached, going through the motions as if trying to tick several boxes off and treating these traditional soundscapes as performances to execute rather than worlds to inhabit.
At the end of the day, people will applaud any album which aims to package Greek music for younger audiences and international markets and which does manage to permeate those demographics.
KABANES just happened to be that album. Argiros has enjoyed popularity outside the borders of his home country before; in 2024, he delivered an acclaimed show at London’s Royal Albert Hall. He will surely enjoy new levels of stardom with this release and despite my general indifference for his projects, as far as mainstream Greek artists that could reach an international audience go, you could do a lot worse. But
KABANES leaves me with a feeling of longing. Not only for the original songs that he’s pulling from, but for something that feels completely his, rather than drowned out by his influences or contemporaries.
