Anna Vissi

Anna Vissi (Greek: ???a ??ss?, pronounced born 20 December 1957), known as Anna Vishy in Cypriot Greek, is a Cypriot–Greek recording artist and actress. Born in Cyprus, she studied music at a conservatory and embarked on performance opportunities there until moving to Athens, Greece in 1973 and signing with Minos. She simultaneously studied at the National Conservatory and the University of Athens while releasing several promotional singles of her own and collaborated with various other musical artists before winning the Thessaloniki Song Festival in 1978 with the song "As Kanoume Apopse Mian Arhi" and releasing her debut album of the same name. Since the 1980s, Vissi began a nearly exclusive collaboration with songwriter Nikos Karvelas, to whom she was married to from 1983–1992 and had one child with, resulting in one of the most successful music partnerships in the nation's history. Together they created the label CarVi, which resulted in legal issues with EMI Greece, and they then moved to CBS Records Greece, which later became Sony Music Greece. Over the course of her career she has released over two dozen albums, most of which have been certified at least gold in the two countries and has also starred in three theatrical productions and briefly ventured into television and radio. Vissi experimented with different styles of music; after becoming one of the first Greek artists to introduce Western pop and rock elements into Greek laïko and entehno, she became one of the most prominent portrayers of the laïko-pop hyprid genre and culture that was thriving from the mid 1990s into the mid 2000s. She landed her biggest commercial success with Fotia (1989), followed by the double Kravgi (2000), which became the top-certified album of the 2000s decade, while six others — Kitrino Galazio (1979), I Epomeni Kinisi (1985), Klima Tropiko (1996), Travma (1997), Antidoto (1998), and X (2002) — have also achieved six figure sales or shipments. She has also had several radio hits, including her signature song "Dodeka". However, since her image change and turn to more commercial laïko-pop and pop that defined most of her collaboration with Karvelas, her musical works have received mixed critical reception and as the 21st century progressed her popularity fell into decline. Since the late 1990s, Vissi has also made attempts at establishing a career abroad, most of which fell through and have had some negative repercussions on her domestic career. However, she struck some success with her 2005 single "Call Me", which made her the first Greek or Cypriot artist to top the US Billboard Hot Dance Club Play Chart and has also represented Greece in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1980 and 2006, and Cyprus in 1982. While her performance for Cyprus remains the highest placement the country has ever received in the contest, her Greek performances were less successful.