Greek musician Christos Dantis criticized the music industry during an interview on the YouTube show Stage Stories, accusing colleagues of ingratitude and attempting to erase his contributions to past hit songs. Dantis said fellow artists have spent 22 years pretending he did not write the song My Number One, which won the Eurovision Song Contest for Greece in 2005.
According to Dantis, a massive legal dispute surrounded the song before the involved parties reached a mutual settlement to recognize each other's rights after courts could not reach a final verdict. He said almost no colleagues mention him among the creators today, adding that he speaks out now because he has grown older and does not care about being misunderstood.
Early Rejections and Family Ties
Dantis recalled his early career in the summer of 1990, when record company executives initially rejected his album Daktylika Apotypomata, which he created alongside Giannis Karalis. The album later turned into a major commercial success at the same time as Kostas Bigalis's popular track Rina Katerina.
Dantis also spoke about a personal moment with his eldest son, who later followed his footsteps into the music industry. He said that when his son was ten years old, the child confessed that music tortured his mind and kept him awake with melodies regardless of whether he felt happy or sad. Dantis said he experienced the exact same thing at that age and felt music was his only path.
Online Negative Comments
Addressing negative reactions on social media, Dantis described online critics as a negligible quantity and said he refuses to spend time dealing with them. He said such individuals lack musical judgment and only post comments to criticize others.
He cited a specific incident where a social media user attacked him over a mashup combining his song Kommatia with the AC/DC track Back in Black, which he titled Back in Kommatia. The user claimed Dantis failed to state what the original song was, but Dantis said he credited all original creators alongside his own cover credit, noting the critic simply wanted to bash him without reading.
