The Ballads (Sakis Rouvas album)
The Ballads is the eighth compilation album and 22nd album overall by Greek musician Sakis Rouvas, released in May 2009 by Minos EMI. The album was released in order to capitalize on Rouvas' upcoming Eurovision appearance and featured some of his most recent ballads recorded from 2002–09.
Production history
The album features a collection of Rouvas' more recent ballads and fan favourites during his recordings with Minos EMI. A number of the songs were non-singles; four tracks are off the most recent Irthes album, while the song "Right on Time", the runner-up at the Greek national final to represent Greece as Rouvas' entry in the Eurovision Song Contest 2009, which had just been released on This Is Our Night reissue of the album a few days prior to the release of The Ballads. Songs from the album were recorded from the Ola Kala sessions in 2002 to early 2009. Thus, this compilation is not a true representation of the artist's most successful ballads as it ignores his first two albums released under Minos, Kati Apo Mena (1998) and 21os Akatallilos (2000) – albums which produced very successful ballad hit singles such as "Den Ehi Sidera I Kardia Sou", "Ipirhes Panda", and "Se Thelo San Trelos". Not all of the tracks on the album are necessarily ballads, however, even the rock and dance-oriented songs are of a slow tempo. This is Rouvas' third album dedicated to ballads/slow-tempo songs/love songs, following Live Ballads (2006) and Ta Erotika (The love songs) (2007).
Release
The album was released in May 2009 in order to capitalize on Rouvas' marketability especially due to his upcoming appearance in the Eurovision Song Contest 2009 in Moscow, Russia with the song "This Is Our Night", but also to promote his latest album, Irthes (2008). A reissue of the album titled This Is Our Night was released a few days before the release of The Ballads, however, in March IFPI Greece closed their operations for a period of many months in order to make certain alterations to their systems. Thus, it was impossible to track the chart performance of any album during those months.
Album credits
- Sakis Rouvas: Primary artist, lead vocals
- Album cover photo courtesy of Status.