On 23rd November 2000 another musical "child" of Anna Vissi and Nikos Karvelas was coming to the world and preparing itself to become a part of every Anna Vissi fan's daily life, as it has done for years now for all of the old albums. However, it isn't like the old ones. It has a new sound, lyrics and style marking a new beginning in the Greek music scene. Anna and Nikos always signify a new beginning with every step they take. This time the feeling of change was more obvious than ever. From Anna's strawberry blonde hair to the electronic sound of "Agapi Ipervoliki" all the signs signified the coming of a new era. Shortly before the end of November 2000 Anna Vissi sent out a "Scream" which still resounds to this day.
After the "Silence", comes the "Scream"!
2 consecutive years had passed with Anna abroad most of the time, away from the stages and concerts and any sort of appearance on Greek soil. The tabloids at the time blamed this on an alleged illness, health problems and other false statements but Anna remained abroad. The first taste of the return of the "absolute star" was when she greeted and took pictures with fans who had came from Greece to London to her concert at the historic Royal Albert Hall in March 2000. Two months later Anna appears at the Miss Universe pageant which was taking place in her birth country of Cyprus to sing "On A Night Like This", this first single from her forthcoming English album "Everything I Am". The return to her home country was now closer than ever. And the more obvious it became, the anxiety of the Greek fans grew day by day. Until July 2000, not wishing to make the fans wait any longer, Anna and Nikos released a sample of the new Greek language album, after 2 years of silence. The maxi-single "Agapi Ipervoliki" was finally released and throughout the summer remained at the top of radio airplay charts and was a pioneer with not only its sound but the amazing accompanying video clip showing Anna in a parallel dimension. George Gavalos who directed the video clip said it was the best of his career! At the same time Anna returned to Greece and began to feverishly prepare for her upcoming performances after 2 years where no Greek stage had felt the energy of this incredible super star. Where would this happen? Anna finally chose club "Asteria" (Stars) for her first live performances on Greek soil. Nikos Karvelas would perform with her naturally, along with the hottest pop band of the moment, ONE. Sets and technology of an international standard, technicians working around the clock, and Anna in endless rehearsals was all taking place at club "Asteria" a few days before the ultimate comeback! Despite an unexpected delay due to heat and power problems in the area, Anna makes perhaps the most impressive entrance of her career to "Agapi Ipervoliki" flying above the crowd with her sculpted body with the help of a crane just like she did in the pioneering video for the song leaving the audience speechless. Anna told the same thing to reporters shortly before the premier of her program: "I really believe that this is the most difficult and demanding but most impressive and substantial show that I have ever done and it will probably take me a while to get over it". On the stage at "Asteria" Anna presents samples from the English album and from her new Greek work. The show was choreographed by internationally renowned choreographer Shaun Fernandez. The amazing show moved to Cyprus for a single concert in September 2000 with an enthusiastic crowd of 12,000 spectators. And while the hugely successful album and the show at club "Asteria" brought Anna back into the public eye again, shortly after the release of the English album "Everything I Am" which gave Anna international fame she gave the absolute millennium comeback. The brand new double album by the leading duo of success in Greece hit record store shelves on 23rd November. Like an early Christmas gift! 24 new songs from Anna(together with the single). 24 new "diamonds"! From that summer we began to shout that we would die from "Agapi Ipervoliki" (excessive love) for Anna, the right moment had finally came for us to draw from our enthusiasm the strongest "scream" we could. Heyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!
Multi-platinum, Award winning, Beloved.
There isn't much you can say about this album - and each album is so doomed to succeed - because it can simply ruin the "magic". The amazing cover, with unsuspecting fans instantly thinking that the case is "broken"! Along with Nikos Karvelas other composers and lyricists were involved with the songs including their bridesmaid Natalia Germanou, Nikos Terzis, Antonis Pappas, Dimitris Patsios, Nikos Vaksevanelis, Vasilis Kelaidis and Tasos Vougiatzis. With the release of the album Greek radio stations mixed the many different songs together. Some used pop songs with other pop songs, others dance with ballads from "Atmosfera Ilektrismeni" (Electric Athmosphere) until "Xoris To Moro Mou" (Without my Baby) and from "Schizofrenia" (Schizofrenia) till "Kaka Paidia" (Bad Guys) lots of songs on this album had a common trait. It was undeniable success! "Kravgi" even succeeded the already loved "Agapi Ipervoliki" to the top of the Greek airplay charts and to this day still remains as one of Anna's biggest dance hits. Even though on the official ifpi chart it's success at the beginning could be called "moderate" as the first 3 weeks of its release "Kravgi" remained in second place while on the fourth week it moved down to 4th! On the 5th week however the album shot up to number 1 and remained there for 11 consecutive weeks and returned to the top again for a month in its 21st week of release! While "Kravgi" was sweeping to the top of the charts the number of platinum certifications it was receiving just kept growing. Its first platinum came on its 1st day of release, the second on the 3rd week, 3 times platinum on the fifth week and 4 times platinum around 2 months after its release. The fifth platinum certification came in its 15th week of release and the 6th (!) on the 35th week of the album's release which was still on the top shelf in the music stores. In Cyprus the album was going for 7 times platinum! 
A few months after its release, in the Spring of 2001 all of the albums success was converted into awards at the last year of the 90's musical institution the "Pop Corn Awards" shown on MEGA channel. Anna won 5 awards in total that year: Best Singer, Best Song (Agapi Ipervoliki), Best female performance (Afti Ti Fora), Best female stage presence and Best video clip (Agapi Ipervoliki by George Gavalos). After the exceptional response from people who voted and gave her so many awards, Anna said that magic night: "I can tell you that inside me all of these years that I have been given these awards, there is and there always will be a child and pure emotion because I consider it so great that they give them to me. It's hard but great. Thank you very much". Apart from the domestic success of "Kravgi", even if it was an album created for Anna's Greek fans, it was still able to touch people around the world. An example of this is the song "De Me Agapas" (You don't love me) which appeared on the Buddha Bar compilation disk in 2001 by the French DJ Ravin who came to Greece to play Anna's songs. A more recent example is the Japanese advertisement which fannatics.gr discovered last summer promoting one of the countries biggest beverages using the song "To Poli Poli" in a video by Japanese artist Naoki Mitsuse. In an exclusive interview with fannatics.gr he even said that he would love to meet Anna one day. It should also be noted that "Kravgi" was released in Australia (where it went to number 66 on the Australian album chart), New Zealand and Turkey (where it reached Gold status). Surely this can be called a "Kravgalea" (blatant) success!
2000-2001 You Give Me "Fever" @ "Prime"!
Returning to the end of those years, having had such a successful comeback, it was time to find a place suitable for Anna to make her big comeback to the stage. And because of how big the comeback would be - the club would have to have a huge capacity but still be functional - they decided to build a new club exclusively for the ultimate star. And along came "Fever"! The biggest club for the biggest star! This time at the start of the show, Anna performed "Kravgi" while she was being interrogated, tortured and at the end of the song even being murdered on stage! Together with Anna was another hot name from the Greek music scene, a superstar of the time with her own fans, Katy Garbi. And because as the saying goes, wherever stars sing time goes slowly, the gossip at the time was that both stars were constantly arguing, that there was a bad atmosphere between Anna and Katy, constant back stabbing etc. A typical title from a magazine at the time "Dolce Vita": "Anna and Katy on a knives edge, not even saying Good Evening to each other"(!). Of course it couldn't be further from the truth as Anna and Katy were very good friends with their own unique "battle" between their fan clubs as to who had the best extensions! Proof indeed that Anna and Katy were "Kalitera Oi Dio Mas" (Better with both of us) their big hit and duet at the time. Anna said about their collaboration at the time: "Perhaps some thought this when we were deciding who would appear first and second (on the poster) but I have forgotten all of this and I'm sure Katy has put this behind her too. Between us there was never such a thing as a battle. Now if we say who is coming out first it would probably be mine because I'm a little older. I think that what is between us is that which is found in sport. The rivalry. It's a good kind of competition. One against the other". Respectively Katy said on the last night of their collaboration: "I want to say a huge thank you to Anna that we are together, I love her, I adore her and I doubt I will ever have as much fun again". It was confirmed in the upcoming years in her interviews that Katy believes this to be her greatest collaboration ever. And why shouldn't it be? The programme at "Fever" has become legend and has been featured as the top collaboration of the last decade. Especially in todays difficult economic times, to sell out a huge concert hall with 4,000 fans 5 nights a week seems incomprehensible. Anna and Katy however were able to do just that. The same month as the start of her appearances at "Fever" Anna was experiencing the ultimate deification at every one of her appearances. At club "Prime", which on the occasion of the celebration and presentation of "Kravgi" organised a special event, the love of the audience and of the fanatic fans was so great that they literally closed off Vouliagmeni Avenue causing traffic mayhem in the surrounding streets! Anna even faced prosecution from the state for obstructing public transport! Anna gave her response to her critics by coming outside club "Prime" and singing to the fans who were waiting outside closing off the roads. She told MEGA channel: "Every artist in my position would do the same, to not act like this always happens, to appear to their fans who love them with such passion". While with her famous spontaneous personality she added: "If I said that I wont do it again I would be lying. If there was the same conditions and the crowd was huge, enthusiastic and just as demanding I would make the same mistake again!" A little while later at New Year by invitation of the City of Athens Anna would appear at Syntagma Square - just like she did at the New Years celebrations in 1998 - to bring in the New Year with thousands of Athenians. A few minutes after the arrival of 2001, Anna wished Greece to live its best years and began her live performance at Syntagma of course performing her biggest hit of the new year, "Kravgi"!
An "Odyssey", 2 commercials and a red dress!
After an extremely busy winter Anna begins to make more serious decisions. The most important live performance at the time and her whole career, the concert "A Peace Odyssey" with Emir Kusturica in June 2001. Anna met with Kusturica in Unirii square in Bucharest with an audience of 100,000 (!) Romanians cheering on the Greek superstar. Lots of great moments happened that night including Anna's entrance behind a screen of water and a stunning interpretation of "Paralio" (I'm paralyzed) accompanied by a harp and gypsy music with Kusturica at the evenings finale. In August Anna went to Thessaloniki - which had been waiting for her for years - with Nikos Kourkoulis at club "Theatro" and then went on to give a huge concert in September in her beloved home country of Cyprus infront of an ecstatic audience of 18,000 people! Anna came out onto the stage "breaking" through a white screen, something she would repeat in concert a few months later, and not only Anna repeated this (lol!) At this concert there was also the announcement of the sales and records broken by the now 7 times platinum "Kravgi"! Anna then went on to appear in 2 commercials for the Greek bank in Cyprus. In one of them Anna appears on a deserted beach which is being swept away by a tornado (!) and in the other Anna wears casual clothes while rehearsing infront of her wardrobe. 
At the end of this period as a validation of her success, in October 2001 Anna was photographed for the cover of Vogue magazine in a red silk dress which Lacroix had secured solely for Anna's use in the famous French designers studio and also the manager of the magazine. A few months after the "Feast of the Angels" in Thessaloniki Despina Vandi appears in concert with a copy of the red dress and it became a huge scandal in the Greek showbiz world where gossip magazines couldn't get enough of the story. The director of Vogue then went on to mention it in his introduction note in the next issue of the magazine saying: "Imagine my surprise when I seen on video in Thessaloniki a young singer on an outdoor stage wearing an appalling copy of the French designers dress". After the peak of the absolute star with "Kravgi" the period of "Do It Like Anna!" had officially begun! The last remarkable fact of that period was the rallying of Anna's fans online. After the mania that "Kravgi" had caused it was decided that there had to be a place where fans could express their love and admiration for the ultimate influential Greek star. So on December 5th 2001, the first version of the current Anna Vissi fan club was created, annavissistar was born!
How can you close by describing a period like that? Is there a right way to do it? Perhaps the simplest way is the best, to wish that Anna has many more such moments in her recording career. Albums that will reflect her audience and always go one step further than everyone else, pioneering others to the next big thing. Record sales are no longer the most important thing in the music industry. The magic of such moments, however, and how the quality of such work was possible, that will always exist. Then and now, 10 years later. We hope Anna will always find her creative path.