🇷🇺 Dima Bilan and Russian-born Polina Goudieva have come together in “Drunk Love”

Fotis Konstantopoulos (Greece)

RUSSIA – Polina, aka Polina Goudieva, better known by her stage name Contessa is an American-based, Russian-born, Grammy Award winning singer-songwriter. She co-wrote and is featured on “Book of Love”, her single with Felix Jaehn, which held the number one position on the German Airplay chart for four weeks. Polina is known for vocalizing some of the biggest club records of the past few years, including Felix Cartal’s “Don’t Turn On the Lights” (nominated for the Best Dance Recording at the 2013 JUNO Awards), as well as “Come With Me”, her collaboration with Steve Aoki which was the single from his Grammy nominated album Wonderland.

After appearing in the video for “Come With Me”, Polina was handpicked by Dim Mak label boss Steve Aoki to join him on his Deadmeat tour in 2012 and appeared at some of dance music’s biggest festivals, including Tomorrowland, Ultra Music Festival, and Electric Zoo, garnering her features in Rolling Stone and Billboard magazines. Following her success with collaborations, she has had solo success with “Fade to Love”, which held top positions in the European pop/dance charts throughout the year (including UK Top 20 Club chart) and the video, which reached number 3 on MTV Russia and number 6 on the Italian charts.

In early 2015 Polina released a follow-up single called “Breathe”. Most recently, she appeared, along with Rihanna, Skylar Grey, and Kendrick Lamar, as a featured artist on Eminem’s 12-track comeback Grammy award winning album The Marshall Mathers LP 2, with her vocals on the track “Legacy”.

In mid-March 2006, Bilan was chosen internally by Russian broadcaster Channel One to represent Russia at the Eurovision Song Contest in Athens, Greece. Out of 37 participating countries, Bilan took second place with the dark pop song “Never Let You Go”, equalling one of Russia’s best ever showing at Eurovision — Alsou’s “Solo” was runner-up back in the 2000 contest. In September 2006, for second year in a row, Dima Bilan won Artist of the Year and Song of the Year at MTV Russian Music Awards. On 2 November Bilan represented Russia at MTV EMA in Copenhagen. On 15 November 2006 Bilan received award for Best Selling Russian Artist and performed at the World Music Awards in London along with Michael Jackson, Beyoncé, Rihanna, Nelly Furtado and Bob Sinclair.

In February 2007 Bilan started to record his first international album in English in Los Angeles, Miami and in Philadelphia in collaboration with producers Jim Beanz and Ryan Tedder. One of the new tracks will be a duet with Nelly Furtado. Also in 2007 he premiered the first single from his new album — Number One Fan. According to Russian and Eastern European radio airplay chart, Number One Fan topped the charts for eight weeks. Video for this song was shot in London by famous British director Trudy Bellinger who has also made videos for acts including Girls Aloud, Sugababes and Sophie Ellis-Bextor. On 4 October, Bilan premiered his second single from the forthcoming album, Amnesia, at the MTV Russia Music Awards 2007. During this show, Bilan won three awards, for Best Performer, Best Song and — for the third consecutive year — Best Artist.

In 2008, Bilan released three albums — in Russian, English and Spanish. He also released an English album in 81 countries in co-operation with Interscope Records (Universal Group). He worked on his English album, with some tracks produced by Jim Beanz and Ryan Tedder (OneRepublic). Also his new Spanish album included a duet with Nelly Furtado. On 20 February, Bilan went to Miami and recorded a few tracks for his Spanish album with famous producer Rudy Perez. The Spanish album will include a duet with Nelly Furtado and a Spanish version of his first international single “Number One Fan.” In 2008, Bilan once again represented Russia in the Eurovision Song Contest in Belgrade with the song “Believe”, accompanied by Hungarian violinist Edvin Marton and Russian olympic and three-time world champion figure skater Evgeni Plushenko. On 24 May 2008, Bilan won first place in the contest, receiving 272 points and seven twelves. His victory’s integrity was questioned by Ukraine’s officials later in May.