Countries In Review: Albania

Welcome to the first of my "Country In Review" Eurovision posts. 

The nice thing about deciding to to the "Country In Review" blog posts is that I get a chance to take a look at the songs from a country at a whole instead of looking at the songs in comparison to other songs in a given year.

(Although I have to admit that I might enjoy this because I like ranking things and have since I was a little kid.)

And since I'm anything if not methodical, I'm staring alphabetically, and that means Albania is the first country I'm reviewing.

The former Enver Hoxha Museum in Tirana.  From what I understand, a good place for some high-speed tobogganing.

  

Albania has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest since 1994 and has always been sponsored by Radio Televizioni Shqiptar and has chosen their entrant through their year-end concert program Festivali i Këngës.  Festivali is a multi-day show performed in the Pallati i Kongreseve and is pretty impressive as national finals go, with a full orchestra, high productions values, and a lot of talented Albanian singers.  (I recommend looking around for clips from Festivali.  It's well worth your trouble.)

And after listening to all of the Albanian entrants a number of times, I have to admit I had judged the country's songs rather harshly in the past.  I had just dismissed the Albania's songs because it's in the Balkans, which in my mind means that you can send crappy songs and they'll do well because the other countries in the region will vote for you.

But after listening to the Albanian Eurovision songs, I'm shocked by the quality of them.  The songs are for the most part, quite good.
So let get going:

The Worst

By far, the worst song is the Albanian entrant from 2005:

Ledina Çelo  "Tomorrow I Go"

Pretty much it's a cheap rehash of the winner of the 2003's contest,

Sertab Erener  "Every Way That I Can"  Turkey

except that Ms. Erener has stage presence out the wazoo and singer/dancers with a great gimmick, while Çelo has refugees from a Greek vaudeville act.

The Best

I thought that this one was going to be easy.  Before I decided to do this post, there was only one Albanian entry that I've ever rated highly, and it's the entrant from 2010:

Juliana Pasha  "It's All About You"

Ms. Pasha is pitch perfect on the song, the backing singers are fantastic, and the person who did the lighting design for the stage in Oslo deserves an award.  I like playing it loud in the summertime with the windows down in my car and it's gotten me through mile 20 of a marathon.  I still don't understand why it came in sixteenth, but then again, my personal favorites never seem to do well.

But while listening to all the entrants, I had to add the the first Albanian entry to the best list as well.

Anjeza Shahini  "The Image of You"

Ms. Shahini can sing can't she?

Ever since I first heard this song, I've been singing it.  The chorus is super catchy and the melody is tricky enough to stay hooked in my brain.

It's still give the top prize to Pasha, but instead of by a country mile, I'll have to give it to her by a nose. 

 

 

For those of  you who are interested, here's a ranking of all the songs, and if you'd like to hear them all, just click this link.

1.  Juliana Pasha  "It's All About You"  2010

2.  Anjeza Shahini  "The Image of You"  2004

3.  Rona Nishliu "Suus" 2012

4.  Aurelia Gaçe  "Feel the Passion"  2011     Scary stage presentation ruins song
5.  Kejsi Tola  "Carry Me in Your Dreams"  2009       More like nightmare, if your dream is this.
6.  Luiz Eljji  "Zjarr e ftohtë" 2006       Performance was really bland.
7.  Frederik Ndoci  "Hear My Plea"  2007       Performance was melodramatic, too melodramatic.
8.  Olta Boka  "Zemrë e lamë peng"  2008     Completely forgettable.
9.  Ledina Çelo "Tomorrow I Go"  2005

Next up, Andorra!