Arilena Ara with "Shaj"
Winner of FiK58 and Albania's 2020 Eurovision entry
Perhaps not the most festive way to start a Christmas radio show or blog article but I always try to give a newly announced artist or entry the prominent position at the top of each, as Arilena rightly deserves. And besides...
It is FiKmas!
For us Eurovision fans, the timing of Albania's Festivali i Këngës is always closely linked with 'the time of good cheer' and the 58th edition is really the real start of the journey to Rotterdam in May. I watched all of the SFs and the Final that came out of Tirana this year, as I have done since my first time back on Saturday 28th December 2013. Six years in a row - your first FiK either endears you to the novelty of how Albania does things or breaks you completely so you never return, so it obviously did something right back then! I think that you have to be able to accept the lack of structure in the programming that is counter to what some fans get used to and that time is allowed for the show to flow, with guests being able to speak for as long as they want, for example. This year was no different - we got Mahmood in SF1 as an interval act but Guisy Ferreri who supposed to be in SF2 ended up as an extra in the Final, along with Eleni Foureira's mashup:
As for the competition itself, the majority of the fandom had latched onto the entry by Elvana Gjata with "Me Tana", desiring an uptempo bop over anything else:
I suppose if you got your kicks with Eleni in Lisbon, you were always going to want Elvana to go to Rotterdam. Me? I want more than a slick routine and a Mediterranean sound - "Me Tana" never really hooked me in and personally I always found Elvana's vocals a little bit warbly for my taste. Good solid choreography though and I wouldn't have had a problem if it had gone to Eurovision but I had SIX entries on Final night ahead of her. You probably know what sort of thing I went for and you'd be right - I prefered the lady who came third, Sara Bajraktari:
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but my clear personal winner on the night (to match my feelings before FiK58 SF1 had even started - see at 38 minutes on the ESC FAN TV reaction show) was the entry that started this week's show:
Regular readers of my blog over the years and listeners for the past year or so will have worked out that I love well sung, emotional ballads so "Shaj" ticked all of my boxes, especially as Arilena's staging was so outlandish, so dark and futuristic and that drew the eye initially, with her passionate vocal delivery keeping the viewer entranced throughout. When I listened to all 20 entries in their studio form, Arilena was my second to Valon but after watching the complete package on the stage of the Pallati i Kongreseve there in Tirana, Arilena was the clear winner in my eyes and ears, earning 8.5/10 from me. How did I get that score? I don't apologise for the fact that, having been a juror for many years now on the OGAE Second Chance Contest and the SECHUK Jury, I tend to score NFs now as a juror would, so my split rankings for Arilena were as follows:
Having said that, even as a fan just voting on what my heart felt, I would have still gone for Arilena. The look matched the translated lyrics, the lighting was perfect and her acting was spot on, hence the top marks for staging. I am in the minority with that view though, even amongst some of the more restrained members of the fan community:
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Only 37 pundits went for Arilena, whereas 169 went for eventual runner-up Elvana. This might the only time I am joint top on this table so I will cherish that view! There are lots of recriminations at the moment concerning scores given to Elvana by the International jurors as against the Albanian ones and also concerning comments made by her and the otherwise superb host for all three nights, Alketa Vejsiu:
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That is something that is easily found online and I am not going to add to it, mainly because I am an outsider looking in and there are 40 other entries for us to find out about - if you are losing it with entry number one, you have no hope of retaining your sanity when number 41 gets chosen (probably Russia). The only caveat to that is the subject of what language "Shaj" will be sung in at Eurovision - FiK is Albanian only but we have seen swaps to English in the recent past, often unsuccessfully. Having said that, Arilena has already gone on record stating that her entry was originally written in ENGLISH and translated to Albanian. The main writer of the song is Darko Dimitrov, the driving force behind 2019's Jury winning entry, "Proud" by Tamara Todevska, so we already know the calibre of the composing team - will this sound as good or better in English? You all know that I love to hear native languages and that worked incredibly well for Eugent in Lisbon and Jonida in Tel Aviv, whilst English revamps flopped for Lindita in Kyiv and Eneda in Stockholm. Having said that, I am intrigued to hear this song in English, given the incredible impact that Tamara and Darko's song had in Israel.
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Phew, so that was all about song ONE this week! A deserved piece to be fair and I will do the same when we have the complete entries of each and every entry this year. For the rest of show 72 however, we had 22 other songs, as you can see from the playlist:
Four pieces of news only this week - apart from that it was 'Jingle All The Way"! Some original material, plenty of covers and some songs that I feel 'sound like Christmas'. Have a listen to the show in its entirety and you will see what I mean!
Saara Aalto takes the thumbnail prize yet again this week, given that two of the songs are hers and this lady's linguistic talents are always a highlight for me. The other pluses this week were finding "Santa Superstar" by Gabriela Gunčíková & Marta Jandová (I never thought I'd hear either of those amazing singers doing a Xmas song) and also being able to play a track for the festive season by Helena Paparizou. Here's hoping that 2020 sees her perform somewhere I can get to and watch live - that and Marie Myriam on the same bill would see all my personal Christmases come at once!
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Talking about a new year (see what I did there?), show 73 will be on New Year's Eve, 8pm in the UK, 9pm CET and possibly on January 1st 2020 for some of my listeners (definitely for any Aussies)! Yes, I know that the Eurovision Top 250 will have been going for at least ten hours (it starts at 11am CET, 10am GMT) by that time but I am hoping that people will be up for listening to a bit of chat with their Eurovision, rather than just hearing a number and then the song! I will be playing my personal ten for this year's 250 on the show and as always, I have chosen a new theme - don't you all get bored choosing the same ten, year after year?
Yes, it could be argued by some that it allows me to play some of my top picks from the past few Contests and yes, you would be right! There will only be two new songs to add to the 'Let Me Be The One' ultimate playlist, of which there is now about 1000 songs but it makes for a different playlist. It also means that I can incorporate the actual Top 250 list into next week's article too - the plan is to make each article more than just a weekly plug for the radio show and I plan to expand some of the previous posts to include more info on concerts and announcements etc. There will also be some new releases that I have been meaning to play on the show over the past few weeks, including one from this lady:
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But not in that guise (or is she?) - you'll have to listen to next week's show to pick out which song her real-life persona is linked to...plus there may be another surprise coming!
Regular readers of my blog over the years and listeners for the past year or so will have worked out that I love well sung, emotional ballads so "Shaj" ticked all of my boxes, especially as Arilena's staging was so outlandish, so dark and futuristic and that drew the eye initially, with her passionate vocal delivery keeping the viewer entranced throughout. When I listened to all 20 entries in their studio form, Arilena was my second to Valon but after watching the complete package on the stage of the Pallati i Kongreseve there in Tirana, Arilena was the clear winner in my eyes and ears, earning 8.5/10 from me. How did I get that score? I don't apologise for the fact that, having been a juror for many years now on the OGAE Second Chance Contest and the SECHUK Jury, I tend to score NFs now as a juror would, so my split rankings for Arilena were as follows:
Vocal Capability 4.0/5
Stage Performance 5.0/5
Composition / Originality 4.0/5
Overall Impression 4.5/5
Score 17.5/20 (8.5)
"Shaj" - Arilena Ara
"Take Me To Your Heaven" - Charlotte Nilsson
"Spet / Round And Round" - Tinkara Kovač
"Silent Night" (Multiple Language Version) - Saara Aalto
"Here Today, Gone Tomorrow" - The Duskeys
"Den Vilda" - One More Time
"Quédate Conmigo (Stay With Me)" - Pastora Soler
"Storbyjul" - KEiiNO
"Elle était si jolie" - Alain Barrière
"When You Wish Upon A Star" - The Mamas
"Don't Ever Cry" - Put
"Mistletoe & Wine" - Cliff Richard
"Reise nach Jerusalem - Kudüse Seyahat" - Surpriz
"Alvedansen" - Christine Guldbrandsen
"Hristougenna Xana" - Helena Paparizou
"Cicha Noc" - Viki Gabor
"Every Christmas Day" - Saara Aalto
"La nuit des merveilles" - ZOË
"Annríki í desember" - Friðrik Ómar & Svala
"It's Gonna Be A Cold Cold Christmas" - Dana
"Riding Home for Christmas" - Klara Hammarström
"Santa Superstar" - Gabriela Gunčíková & Marta Jandová
"Jingle Bell Rock" - Cascada
"Let Me Be The One" - The Shadows
Four pieces of news only this week - apart from that it was 'Jingle All The Way"! Some original material, plenty of covers and some songs that I feel 'sound like Christmas'. Have a listen to the show in its entirety and you will see what I mean!
Saara Aalto takes the thumbnail prize yet again this week, given that two of the songs are hers and this lady's linguistic talents are always a highlight for me. The other pluses this week were finding "Santa Superstar" by Gabriela Gunčíková & Marta Jandová (I never thought I'd hear either of those amazing singers doing a Xmas song) and also being able to play a track for the festive season by Helena Paparizou. Here's hoping that 2020 sees her perform somewhere I can get to and watch live - that and Marie Myriam on the same bill would see all my personal Christmases come at once!
My category this year?
Favourite non-qualifying SF entries!
Yes, it could be argued by some that it allows me to play some of my top picks from the past few Contests and yes, you would be right! There will only be two new songs to add to the 'Let Me Be The One' ultimate playlist, of which there is now about 1000 songs but it makes for a different playlist. It also means that I can incorporate the actual Top 250 list into next week's article too - the plan is to make each article more than just a weekly plug for the radio show and I plan to expand some of the previous posts to include more info on concerts and announcements etc. There will also be some new releases that I have been meaning to play on the show over the past few weeks, including one from this lady:
She is in a different league, no damn Eurotrash freak!