[LMBTO] My Fourth FiK and a favourite of mine makes it to Eurovision...

Herciana Matmuja, Elhaida Dani, Eneda Tarifa - the winners of the three Festivali i Këngës Contests that I have covered in this blog to date.  It would be a shame not to continue the tradition of this singing extravaganza, a Contest that some would label as "Sanremo lite" and that is obviously not designed as a Eurovision National Final or selection process for the show that we all love.  The presence of the orchestra and the mix of opera at one end and soft rock at the other is all combined with an audience who sometimes look as though they have just popped into the hall after a shopping expedition or having a meal and that being there is a bit of an afterthought.  Even the venue looks foreboding and unspectacular:
Even so, FiK has been one of the ever presents in my Eurovision blogging career and even though it has these shortcomings, I always feel as though Albania is the starting point for each year, a bit like the first game of the football season (although Armenia nearly stole FiK's march).  I almost decided to put this as a small part of one of my summary posts that I have written this season but I decided that the 55th Contest was worth more than that!  Having said that, I am not going to do a full review of each song as there were the same level of annoying songs that I still cannot understand how Albanians prefer them to some other truly better songs.  Then again, they did make Norman Wisdom a god:
And so onto the shows - first mention must go to the hosts who, I must say, had very little chemistry between them - if it wasn't such a sexist thing to say, looking at Ledina Çelo and her numerous costumes changes was possibly the high point of the bits between the songs - this one was one of her classier and more covered up numbers:
We, as Eurovision fans, came across the first major change to how NFs will be viewed this season whilst watching SF1 - Eurovision.tv are no longer providing their own stream, relying on the footage from the host broadcaster.  I and many others let out a groan at this whilst trying to keep up with events in Albania, as theirs isn't the greatest!  There are a few other nations I can immediately think of that will have similar problems but I am sure we will all cope!   As it is, Radio Televizioni Shqiptar did us all the great service of putting everything on YouTube and made it easy for me to knock up three playlists for ease of review - songs only mind, the interaction between Ledina and Kasem Hoxha was excruciating at times...


There you go, all the songs from SF1 - what did you think?  If you have similar tastes to mine, you'll have thought it was a poor start to Albania's search for the 2017 Eurovision entry.  I only really had LYNX (soft rock head bobber) and Yll Limani (mid-tempo ballad) excelling here, with Edea Demaliaj and Xhesika Polo as 'highly commended' choices.  At least all my four choices made it to the Final but so did four more of the also-rans, making eight from this very poor selection in SF1 and leaving only six from SF2.  Not sure why there was the imbalance as seven from each would be the logical split but I never seem to get how FiK chooses their prefered acts.  At least this year it wasn't all down to the jury as the Albanian public had a say for the first time ever.  My least favourite on the night, Franc Koruni, who sounded like he was singing gibberish verging on some sort of Albanian rap, accompanied by an accordion, even made it through:
Oh joy of joys to hear that one again in the Final...at least the show ended with that amazing theme tune that I love (with Ledina wearing, well, not a lot?):



Does anyone know who sings this?  I've said it every year but those concerned really need to step onto that FiK stage as they would walk this Contest!  The other lady who would potentially get my vote another year is one of the female backing singers, the one closest to the camera each time they viewed from the right:
It made cutting away from the main act at times a real pleasure!

The following night saw SF2 and for me a far better, more watchable show but that only saw six make it into the Final - I obviously don't have the same musical and staging tastes as Albanians:



There were a couple of returning artists tonight and for me they were top drawer and got my big points.  Rezarta Smaja and Lindita Halimi were both excellent, Rezarta just edging the SF and pulling out my favourite performance on the night - a lovely ethnic feel to her entry, superb vocals, a memorable chorus and she looked as though she was enjoying the moment.  Lindita gave a more, shall we say, 'FiK performance' than her effort in FiK53, "S’të fal", which seemed to be totally out of place in this setting, although I loved it!  “Botë” utilised the orchestra, backing singers and the FiK stage superbly well, building her song from a quiet engaging start to an amazingly passionate crescendo - it helps that Lindita shone out in a golden jumpsuit.  Another entry that really hooked me in but for totally different reasons was "Shkon e Vjen" by Fabiola Agalliu & Agnesa Çavolli - these ladies looked as though they were office workers on a Friday night out but they sung a very catchy uptempo pop song which showed off the nice interaction between their voices, particularly when they threw in a bit of English, something I'd never heard at FiK!  It sounded a bit jazzy but for a change that didn't bother me - the thing that was lacking here was a bit of stagecraft and crowd connection but they got a great response in the arena and deservedly so.  Special mention in this SF for XUXI (slow soft rock solo) too - again my top four made it through to the Final so I suppose I shouldn't be too unhappy.  If I had to put placings on my tips for the FiK crown after the SF stage, my top five would have been this:


And so onto the Final and I had my favorites to win but you can never tell how the Albanian voters will decide, in particular remembering that FiK is a separate Contest, utilising an orchestra and including whatever songs and staging the artist feels is appropriate.  Rarely is any entry planned to be used in Eurovision as is - very few of the entries are three minutes or less, they are all in Albanian which is no longer the language of choice for any Eurovision entry and there is the orchestra to consider, which sounds amazing and looks great but doesn't fit well with contemporary pop or rock.  The running order seems to be quite strange most years as well, as was repeated this year - forever more is the Final YouTube video going to be represented by this guy:



Our Franc and his quizzical squint did give a better performance than SF1 to be fair but he barely crept into my 'Okay' rating.  As for 'my five', Rezarta and Lindita kept their positions as far as I was concerned at the top of the pile, whereas LYNX and XUXI lost some of their power and impact of their first performance, LYNX almost appearing to perform like rock bands at the Royal Variety Performance in the UK, ie. dressed poshly and toned down.  Fabiola Agalliu & Agnesa Çavolli, one of the surprise acts for me in the SFs due to their down to earth dress and singing, went totally out there in their dress (or should I say tutus!) and I felt that detracted from the charm of the song:
Maybe it was more in keeping with the lyrics, I don't know, but the outfits made this all look very naff and conflicted with that incredibly catchy chorus.  The artist that I felt upped her game in the Final was Xhesika Polo (despite still being dressed in a hideous outfit), her powerful vocals totally suiting the orchestral backing and providing an enjoyable sub-four minute listen.  Overall on the night, my top three were:

There were effectively thirteen jurors - five Albanian artists abroad, seven in the hall plus, for the first time ever, a televote category.  Okay, this apparently only contributed just under 8% of the vote but it's better than no say at all!  In the end, one of my favourites actually did win FiK 55:
Third to Elhaida Dani two years ago, now first place and Albania's Eurovision representative in Kyiv, Lindita knocked it out of the park during the reprise as she did in SF2 and earlier during the 'white hot' competition of the Final:



"Playing the game" worked perfectly here for Ms.Halimi - this rendition of "Botë" (or "World", as it is likely to be known in Ukraine) suited the backing of the orchestra; she dressed for the Final as though she was going to a state occasion and was styled appropriately to be stood in front of violins and pianos; and had the right sort of song for FiK.

One aspect of the song works perfectly for Eurovision too - it is already just under three minutes long, a continual bugbear for previous Albanian entries, designed primarily to win FiK and requiring often substantial cuts in time of their entries for the ESC.  The inevitable swap from Albanian into English has been broached and over the past three years that I have been watching FiK winning songs converted to Eurovision, "One Night's Anger" and "Fairytale" didn't work at all well and probably contributed the most to Albania not qualifying those years.  We will never know how well "Sun" would have fared in English but "I'm Alive" has a link to “Botë (World)" in that a certain Lindita Halimi wrote the English lyrics - not that strange seeing she has lived in the USA for years, sings perfectly in her second language and made it to the top 51 acts of American Idol 2016.  Any interview I have seen Lindita speak in would suggest that swapping the lyrics  to another language will be a breeze and she is quoted as saying that she had already penned English lyrics for “Botë" (keep the subtitles on for this one):


The main revamp needed will be whether to swap the musical accompaniment from orchestral to a more contemporary style - I suppose watch "Watch this space" will be the catchphrase, as it often is with Albania and Eurovision.

So there you have it - my fourth FiK, the fourth female soloist to win during my Eurovision blogging career and potentially a return to the Eurovision Final for Albania.  I know that there is the uncertainty of the traditional swap from Albanian to English and loss of the power and emotion of the orchestra but I've got a different feeling about this entry and with Lindita's involvement in general.  It could go all horribly wrong of course and it is only the first of 43 entries to be revealed for Kyiv but if I was the Head of the Albanian Eurovision delegation, I would be quietly confident already that paying for hotel space in Kyiv on Saturday 13th May 2017 would not be wasted effort - I would just be ruing the fact that the USA is not one of the countries voting, as I think that Lindita's profile there might be the highest of any artist in Ukraine this year!  If I was the EBU, I'd be flagging this up for the American radio and television channels already to boost the Eurovision brand - every little helps...

I have to say that I am pleased with the choice made in Albania this year - I think that Lindita could give this nation their best result since Elhaida sang in Vienna.  She's a great singer, puts loads of emotion into her delivery and of course looks great - come June next year, she WILL be in Eurovision Beauty!  So I'm predicting that Lindita will get Albania into the 2017 Final but...