ALBANIA 2021

The Albanian Final (Festivali i Këngës) was held on December 23rd at Sheshi Italia in Tirana, hosted by Blendi Salaj & Jonida Vokshi. Before the final there was a semi-final where the long list of 25 was reduced to 18. The winner was chosen solely by a jury. The winning song was "Karma" sung by Anxhela Peristeri.

Anxhela is centre stage for most of the performance wearing a sparkly beige/coral number consisting of long sleeves, pronounced shoulders and a shredded skirt. The top half looks good in close up but the bottom could be a little more imaginative. Her dancers are wearing gold and black catsuits with matching bandana and capes which seems rather incongruous with Anxhela's outfit AND the theme of the song. The stage colouring seems to mix red and blue with a number of different motifs but none are prominent.

The song starts with a rock-guitar led call to action with Anxela blasting loud and clear like a fog horn followed by a guitar riff but soon settles down into something much more mellow. The first verse is very sparse and punctuates the syllables and expression in Anxela's voice. It seamlessly goes into the chorus which has the warbly earworm from the introduction but uses a softer tone to her voice. This leads to a brief instrumental mirroring the tune of the chorus and four dancers crawl onto the stage next to her. From here the song gets a little less static and more powerful.

During the second verse/chorus combination the background music is more pronounced and more instruments join in. Anxhela is also engaging more with the camera; swaying and bending to the music. As the song enters its final minute there is another instrumental this one much more drum based and has the backing singers chanting away on top. During this part Anxhela is tossed and turned between the backing singers before being lifted above their heads. This gives Anxhela enough time to do one more rendition of the chorus before the song finishes rather abruptly.

Positively, there are very few occasions that a song with wins the Albanian national final is exactly the right length to go to Eurovision, so this means we don't have to worry about parts being cut out or awkwardly phrased. We also know that the song is being kept in Albanian, which I think is a good move. The ethnic instrumentation may have felt jarring with English lyrics on top so keeping it as it is will keep it feeling natural. Some tweaks will need to be made to the stage show depending on the different options of how Eurovision will be presented this year. I think work needs to be done on all of the outfits - especially the backing dancers!

This is quite expected Festivali i Këngës fayre and is not a bad bar to judge the rest of the Eurovision entries to come. Personally, although the tune (particularly the chorus) is memorable there is a lack of flow. The tempo is a little safe and predictable and I would almost be tempted to experiment with trying the song out a tad quicker or slower to see if it changes the emphasis of the song and maybe give more direction for the staging and dancers. That all said and done, knowing that they don't really need to do much to the song in essence, just wait for the devamp....

ARTIST - Anxhela Peristeri
SONG - Karma
WRITING CREDITS - Kledi Bahiti, Olti Curri