With 43 days remaining until the first night of the 60th EUROVISION Song Contest in Vienna begins (on my birthday), I begin to start counting down and introduce the 40 participants, plus the semifinal and final predictions.
Let's get this party started! Fuck 30 for 30, it's 40 for 40: The 60th EUROVISION Song Contest.
The first participant featured is Elhaida Dani (pictured), who will sing "Diell" in the first semifinal May 19 for Albania. The song is one of a slew of ballads this year (and there is a shitload of these). "Diell" is one of those ballads in which it's mediocre in atmospheric levels, and is borderline mainstream in vocals. She sounds like Mariah Carey. Seriously. "Diell" is one of those songs that are borderline to qualify, but to me, this will be one of six in the first semifinal which will load it up. That is my opinion folks.
Yes folks, it's spring time in the northern hemisphere. We all know what that means: EUROVISION time!
It is 40 days away from the first semifinal. This year, the 59th edition of the ESC is in Copenhagen. As the days are counted down, there will be my reviews of every entry one by one.
This year, 37 European nations will be present, down from 39 in Malmo 2013. Poland returns, and so does Portugal. Bulgaria, Croatia, Serbia and Cyprus will try to regain financially for the 60th edition next year (ESC executive supervisor Jon Ola Sand (of Norway's NRK Television fame) said that he wants every nation involved in ESC for years to be there next year for that occasion, per an online interview somewhere online). Previous nations involved in the ESC--such as Slovakia, Czech Republic and Bosnia and Herzegovina--also declined to return this year.
With that in mind, it's time to begin the country by country review of the entries, starting with "Zemerimi I Nje Nate" by Herciana Matmuja (pictured).
Hersi is the first entry I am profiling, and the reason is simple: Albania is the first nation alphabetically among the ESC participating nations this year. This song starts off good with some good guitar riffs (on the original version, not in the 'edited for EUROVISION version'), then it gets somewhat soft in melody and rhythm. She has an OK voice, an almost mainstream pop voice. I would think that this could be a borderline final qualifier as she will perform out of the first semifinal on Tuesday, the 6th of May. As far as comparing this with past Albanian ESC entries, I don't think it was good as the Adrian Lulgjuraj & Bledar Sejko collaboration from last year ("Identitet," which really rocked and should've made the final!). I've never been really enthralled from anything from this country in ESC, but this is yet another head scratcher here.
Alright! With 120 days remaining, it's a nice perfect time to preview Sochi 2014, the Winter Games of the XXII Olympiad, which opens February 7 and closes February 23. So I was thinking, why not do it right now? Today, and for the next 119 days, it's a country-by-country at-a-glance of nations who have competed at past winter Olympics.
The Sochi Countdown Series begins with Albania.
Afghanistan is the first IOC member nation listed alphabetically, and they have never sent anyone to a winter Olympic game. So the next one is Albania.
Albania has previously qualified an athlete twice in the winter Olympics--at Turin 2006 and again at Vancouver 2010--with the same person.
Erjon Tola qualified for three Alpine events for those two Olympics-men's slalom, giant slalom and super G. He placed as high as 35th in the men's giant at Turin 2006. Sadly, no medals overall.
Also as of now, no Albanian has qualified for Sochi.
With Malmo 2013 a month away, it's time to break down all 39 participants of EUROVISION LVIII. Hence, this is '39 for 39,' modeled off the popular ESPN series of films called 30 For 30.
Countries of the participants will be alphabetical, so the first participant(s) to shine a spotlight in this series are the duo of Adrian Lulgjuraj and Bledar Sejko with "Identiet."
This is the Albanian EUROVISION entry this year. I got to tell you, this fucking rocks. For all the morons who cry about rock not getting love at EUROVISION, this is a good tune. This is great, driving, and I hopefully want them to be in the final on May 18. So take a listen here to a great gem from Albania:
This is way better than Rona Nishliu's 'hemmorhoid' screams from 2012!
Next up: Gor Sujyan, "Lonely Planet" and Armenia's return to EUROVISION!
As we continue down the alphabetical list of the nations qualified for London, we continue in the A's. The 2nd of those A's that have already qualified is Albania (ALB).
Since 1972, the country's Olympic committee has sent athletes to the summer Olympics. As of now, 4 weightlifters have qualified for London. The nation has yet to score a medal in the summer Olympics.
Up next: Algeria as the London Countdown Series Parade of Nations continue!
