Eurovision 2019 spotlight: Albania's Jonida Maliqi with "Ktheju Tokës"...

It's time for today's spotlight on the countries and artists participating in this year's Eurovision Song Contest being held in Tel Aviv, Israel, in just over a week. You can check up on the rest of the series by clicking here. And now we go to the Balkan country that is known for its powerful female singers...

The country of Albania last year did pretty respectably last year with actually a male singer for only the fourth time in its history. And most of those, like Eugent Bushpepa, have been rock musicians, and for Eugent's "Mall" ("Yearning"), which was all in Albanian, to reach #11 in the finals, was quite a feat. Can they improve on this showing, or go back to a pattern of not qualifying with worthy but not flashy enough songs?

Albania - "Ktheju Tokës" from Jonida Maliqi

This time out in the country's Festivali i Këngës 57 national finals competition, singer and socialite Jonida Maliqi won the chance to represent Albania in Tel Aviv with her song "Ktheju Tokës" ("Return To Your Land"). Maliqi, from the capital and largest city in Albania, Tirana, is a well-known television personality there, and is a judge on that country's version of The Voice. As for the song, it's a rather serious if uptempo number about the diaspora of Albanian driven away from their homeland from war and strife and a call to come back, the song is dramatic and expressive in Maliqi's delivery, even though unless you know the backstory or the Albanian language, I'm not sure how the general public will interpret this...

The easiest thing to do is compare this song to Georgia's entry with Oto Nemsadze's "Keep On Going", which also deals with separation within an ethnic community due to war, and while Oto's ends up monotonous and angry, Jonida's turns out much power stronger and emotional, and even a point of lightness appears with that bassline bridge in the middle. Her voice outshines just about everyone else's there, and may just overcome the language barrier, especially to those seeing the music video. It comes down to how they will present this onstage, since her live voice is a proven asset already. If they can nail a clear, cohesive, and intriguing visual message, then this song is destined to possibly be the country's best ever showing. I'm quite certain she will make the finals, with not just the song quality itself with the juries, but also in the televote, with mainstays North Macedonia, Switzerland, and Croatia in this semi, along with relative Balkan neighbors Romania and Moldova. And with one of the very few non-English entries this year, this should definitely be rewarded. (Rating: 8/10)

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The Republic of Albania has been competing in Eurovision since 2004, and has made the top ten twice so far. Their best showing to date came in 2012 when Rona Nishliu took fifth place with her song "Suus" ("His Own")...

The country has one of the most consistently great series of entries in its history, but my personal favorite was one that criminally didn't even qualify for the final, "World" from a young Lindita in 2017, coming in 14th in the semis. It remains one of my all-time favorite ESC songs...

And while the country hasn't produced anything embarrassing, I guess the weakest they've done is actually their other top ten result, and their first entry, "The Image Of You" from Anjeza Shahini, only because is sounds a little dated and country-ish almost, but still isn't horrid. It took seventh place in 2004...