Xtra’s Pick of the 21st Century

Happy FiKmas everyone! The national final season is truly kicking off tonight with Albania’s Festivali i Kënges and that means it’s time for our last pick of the day. Yassia chose a song from the only country we could honour today, Albania!

Albania 2004: Anjeza Shahini – The Image Of You (7th place)

Anjeza Shahini from Albania is staring our last pick of the 21^st century for now. Anjeza was just 17 years old, when she’s got a very important mission – to represent Albania in its debut year at the Eurovision Song Contest 2004 in Turkey with a song “The image of you”.   I my view, it was a very nice choice indeed, especially having in mind that Albania was at that time a country with no Eurovision experience at all. Anjeza Shahini performed in the final and even took the 7^th place out of 24 participants.
“The image of you” is a very cute cheerful song with a catchy melody, which made the audience sing and dance together with Anjeza. Besides, it was a solid vocal performance. These were the key points of, as for me, a successful debut of Albania at the Eurovision Song Contest. In fact, it remains the second best result for Albania in the history of their participation in the Contest. So far, only Rona Nishliu managed to get the 5^th place for Albania in 2012 with her unusual song and a very strong vocal performance. All in all, Albania has participated in the Eurovision 12 times since 2004. The country´s participants made it to the Grand final 7 times.
Coming back to Anjeza Shahini, it´s important to point out that she has proceeded with her music career. Anjeza released her first album in 2008. She has been trying to represent Albania in the Eurovision song contest several times more, but she couldn’t win the National selection. Let´s see if one day she is back to the Eurovision stage.
Good luck, Albania!