Azerbaijan: Diana Hajiyeva records shortlisted songs ahead of final decision

On December 5th, İctimai revealed that Diana Hajiyeva would represent Azerbaijan at the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest. Diana is a member of the band DiHaj. It is still unconfirmed whether just Diana herself or the band will fly to Kyiv. At the beginning of this month, the Azerbaijani broadcaster began an open call for songs to be submitted for Diana to sing in Kyiv. İctimai placed no restrictions on the nationality of the composers or on the style or language of the submitted song. The deadline for submissions passed on February 10th. Now, İctimai and Diana have shortlisted several songs ahead of a final decision.

Demo recordings taking place

According to Eurovoix, Diana is currently recording multiple demos of each shortlisted song. This will allow İctimai to find the best match for Diana’s voice and musical style. In the past, İctimai have favoured selecting songs submitted by Swedish songwriters. In fact, only their debut entry in 2008 and their 2013 entry were not composed by Swedish teams. For example, Day After Day was written and composed by a local team consisting of Govhar Hasanzadeh and Zahra Badalbeyli back in 2008. Additionally, Hold Me was the result of work from a multinational team in 2013. This team consisted of Dimitris Kontopoulos, John Ballard and Ralph Charlie who most recently composed You Are The Only One along with Philipp Kirkorov for Russia last year.

Final decision expected in March

Judging from previous years, we should probably expect İctimai to release Diana’s entry on the final weekend prior to the deadline for broadcasters to submit their entries. The deadline this year is on March 13th. Both Elnur Huseynov and Samra revealed their entries at the last minute. Nevertheless, İctimai surprised us with the early announcement of Diana’s internal selection back in December. So who knows, perhaps we can expect the entry sooner than usual too?
While we wait for the entry reveal, give one of DiHaj’s music videos a watch below. See what you think!

Are you excited for Azerbaijan to release Diana’s entry for Kyiv? Do you think they will stick to their previously successful formula of selecting a Swedish songwriting team? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below and via our social media pages @escXtra!