Albania ready to go!

Last Saturday, Albania picked their entry for Eurovision 2007. This will be their fourth time participating in the contest, and they will begin the contest in the semi-final after Luiz Ejlli's "not bad" Zjarr E Ftoht failed to qualify from it last year.

So what's the song that Albania will pin their hopes on in Helsinki? Well, winning their national final well just 3 points is...

• BALADA E GURIT
• Aida & Frederik Ndoci

Balada E Gurit translates as 'The Stone Ballad', although a more appropriate name for this might be 'The Shite Ballad'.

No, maybe I'm being too harsh. On first listen, it's interesting to note that the song lasts for four and a half minutes, 90 seconds over Eurovision rules. Don't panic though! The song will be edited down into a three minute chunk, as have the last three Albanian entries which all won their national final despite being about four minutes long.

Perhaps it's just that four and a half minutes makes Balada E Gurit seem a little overlong. It begins (and continues) with a lot of ethereal wailing over the top of a rather ethnic beat. It's certainly common these days for Eurosongs to be quite ethnic, but Balada E Gurit goes all the way by including some eastern instrument that sounds quite like a sheep. You can hear it after about 30 seconds.

In fact, the whole song just seems to be a lot of ethnic noise. There's little tune and no hook. If this qualifies from the semi-final in its current state then I'm Celine Dion.

Songs like this do tend to win me over in the end though, but at Eurovision first listen is everything, so I don't think it's going to do very well. My current ranking list for Eurosong 2007 therefore stands as thus:

1. MOLDOVA - Fight
2. ALBANIA - Balada E Gurit

Hope you enjoy the little picture of Frederik that I've put up. The song may be a bit crap, but he's got great hair, you can tell.