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Albania ALBANIA 2015 - Elhaida Dani - I'm Alive

How do you rate the entry?

  • 12

    79 36.4%
  • 10

    12 5.5%
  • 8

    13 6.0%
  • 7

    21 9.7%
  • 6

    18 8.3%
  • 5

    23 10.6%
  • 4

    13 6.0%
  • 3

    10 4.6%
  • 2

    4 1.8%
  • 1

    6 2.8%
  • 0

    18 8.3%

  • Total voters
    217

tuorem

Well-known member
Joined
January 17, 2012
Posts
9,592
Location
GN-z11
Time for me to review the Albanian entry this year :D

Elhaida Dani - I'm Alive
Status: Yes, good effort :p

Song: I'm always looking forward to Albania's entries since they've sent so many great songs recently. To be honest, I didn't like "I'm alive" at first because I listened to it first during the semi... so you may find the explanation by yourselves :mrgreen: But, after listening to it again, I think it's a good song, it's catchy without being generic. The arrangements sound very organic and authentic, the pace and melody are quite interesting too since it implies some slight dissonances made on purpose. But you can tell from the studio version that that is almost impossible to perform it the same way live, I was like: "when does she breathe? how can she hit this note and then this one?" :lol: I already like it and always want to listen to it (which is a good sign) so I guess it'll grow on me over time.

Voice: Gosh... Elhaida's voice seems quite nice on paper but those performances were beyond awful tbh. As I said, I heard the song for the first time during the semi and I was like "why is this hyped to death? this is so horrible and cacophonous :?". At that time, I was gutted that she qualified since I thought she didn't deserve it and I found the song quite bad at that time. But when I listened to the studio version afterwards... I said to myself "what country is this?", it was like a totally different song and I started liking it from there. It's both strange and ironic that a singer that won the Voice of Italy and that basically won various festivals in Albania, Monténégro, Bulgaria, etc. sang so badly during what could have been just another contest for her... xthink One can tell she was stressed, and the song was certainly too difficult to perform live. Still she did two bad performances imo and it negatively "stood out" to me since I thought pretty much everyone in the final sang well.

Staging: The staging was simple and not distracting. I don't remember it that well to be honest.

Outcome: I'm glad she qualified at least because the song was good. But I'm glad that she was ranked down by juries because top 10 would have been a disgrace considering how badly she performed. In my personal ranking, Albania is ranked between 11th-15th, it's a grower for me. See you next year Albania, I hope you'll send another great entry :)
 

blue00eyes

Well-known member
Joined
February 21, 2014
Posts
2,619
Location
Polska
For me it was very surprising that she came last in televoting in a few countries, It wasn't that bad, it wasn't the worst definitely. I thought it will easily reach the top 10.
I didn't hear anything painful at all, it was a decent vocal performance.. Don't know why she failed tbh
 

blein

Active member
Joined
March 1, 2012
Posts
1,649
No no.. watch please the link i provided(its recorded on phone cam i assume) and then watch official vid from final.... on phone cam she sounds rly good... but on official vid she sounds like a cow... why so?
 

DanielLuis

Well-known member
Joined
March 14, 2011
Posts
8,603
For me it was very surprising that she came last in televoting in a few countries, It wasn't that bad, it wasn't the worst definitely. I thought it will easily reach the top 10.
I didn't hear anything painful at all, it was a decent vocal performance.. Don't know why she failed tbh

Unfortuntaley the performance just made the song feel very flat
 

Rusch

Active member
Joined
February 16, 2011
Posts
583
Unfortuntaley the performance just made the song feel very flat

Ok, I listen to the CD Version, the semi and the finale.

Comparing all three versions gave me the following result:

The CD Version is the best. They dubt her voice and gave her more volume.
The semi finale showed, that her voice is a bit thin, but that version was ok. Some tones were off, mostly a bit too low, but thats pop music and it is ok.
The finale was the worst version. In the first verse she was too low. After the refrain she has done better, but again the second verse was better. It not easy to hear, because the instrumentalisation is very decent, but you can hear it quite good when she sang with the background choir.
Maybe she was ill or too nervous.

And: You only know the finale version. I could be, that she completely blown her performance in front of the juries.
 

DanielLuis

Well-known member
Joined
March 14, 2011
Posts
8,603
Ok, I listen to the CD Version, the semi and the finale.

Comparing all three versions gave me the following result:

The CD Version is the best. They dubt her voice and gave her more volume.
The semi finale showed, that her voice is a bit thin, but that version was ok. Some tones were off, mostly a bit too low, but thats pop music and it is ok.
The finale was the worst version. In the first verse she was too low. After the refrain she has done better, but again the second verse was better. It not easy to hear, because the instrumentalisation is very decent, but you can hear it quite good when she sang with the background choir.
Maybe she was ill or too nervous.

And: You only know the finale version. I could be, that she completely blown her performance in front of the juries.

I didn't mean only the vocal performance though. The camerawork, the stage presentation, everything just felt underwhelming, and it is a shame as the song had a lot of potential.
 

Realest

Well-known member
Joined
May 23, 2017
Posts
7,483
Location
Germany
Very unfair from the swiss and italian Jury to prevent their audience to give any points to her. Ridiculous.
I think she deserved at least Top 10.
 

Mainshow

Veteran
Joined
December 23, 2018
Posts
13,900
12 points - The song itself was my favourite that year. She deserved to end up being Top 10! I agree!

Sadly, she was sick during Eurovision and her vocals weren't as great as they could have been.
 

Realest

Well-known member
Joined
May 23, 2017
Posts
7,483
Location
Germany
I dont get all the Complaints here. Her Vocals were very strong. Televoters were more objective here.
 

ESC94

Well-known member
Joined
September 7, 2019
Posts
4,768
Location
Bavaria, Germany
Even though I absolutely hated this voting system I side with the juries here. The song ist just average to me and her performance especially in the final was simply dreadful.:(

Since there were worse songs that year I still give the song a solid :5:.
 
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