While other countries are well into their national finals, Azerbaijan is getting busy with their internal selection process. Broadcaster Ictimai Television has recently opened song submissions to select its entry for Eurovision 2019.
The broadcaster announced details of the song submission process on its Facebook page.
?ctimai Televiziya v? Radio Yay?mlar? ?irk?ti "Eurovision-2019" üçün mahn? q?bulunu elan edirQurumun ?ctimaiyy?tl?…
Posted by ?ctimai Televiziya v? Radio Yay?mlar? ?irk?ti on Thursday, January 24, 2019
The process is roughly the same as what Azerbaijan has used since it switched to internal selection in 2015. While the entry is internally selected by the broadcaster, the song is selected via an open submission process.
Azerbaijan will again accept songs from both Azeri and foreign composers. While in recently years Azerbaijan’s songs have usually come from Swedish songwriters, Dihaj’s 2016 entry “Skeletons” was co-written by Azeri songwriter Isa Melikov.
Song submissions for Azerbaijan are now open and will close in less than two weeks time, on February 7.
A shortlist of three singers
Meanwhile, Azerbaijan media is reporting that Ictimai has already come up with a shortlist of three singers, all former contestants of The Voice. While news site Qafqazinfo.az reports that the broadcaster has made their choice from among the three, the new Head of Delegation says no decision has been made yet.
Efendi
In 2015, Samira Efendi competed in the first (and so far only) series of The Voice of Azerbaijan. She made it to the grand final. In 2017, Efendi represented Azerbaijan at the Silk Way Star song contest in Kazakhstan. This is her 2017 single “Я ТАНЦУЮ”.
Tofig Hajiyev
Tofig Hajiyev also made it to the grand final of The Voice of Azerbaijan. He is no stranger to Azerbaijan’s Eurovision history, having twice competed in the former national final. In both 2011 and 2012, he competed in the semi-finals but did not advance to the national final. Here is Tofig’s 2018 single “Sən”.
Araz Humbatli
The French-Azeri singer Araz Humbatli got his start in France, on The Voice: La Plus Belle Voix in 2016. While he was eliminated in the Battle round, Araz has since built a career in music and is said to have a “ethno-fusion-psychedelic” style. This is his dreamy 2018 single “The Heaven She Knows”.
What do you think? What sort of song should Azerbaijan send to Eurovision? Who would you like to see perform in Tel Aviv? Tell us what you think in the comments section below!
Aisel should have qualified but I assume EBU didn’t want Azerbaijan in the final this is why they had her open.
I definitely would love Azerbaijan to start writing songs using more Azeri instruments, Azeri music, and kind of go back to the quality of music they produced in 2009,2012 and 2013, where they were authentic, which represented them well, cause if they come correct, maybe it could be Baku 2020, who nows
Azerbaijan: Try some national culture and stop being swedish are my advice :). We in Sweden are Sweden already 🙂
Azerbijan’s first non-qualification was long overdue. For the horror of 2016. Poor Aisel was the wrong target for this. Despite the questionable lyrics, she should have qualified.
I 100% agree. I preferred Aisel would have qualified and Samra don’t.
I want Aisel, I love her voice and she deserved a better song.
“X my heart” was a good song, not very original, I agree but the melody was strong,the production was good,the lyrics had the hook a song needs,the stage presentation was interesting.
Performing first in the strongest semi final didn’t help them for sure.
I still haven’t gotten over “Luna Moon Me Up”. So it’s tough to get excited about this. I do like the idea of Araz Humbatli doing it for them though “Ethno-fusion Psychadelic” could be just what a modern Azerbaijan entry needs.
Just please no dodgy lyrics.
It better not be another Swedish reject. This is their occasion to show some identity for once.
Hopefully something more interesting than “X my Heart” this year. The Head of Delegation’s changed, so I hope for best.
A song by an Azeri songwriter and an Azeri singer, maybe with cultural influences – that’s what I’m hoping for!
Who cares about the songwriters? No one in Europe knows who the songwriter is behind each song
Wow. Araz is seriously a big deal, I’d love to see some quality psychedelia like this on Eurovision. Unfortunately it would be too daring for Azerbaijan to even think of it. And even if he’s selected, I bet he’d be forced to sing something totally far from his aesthetic or at least he’d have to compromise like Dihaj which wouldn’t be the greatest option. Anyway, keeping fingers crossed for him. I’m definitely going to follow him, thanks for mentioning such a great artist 🙂
Definetely, Samira Efendi! Tofiq Haciyev has an interesting voice as well, but idk, Samira is the best out of the three, she has the full package . Samira singing a song in Azeri would be perfect!
Btw the announcement is expexted to be made next week!
Samira Efendi and Dong similar to Kepenek or Sen Gelendi would be Great! Love Samira Efendi! Tofig also nice. But first I wanna see Samira 🙂 Greetings from Lithuania 😉
song* not Dong 😀
Laurell Barker should submit a song here too.
Or Ralph Siegel.