2. Albania — ‘Ja Ku Jam’ by Ardit Gjebrea

Ardit Gjebrea is — according to Wikipedia — the highest-selling singer in Albania. He’s released three albums, but he’s also a TV presenter — Miss Albania and Telebingo amongst others — and producer. He has over half a million followers on Instagram. Considering that Albania has under three million citizens, that’s quite impressive.

Ja Ku Jam is the third of his albums, and it’s quite good. It’s catchy, and I found myself humming to most songs after a first listen. The first seconds of the opening track — Se Te Kam Shpirt — made me think this would be a sort of traditional music album, yet things quickly change. This is really a pop album, but the mixture of certain instruments and musical phrases blend together fairly well into something that couldn’t have been produced anywhere else. Some aspects of this balance between traditional music and mainstream pop songs reminded me of the first few albums of The Corrs, who kept adding those Irish touches here and there in what were fairly standard pop structures.

The production feels a bit 90s — a bit too much, sometimes — and the tracks that lean towards traditional music seem to have aged better than the others. There’s a duet — Te Dua — with a female singer with a beautiful operatic voice, there’s something that sounds like a 90s Europop song of the summer — Ti Nuk Ke Me Ndjenja — and then there’s a track that reminded me of something that Shakira or Jennifer Lopez could cover and become a hit — Havale. There’s also the predictable rap bit, which doesn’t really fit in that well. However, it really is an entertaining album. I’m not sure it would survive repeated multiple listens, but it’s probably not its intention anyway. As an introduction to this artist, to the sound of the Albanian language, and to Albanian pop music it is a great first step.