El Lilady

El Lilady (Arabic: الليلا دي‎), sometimes written El Leila Deis an award winning studio album by Amr Diab. The album was awarded a World Music Award as the best selling album in the Middle East for the year 2008. After being delayed several times, the anticipated album was released on 11 July 2008. The album has been a great success, it topped the Middle Eastern charts for 19 weeks straight, and 22 weeks overall. The album has still been reaching #1 in Middle Eastern charts even 7 months after its release, and has not dropped off the Top 10 in Egyptian charts for over a year.

Release date delays

The album was originally set to be released after Ramadan 2006. However, it was pushed back several times due to Diab's repeated changes in the musical producers he was dealing with. Diab attributes the changes to the producer's lack of new and strong styles. In early 2006 Music Arranger Fahd was supposed to work on this album; however, later that year Dr. Tarek Madkour joined Amr Diab, and they started to work on it together. On 25 March 2007, Madkour's official website announced that Amr Diab and Madkour had decided jointly to skip the collaboration on the album due to lack of time and conflicting working schedules. Fahd and a new producer called Hassan Al Shafei were selected to produce the music in the album, which was scheduled for release in July 2007. By then, the album's name had changed from Khaleek Ma'aya to El Leila De. It was indicated that after the album's release Diab would shoot a new Pepsi advertisement in Europe.

On 21 June 2007 two of Diab's biggest fan sites (AmrDiabWorld.com & AmrDiab.info) announced that the album would hit the market on 7 July 2007. The album would contain 10 tracks; Al Shafei and Fahd shared the production (Al Shafei 7 songs & Fahd 3 Songs). Before releasing his album, Diab traveled to Portugal to shoot the new Pepsi ad choosing "Rohy Mertahalak" song from his upcoming album El Leila De as the ad music. Amr then traveled to the USA to film the music video for his upcoming album.

Leakage

The album master copy was given to Rotana, Amr Diab's production company, in the last week of June to meet the 07/07/07 release date he had planned earlier. Rotana, however, delayed the release of the new CD for a couple of days for unknown reasons. The album was leaked prior to its release, but Diab's increasing fan base managed to impede the leakage for a few days. Eventually, the album was found on many websites, despite the best efforts of Diab's fans to prevent the album's leakage from ruining sales.

N'eoul Eih video clip

The most anticipated video clip of 2007, N'eoul Eih, was released on 14 August 2007. It premiered on Rotana TV and was a huge success; minutes later it was released on an Egyptian TV show named "El Beit Beitak", on Egyptian National Television. The video was directed by a young Egyptian Director, Marawan Hamed, and was filmed in Malibu, California. The video was praised for its simplicity, something that cannot be seen in Middle Eastern music videos lately.

Track listing

1. "Ne'oul Eih" - نقول إيه - (What would we say) - 4:01
2. "El-Leila De" - الليلة دي - (Tonight) - 2:55
3. "Tool Mana Shayfak" - طول مانا شايفك - (As long as I see you) - 3:28
4. "Hekayat" - حكايات - (Stories) - 4:04
5. "Enta El-Ghaly" - انتا الغالي - (You're the precious) - 3:47
6. "Rohy Mertahalak" - روحي مرتاحة لك - (My soul loves you) - 3:41
7. "Aletly Oul" - قالت لي اقول - (She told me to say) - 3:28
8. "We Fehemt Eineik" - و فهمت عينيك - (And I understood your eyes) - 3:41
9. "Deheket" - ضحكت - (She smiled) - 3:29
10. "Khaleek Ma'aya" - خليك معايا - (Stay with me) - 3:54