If I could sit down for an interview with the people in charge for song selections in Portugal, I would only ask one question: What are you aiming to achieve when you pick the songs you do for your selections? I suspect – or hope – the answer wouldn’t be “succeeding...

Romania has been a permanent fixture in the Eurovision grand final since the start of the semi-final era, although the days when they looked all set to be the next winner after strong showings in 2005 and 2006 are rapidly receding into history. Last year, Paula Seling...

Every year there are a couple of songs that happen to be huge fan favorites, but when I listen to them, not only do I dislike them (that can happen quite a bit, but I will understand why other people like them), I also really struggle to see their appeal. This always...

Sometimes a country gets in a bit of a rut and sends the same kind of thing to Eurovision year after year. We can all think of examples from the fields of French chanson, Greek ethnopop and so on. Sometimes, though, you get back-to-back entries from a country that...

It was the sensation of the Eurovision Song Contest 2014: San Marino qualified for the final! On the third consecutive attempt of Valentina Monetta, the fifth attempt of the microstate, it finally happened. Surprisingly or not, SMTV decided to send someone different...

"Why-ay-ay-ay?" was a commonly heard complaint in the Netherlands for most of the past decade, as Eurovision non-qualification became an unwelcome but firmly ingrained habit. Everything changed two years ago, when Anouk not only stormed into the grand final with her...

We've become used to seeing Lithuania in the grand final of the Eurovision Song Contest, after their entries from 2011 to 2013 all qualified despite not being particularly favoured by fans or the bookmakers. That made it all the more of a surprise when the Baltic...

Wait, didn't I write this line-up check already last year? Internal selection, male solo artist, lots of mountains in the preview video, Balkan ballad? No, it's 2015, Montenegro has recently qualified for the first time as an independent country, and now the cards are...

"Success" is a relative term where the Eurovision Song Contest is concerned. With around 40 countries competing every year, the average gap between victories - assuming equal song quality, which is a big assumption to make! - would be around four decades. As such,...

It's hard to choose the right gimmick for Eurovision, and Moldova knows this only too well. A projection dress and a hydraulic podium can propel you to the fringes of the top ten, while a pack of loincloth-clad dancers and a detachable pigtail can leave you stranded...