It’s a new year in the Eurovision world, we’re slowly waking up from our hibernation, and there’s quite a lot of news on the table! We were wondering what headline fits best, so in the end, “It’s a lot!” seemed appropriate enough.

So where are we?

In terms of actual televised content, Lithuania and Norway have now begun their respective selection shows, and will continue to rival each other for Saturday night attention over the four next weekends. Lithuania’s entry will be found on 12 February, Norway’s one week later. While not all of Lithuania’s songs are available yet, the Norwegian ones have been released in full – and the first heat on Saturday already offered plenty of colour, even if the voters didn’t approve:

Then, a great deal of other countries have revealed details about their upcoming selection shows:

Finland, Serbia and Poland have announced their line-ups, but not all of their songs are released yet. Familiar names include Lidia Kopania (from ESC 2009) and The Rasmus (from the charts about 20 years ago). Ireland is announcing and releasing its songs over the course of this week on a radio programme, and one familiar name is already on the list: Brendan Murray is trying again, hopefully not dying in the attempt.

Impatient early listeners will be happier with Malta, which has not only announced its line-up, but also released snippets of all the MESC songs already (hello to all fellow Jessika fans: she’s back!). The complete versions will be out tonight at 20:00 CET. However, the most fruitful source at the moment is Latvia, with all songs fully released, including familiar names such as Aminata and Markus Riva – and some attention-grabbing lyrics from Citi Zēni…

Meanwhile, Montenegro has announced its internally selected artist and her song: Vladana Vučinić is going to sing “Breathe” in Turin. The song will be released in February. She has a little bit of history with the contest, although it remains to be seen whether this old national final entry gives any indication of what to expect from her this year:

In less exciting, pandemic-related news, Sweden has finally dropped the plan for the Melodifestivalen Tour for the second consecutive year: All shows will be aired from Stockholm, but apparently it’s very likely that an audience will be present at the live shows in some form. Fingers crossed!

We’re very much looking forward to the (still) fresh season – and that includes your – hopefully many – visits to the #esc chat!