Just over a year ago, I wrote a piece about the BBC's attitude towards ESC and the logic behind Bonnie Tyler's participation. It began with the line "It’s frustrating being a British fan of the Eurovision Song Contest" - and I could have started this line-up check...

Ukraine has never missed a final ever since joining Eurovision in 2003. The country has collected over 200 points on four occasions, and is more often seen in the top ten than outside it. Once again, Ukraine hosted a national final in the morning, though they were...

Switzerland is one of the stalwarts of the Eurovision Song Contest, taking part every single time they haven't been excluded due to relegation. Although they won the very first contest with Lys Assia and helped Céline Dion on her way to global stardom by letting her...

The most closely observed of all participating countries, Sweden, hasn't actually been overly successful in the last nine years - apart from a third place in Düsseldorf (Popular) and, of course, their victory with the subsequent top hit Euphoria. Loreen has remained a...

You can tell when Spain are sending something decent to the Eurovision Song Contest because our #esc chatroom invariably sees an influx of new chatters from the Iberian nation, all eager to find out what we think about their entry. Although this year is no "Rosamania"...

Slovenia is my favourite of all the Balkan countries, but they haven't had much success at Eurovision recently, with just two final appearances in 10 years. They only agreed to participate in this year's Eurovision at the very last minute, and were given special...

San Marino are the smallest country by quite some distance taking part in this year's Eurovision. As yet, they haven't been able to qualify for the final in four attempts - two of which were by Valentina Monetta, who is back for another try this year with a song that...

You can't really argue with Russia's record at the Eurovision Song Contest. The top results achieved by the likes of Alsou, t.A.T.u., Dima Bilan, Serebro and (of course) the Babushki were accompanied by some of the most memorable performances in recent contests, and...

First things first: I'm a huuuge fan of Paula Seling & Ovi's entry from 2010, Playing With Fire. Apart from the special situations around Eurovision 1993 and 1996, Romania has never failed to reach the final, and it's only four years since the aforementioned duo...

After sitting Eurovision 2013 out, Portugal is back in action. With a less than brilliant record of three qualifications out of nine attempts, resulting in three mid-table-or-less finishes, Portugal are hoping to change their luck this year. This also marked the...

2014 sees the return of Poland to the Eurovision family after a few years out, and by golly, they haven't half returned with a bang! Donatan and Cleo were internally chosen to fly the Polish flag in Copenhagen with their song My Słowianie (We Are Slavic) which was a...

If there’s one country that managed to experiment with the extremes of the scoreboard in the last five years, it is Norway. They managed to win with 387 points, finish last with 380 points less than their winning score, and rack up a bottom 5 placement and a top 5...

At last! That was the general response last year when Anouk dragged the Netherlands through to their first appearance in the Eurovision grand final since 2004 - and all it took was a credible artist singing a good song. Who knew? Now the Dutch are looking to repeat...

After last year's Balkan debacle where none of the ex-Yugoslav countries made it to the final, several of them withdrew from this year's contest (or, in Bosnia's case, stayed away), leaving just a few remaining - one of which is Montenegro who, as yet, have not...

Ever since Moldova joined the contest, it only missed the final once - when Geta Burlacu made herself comfortable with a teddy bear on a sofa. Indeed, in the last three years Moldova has been consistently knocking on the door of the top 10, so the country is quite...

Malta are one of Eurovision's most enthusiastic countries but as yet this hasn't paid off with a win; the closest they've come to a victory was in both 2002 and 2005, when they came second. However, after Gaia Cauchi's victory at Junior Eurovision in December, will...

Macedonia's record in the Eurovision Song Contest can be broadly divided in three: the "hopeless case" early phase, the "permanent qualifier" middle phase, and the "they really don't want us in the final any more, do they?" recent phase. OK, that's a simplification,...

Now I have the difficult task of writing about Lithuania, the Baltic country that not long ago achieved its third best ever result with Love Is Blind. Despite tending to send songs that don't gain a lot of attention, Lithuania is mostly a surprise qualifier - even...

Latvia had one of the most impressive starts for a country at Eurovision ever, with a third place on its first attempt and a victory on its third. However, the Baltic country has failed to qualify for the final ever since 2009. In the national selection format Dziesma...

Having won twice and contributed several evergreen classics to the contest, Italy settled into a long-term absence from ESC in the late 1990s. After (or perhaps despite) many years of pleading by fans, the country finally returned to competition in 2011 - and promptly...

Israel have had rather mixed results in the semi-final era so far with 5 out of 10 qualifications to the final, but they last qualified in 2010, and they haven't been in the top 10 in the final since Bo'az Mauda in 2008 - which is their worst run of results since they...

These line-up check pieces usually begin with a recap of the country's recent ESC history, but in this case it might be more appropriate to look at the composer's track record, because Jonas Gladnikoff - who has a hand in the 2014 Irish entry - has been a regular in...

Iceland haven’t had it easy in the last decade: With the exception of one silver medal, courtesy of Yohanna and Is It True in 2009, all their entries finished either in the bottom half of the final, or – between 2006 and 2008 – didn't even qualify. Will this year's...

In Malmö, Hungary scored its best result since 2007 (Unsubstantial Blues), as ByeAlex recorded a decent top 10 finish with Kedvesem. In the years before, the country was less successful, despite delivering strong entries including fan favourite Kati Wolf. For the...

Representing Greece in Eurovision is not an easy gig. With a 100% qualification record and having finished out of the top ten only once in the last decade, no Greek artist wants to be the first one to break the spell. They had a momentary glitch when Eleftheria...

Germany is still the most recent Big 5 country to have won the contest. After Lena's victory in 2010,  the central European nation managed to score two further top 10 results, but it was less lucky last year, when its result wasn't as glorious. Was the bad result...

Georgia's context in recent ESC history consists of glamourous parties at Eurovision, Georgian wine, disturbing national finals, strong entries, decent results and Anri Jokhadze. This year - just like last year - broadcaster GPB is trusting in the benefits that an...

As one of the "Big Five", France qualify directly for the final and they haven't done particularly well recently, with Patricia Kaas giving them their one solitary top ten place in the past ten years. They are hoping to reverse that trend this year by sending the...

In 2006, Finland briefly found its way out of its eternal status as a Eurovision underdog by winning the Eurovision Song Contest for the first time. Ever since, the Nordic country has returned to the "wrong" half of the scoreboard - or remained stuck in the semis....

After a disastrous start to the semi-final era with five straight non-qualifications between 2004 and 2008, Estonia's qualification record has been pretty decent the past few years, having reached four of the past five finals - so will 2014 keep their good record...

Denmark joined the Eurovision family in the contest's second edition back in 1957 and has scored three victories, most recently (of course) with Emmelie de Forest's Only Teardrops last year. This means the country is automatically qualified for the grand final in...

In Malmö, Belgium just managed to achieve a left-half-of-the-scoreboard result for the second time since nearly winning the contest with Sanomi in 2003, but unfortunately the country is rather used to missing the final. This year, Flemish broadcaster VRT tried a whole...

Belarus were one of the first countries to choose their song for Eurovision 2014 way back in January, which seems like a lifetime ago. After a close battle, TEO won the ticket to Copenhagen on his second attempt at going to Eurovision, the first being in 2009. TEO,...

Does Azerbaijan want to win Eurovision again? Because if they do, and if they’re willing to put in the usual work behind the scenes to optimise their chances, then we could very easily be heading back to Baku. If you're getting a sense of déjà vu, that's because those...

After a series of unsuccessful attempts at Eurovision - apart from Nadine Beiler (who at least reached the final) - Austria is now trying their luck again with an internally selected artist. Austria have sent arguably the most controversial artist in this year’s...

Still one of the more recent countries to join the contest, Armenia enjoyed an extremely strong start to their ESC career, finishing in the top 10 on each of their first five appearances. However, things have since gone downhill: first there was Emmy's...

In the past two years, Albania has experienced both extremes - getting stuck in the semi (in 2013) after getting a top 5 result (in 2012). However, the majority of Albanian entries have reached the final, so that should be the more likely fate for the Mediterranean...