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News Round-up of the day. Nothing confirmed offically but according to Azerbaijani press this will be the location for the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest. 

The German company Alpine has started the construction of a 25,000 seat arena located in the sea, just off the coastline of central Baku. We cannot be too sure about this news, though, untill the Azeri authorities have confirmed it. And that has not happened yet.

Jónsi gets competition from a fellow returnee in Regína Ósk Óskarsdottir.

Another 5 songs challenged for 2 places in the Icelandic final today, starting on the usual GMT primetime slot. Joining last week's qualifiers are Regína Ósk Óskarsdóttir (ESC 2008) & Simbi og Hrútspungarnir. Regína being the female part of Euroband, representing Iceland in 2008.

Down below you'll find all details about tonight's shows. Start at 19:50 CET, and by half past eleven, you'll know who will represent Iceland, Norway and Hungary.

Tonight Norway (see details - watch the webcast here) Iceland (details - watch the webcast here) and Hungary (details - watch the webcast here) will select their Eurovision entry. And also Sweden (webcast) and Lithuania (webcast) will have a semi tonight. Our colleagues from Escxtra.com made a very neat schedule for this, that we couldn't have done any better ourselves:

Jónsi (Iceland, 2004) returns to the Eurovision stage, this time together with Greta Salóme. They won the Icelandic final tonight.

On 22 May and then quite likely on 26 May again they will sing Mundu eftir mér, representing the three Icelandic colors. Mundu eftir mér is a somewhat mystical song with clear folk influences. Not the only one of its kind in the Icelandic line-up tonight, but surely the strongest one. Stattu Upp by Blár Opal ended up second on a second place. See the winning song below.

News Round-up of the day. Read all about our tops and bottoms in the Maltese selection this year.

On 4 February, the national Maltese final will take place. Then the country will decide which song is to be representing the country in Azerbaijan. Listen to the songs here. Our first impressions: Amber - Answer with your eyes *** Nice ballad, slightly mystical, not too exciting  Anna Azzopardi – Still Waiting** Not bad, but a song we would skip on the CD unless some more sparkles are added Annalise Ellul – Whoop It Up! *** The start is promising, the refrain is quite strong too, the total just not catchy enough we're afraid

++Pearl for the Netherlands?! ++ Estonian and Icelandic songs online ++ National finals results from last weekend ++ Cyprus will choose tomorrow ++..

Pearl Jozefzoon has the biggest chance to win the Nationaal Songfestival in the Netherlands. That is, if the bookmakers are right. For every euro, 1.4 euro is paid if the lady wins. Real money making can be acchieved by beting for Ivan Peroti though. The Dutch national final will take place on 26 February

1. Pearl Jozefzoon 1.40/ 2.Kim de Boer 4.00/ 3. Tim Douwsma 5.00/ 4. Joan Franka 6.00/ 5. Raffaëla Paton 10.00/ 6. Ivan Peroti 20.00

++ Visa for Baku, a piece of cake  ++  48.4 million Euro allocated for the ESC ++ Will the contest improve the human rights situation in AZ? ++..

Tomorrow Norway (see details), Iceland (details) and Hungary (details) will select their Eurovision entry. This means yet another buzzing Eurovision night as Sweden and Lithuania also will continue their hunt for a suitable act for the Eurovision Song Contest. On Sunday the Germans will set the next step in their quest for a Star in Baku, presenting their semi final with only four remaining artists.

++ Azerbaijan selects artist tonight  ++  Three more acts for Baku selected this week ++ La La Love # 2 in the Cypriot charts this week ++..

At six tonight the Azerbaijani will select their artist for the song contest later on this year in their own capital. Five artist remain (Orxan Kərimli, Səbinə Babayeva, Elton İbrahimov, Fəqan Səfərov and Arzu İsmayılova). The song will not be selected yet. last year two of the finalists were selected. We know all how that ended. A webcast is available here. Can Bonomo and Kurt Calleja, the selected artists from Turkey and Malta will attend the show. Can can't sing his Eurovision song yet, as it will not be presented before the end of this month.

++Results from Azerbaijan, Iceland, Norway and Hungary ++ Armenia will select by 18 March ++ Soluna in the Danish charts (at #2!) ++ ..

Today at 16:00 CET the French song will be available on this site, snippets of the song Anggun is going to sing for la France were already available earlier this week. It seems once again France is going to impress, Euroclub get ready for Echo, (you and I). [Update] Here it is:

++Norway kicks off, Iceland continues and Denmark decides tomorrow ++ 5 more selected in Germany ++..

Ok, the guys on the picture above might look like the Olsen Brothers version 2.1, but hey they did win in 2000. As far as we're concerned the Danes would be best off selecting Christian Brøns & Patrik Isaksson tomorrow in the final of Danish Melodi Grand Prix. Apart from Denmark, Iceland and Norway will be all Eurovision too, tomorrow evening. Three highly recommendable shows, when it comes to quality songs, we think. Keep an eye on these pages to find out all details about the Danish, the Norwegian and the Icelandic heat, with links to the webcasts as soon as they are available.