2006 sees an remarkable number of former Eurovision artists trying to make a comeback to the contest and Estonia is no exception. Ines (Eda-Ines Etti) sang "Once In A Lifetime" in Stockholm in 2000. The then 19 year old singer had the dubious honour of being the pre-contest favourite, but finished 4th. In 2001 she was to have sung "Runaway" in the Estonian final, but withdrew at the last minute, and Swedish singer Sahlene took the song to 3rd place in Eurovision in Tallinn. However this left Estonia in the odd position of having a Swede represent them in their moment in the spotlight. This caused a great deal of controversy, with Ines' role in the affair coming under question. After releasing four albums in the last few years, Ines is back. She has co-written her song "Inseedale" (For Myself) which is the only song in Estonian in their national final.

After one of the the smallest and simplest Eurovision selections of all time last year, when only two songs were in competition, Belgium has opted for a long an extremely complex process to select its entry for Athens. Seven shows over as many weeks will choose the 2006 entry, and the process began on January 8th with the first qualifier. The winner of that show was Katerine (Avgoustakis) with the song "Watch Me Move", which is quite similar to Greece's 2005 Eurovision winner "My Number One", depending on a simple dance beat, a repetitious chorus and slick choreography to make an impact. 22 year old Katerine also has an advantage over the other performers in the Belgian selection , as she recently won the Belgian casting show "Star Academy", where she build up large contingent of teenage fans, which may play a vital role in the later rounds of the selection. You can watch Katerine's live performance of the song here (thanks to the www.een.be website). I'll be presenting other entries from the Belgian selection, over the next month.   
  

Poland is the next country to select its 2006 Eurovision entry in a national final. On 28th January a combination of a public televote and an expert jury will select the Polish entry from a very competitive field. One of the more interesting songs in the competition is the grammatically questionable "Love Is What We All Need" as the singer and songwriters all hail from the Netherlands. Kuizenga Leonie has sixteen years of experience in the music industry, mainly as a backing singer. She provided backing vocals for entries in the 2004 and 2005 Dutch finals. The two man songwriting team includes 22 year old Sietse Bakker, who is the main editor of the popular ESCtoday website. You can find out more about Kuizenga Leonie here and more information on the Polish national final here.