When it comes to choosing a Eurovision contestant, some broadcasters — like Sweden’s SVT and Lithuania’s LRT — trawl through several weeks of national selection heats, giving the public a chance to have their say. Other broadcasters push democracy to the side, opting to choose a local heavyweight — and his or her song — behind closed doors.

This year 19 broadcasters have chosen their song through an internal selection. Among them are some of the bookies’ favourites, including Russia, France, Malta and Croatia. But which is your favourite? You can review each song below. Then vote in our poll. You can vote for as many songs as you’d like, but you can only vote one time, so make it count.

Best internally selected song?

Armenia: Iveta Mukuchyan with “Lovewave”

Now in its 10th year of participation, Armenia has opted for five internal selections and five national selections. Aram MP3, Armenia’s most recent Eurovision success story, was internally selected. Could Iveta better his score and bag a victory for the Caucasus nation?

Australia: Dami Im with “Sound Of Silence”

What started as a one-off event to mark the 60th anniversary of Eurovision is now shaping up to be a permanent feature. And why not? Australia’s debut entry placed in the Top 5. Will Dami Im score a victory in our poll or even at the contest?

Azerbaijan : Samra with “Miracle”

This year marks Azerbaijan’s ninth participation at the contest. Since 2008, they have never missed the final. They have featured in the Top 5 on five occasions in addition to winning the trophy in 2011. Samra is one of their emerging stars. Is she your favourite to win our poll?

Bosnia and Herzergovina: Dalal and Deen featuring Ana Rucner and Jala with “Ljubav Je”

After a three-year absence, Bosnia and Herzegovina return to the contest with a host of stars including a former participant. Deen has left the disco for good. Are you loving the transformation?

Bulgaria: Poli Genova with “If Love Was A Crime”

Always the bridesmaid, but never the bride – Bulgaria has missed the final eight times in nine appearances. This will be Poli Genova’s second attempt at the contest after narrowly missing out in 2011. Will she slay or be slayed?

Croatia: Nina Kraljic with “Lighthouse”

After failing to reach the final on four consecutive occasions, Croatia withdrew from Eurovision in 2014. Now they’re back with Nina Kraljic. She currently leads our Semi Final 1 poll. Will her lighthouse guide her to victory here?

Cyprus: Minus One with “Alter Ego”

Minus One previously tried to represent Cyprus at Eurovision 2015 with the song “Shine”, but placed third in the national final. Will “Alter Ego” take them to the top?

Czech Republic: Gabriela Guncikova with “I Stand”

After failing to qualify every year — and receiving zero points at the 2009 edition —  Czech Television are handpicking their candidate in the hope of turning their fortunes. Gabriela Guncíková won the “New Artist” category at the 2011 Ceský slavík awards. Can she keep up her winning streak?

France: Amir with “J’ai Cherche”

France hasn’t tasted victory at Eurovision since 1977. But Amir has already taken them back to the top of the odds table and has been winning fans left, right and centre during Eurovision promo season. Is he the man to take Eurovision back to France?

FYR Macedonia: Kaliopi with “Dona”

Kaliopi first competed at Eurovision in 1996. She was eliminated during a non-broadcast preliminary round. She returned in 2012 and placed 13th in the final. Is third time a charm?

Greece: Argo with “Utopian Land”

With 36 appearances in the contest, numerous Top 10 finishes and one victory, Greece is one of the heavyweights of the contest. It has never missed a final. Previously known as Europond, Argo will want to show that their rebirth was worth it.

Ireland: Nicky Bryne with “Sunlight”

Ireland may have more wins at Eurovision than any other nation, but since 2000 they’ve only reached the top 10 on three occasions — and they’ve failed to advance to the final five times. Can Nicky turn the tide?

Italy: Francesca Michielin with “No Degree Of Separation”

Italy’s return to the contest after a 14-year absence has been a huge success, with four of the last five acts landing in the Top 10. Last year Il Volo won the televote and finished third overall. This year’s route to choosing an act and song was a little less straightforward than in the past. Stadio — the winners of the San Remo music festival — turned down the chance of going to Eurovision. So the state broadcaster stepped in, internally selected runner-up Francesca Michielin and then debated her song choice behind closed doors. She’s already won X Factor. Can she win Eurovision too?

Malta: Ira Losco with “Walk On Water”

Malta is a tricky one. Ira Losco was democratically selected after a gruelling competition with over 20 acts. But after her victory she scrapped the winning song “Chameleon” in favour of an internally selected song, “Walk On Water”. Was it the right move?

Montenegro: Highway with “The Real Thing”

Since 2012, Montenegro has internally picked its representatives. The results have been mixed, but their selection process is unbending. Does this highway lead to the finals?

Netherlands: Douwe Bob with “Slow Down”

The Netherlands snapped an eight-year non-qualification streak in 2013 with Anouk’s song “Birds”. The following year The Netherlands came second with “Calm After The Storm”. Both entries were internally selected. Of course, they crashed out last year with another internally selected song, so…

Russia : Sergey Lazarev with “You Are The Only One”

Russia holds the record for the most top five finishes in the 21st century with a total of eight. Last year they came close to winning with an internally selected candidate. Will Sergey go one better?

San Marino: Serhat with “I Didn’t Know”

The microstate has only used internal selections since its debut in 2008. This year, Turkish superstar Serhat flies the flag for the landlocked nation — and he’s footing the bill for participation, too. After hearing the song are you glad he splashed the cash?

Serbia: Sanja Vucic with “Goodbye”

Serbia handpicked emerging star Sanja Vucic. She’s bringing sass, energy and a huge set of lungs. Will her song about domestic violence resonate with Europe?

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38 Comments
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GEORGIA
GEORGIA
8 years ago

my favorite is:1-russia 2-azerbaijan 3-poland 4-cyprus 5-armenia

Soledad
Soledad
8 years ago

WTH you can’t even spell the artist’s name right! Correct NICKY BYRNE’s name please! It’s Nicky BYRNE not BRYNE! Correct it immediately!!

Daniel E.
Daniel E.
8 years ago

@NL: you are so right about the national selections! I can think of at least 5 songs lost in that process that could have been in my top10 of ESC:

1. Ukraine’s tha HardKiss with ‘Helpless’;
2. Finland’s Saara Aalto with ‘No Fear’;
3. Sweden’s Robin with ‘Constellation Prize’;
4. Norway’s Laila Samuels with ‘Afterglow’;
5. Sweden’s Oscar Zia with ‘Human’.

Imo, with the exception of Norway, the other countries sent much weaker songs to the competition… And Romania was very close,but it dodged that bullet, in a sense…

Eurovision 2016 - Internal top 10
Eurovision 2016 - Internal top 10
8 years ago

My top 10 Internal Selection 01 – Bulgaria (10/10) – Amazing song. Love, Love, Love. 02 – France (10/10) – J’adore. <3 03 – Russia (9/10) – 3rd is good for this song. Though, it's not a winner. 04 – Azerbaijan (8/10) – Miracle that I love it so much. <3 05 – Malta (8/10) – I feel like I'm walking on water when I hear this song. <3 06 – Ireland (7/10) – I'm not sure why it's so underrated? I like it. 🙂 07 – Croatia (7/10) – Love! Though, it's getting a bit, meh? 08 – Australia… Read more »

NL
NL
8 years ago

The internally selected songs are really good this year. I don’t like Montenegro, Greece and Bosnia, but the other songs are really nice to me. The problem of the national finals this year was that the people and jury couldn’t send the right song to eurovision… (Finland, Sweden, Estonia (they’re still really good this year), Denmark, Slovenia, Belarus, Belgium, Poland and Ukraine (they’re not bad, but there was one song in the national selection that was alot better, same for Slovenia). However the national selections had some great songs to offer, like Melodifestivalen!

Daniel E.
Daniel E.
8 years ago

@Tom: I agree with you, 2016 is a really strong year (I’m still waiting to decide if it’s better than 2012, after the live shows 🙂 ). But at this point, I have like 12 songs from this year which I constantly listen to, which is a record for myself 🙂 (Armenia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, France, Australia, Norway, Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Italy, Russia and the UK). For instance, last year I only had Latvia, Italy and Malta…

gem
gem
8 years ago

oz.. oz.. oz..dami4euro #SoundofSilence

sonic0201
sonic0201
8 years ago

@SoundofBirds I agree that the quality is good, and there is no stand out song, but I see it a bit differently. I’ve already said that my opinion on this earlier, that the overall/average quality of the competitions is relatively good. But I can’t help but feel that this year’s winner will be a downgrade from last year, which is not good. I think if Mans Zelmerlöw would have competed with Heroes in 2016, he would have won this year as well, and that song is not exactly my all time favourite. But that high-tech staging, very good song, and… Read more »

cheesecake
cheesecake
8 years ago

Bulgaria, France, Russia and Croatia probably did the best job if you consider the song quality and chances of doing well (admittedly though Australia as well, but I don’t like the song).

Daniel
8 years ago

Last year 4/5 of my favourite were from NFs and this year 4/5 are from internal selection. Weird thing too
1. Azerbaijan
2. Australia
3. Russia
4. Malta
5. Serbia

Grace Tucker
Grace Tucker
8 years ago

Croatia, my second favourite of this year! Unfortunately my favourite wasn’t internally selected hahaha

bb
bb
8 years ago

Serbia, Czech Republic and Bulgaria.

Thomas
Thomas
8 years ago

Nina Kraljic and Lighthouse.

john crisp
8 years ago

Dami im is brilliant, great song, beautiful lady, amazing voice, Australia is going to win!!

Ariso Light
Ariso Light
8 years ago

Czech Republic 😀

Steve Gray
Steve Gray
8 years ago

Australia Ireland and Greece

OR
OR
8 years ago

CROATIA, ISRAEL, SERBIA , BULGARIA – ARE THE BEST SONGS!!

Nicky91
Nicky91
8 years ago

for me my top 5 1. Malta ( Ira is an amazing singer in the lower notes, and Molly won’t oversing her just about teamwork, and maybe Molly was meant to do the high notes all along, like in the music video Ira’s voice and the one singing the incredibly high note are different) anyway I hope Molly and Ira will slay in may 🙂 2. France ( Amir is so cute, and his song is quite catchy however i don’t like the english parts in the song, it takes away the originality of the song, and turns it into… Read more »

Tom
Tom
8 years ago

Bulgaria, followed closely by France, Czech Republic, Croatia and Australia.

Don’t care who disagrees with me, I think this year is one of the strongest in memory.

Elyk
Elyk
8 years ago

19 internally selected songs. i think this is a record in itself. Countries prefer avoiding national final planning and costs. Also this year I noticed a pattern with certain countries not sending their artists on a promo tour

oliverisamazing
oliverisamazing
8 years ago

Watch for all of the Irish and Bosnian fans to spam the poll lol.

power b.
power b.
8 years ago

Australia, France & Russia

esc2016
esc2016
8 years ago

As always the overated Russia high and the underrated Greece in the bottom…

Mei International
Mei International
8 years ago

The best (france, bulgaria, malta, russia, netherlands, croatia)

and the worst (FYROM, montenegro, san marino)

The Anders
8 years ago

It will have to be the Netherlands. They don’t care about trends 🙂

Off-topic: Song reviews of Malta and Azerbaijan: https://escsongreviews.com/2016/04/29/songcheck-2016-malta-again-azerbaijan/

gal
gal
8 years ago

@Allen
your top is not bad, but i think that Hovi should be in the top 10, and Croatia should win!!

gal
gal
8 years ago

My boy Hovi of course, next year in the beautiful colorful city tel aviv!!
go hovi go hovi go hovi 🙂

Allen
Allen
8 years ago

Give me a Thumb uo guys 🙂

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31puSwfLI6k

Darren
Darren
8 years ago

My boy Amir of course! I really want France to win!! Paris will be a great host city!

Mario = Legend
Mario = Legend
8 years ago

It seems strange not seeing UK on this list! 😉

OR
OR
8 years ago

i meant to amir the israeli singer from france

OR
OR
8 years ago

Amit is boring singer , and his song is only ok… even in Israel he didnt seceded at the israeli american idol!! he just have very good PR !!

Thiefo
8 years ago

Thanks to this poll I’m realizing my top 5 are all internally selected songs 😛

Croatia, Bulgaria, France, Russia and Malta.

OR
OR
8 years ago

Sanja from Serbia is the best female vocalist by far, Croatia has number one song and Israel is the best male song!! hovi i love u

Loo
Loo
8 years ago

Wiwibloggs, you should review Amir’s new album!

SoundofBirds
SoundofBirds
8 years ago

The quality of all the songs this ear is SO GOOD.

It really is the best year I’ve known for song quality in Eurovision.

There’s no standout ‘Euphoria’-type song because this year’s quality is so high that it’s much harder to stand out from the pack, because every country has sent a good act, many of whom are just slaying it when they perform live.

The grand final is going to be awesome! I can’t wait 🙂
I planned my party a month ago!

Skandar
Skandar
8 years ago

Iveta’s song is the best then Poli, Nina, Sanja, Amir and Minus One. Good luck for my favs!

Loo
Loo
8 years ago

Amir, there’s no competition 😉