With an audience in excess of 100 million, no other musical event can provide such a kick-start for an international career. Forty years ago, victory provided the springboard to international success for ABBA, and last year Denmark's Emmelie de Forest found herself scaling the charts all over Europe with her winning song 'Only Teardrops'.

The Danish capital of Copenhagen plays host to the 59th Eurovision Song Contest in May incorporating the values of sustainability, diversity and tolerance. Once again, just under a month before the competition is broadcast live, fans get the chance to hear all the entries (some of which won't even make it to the main event on 10 May).

The album also contains a bonus track: last year's winner Emmelie de Forest, performing the official 2014 theme 'Rainmaker'.

Highlights in this year's entries include Armenia (the opening to which reminded me of Keane's 'We Might As Well be Strangers'); Austria (which sounds like it could have been a classic James Bond theme); the upbeat entry by Belarus; Switzerland's whistle based toe-tapping song; Germany (which sounds like it could easily have come from Lily Allen's discography); Denmark's pop track; Finland's indie sounding song; the comedic French entry; Malta's toe-tapping song; Romani's dance track; and Sweden's beautiful entry.

There's more songs to like than dislike and it's amazing how quickly some of these tracks lodge themselves into your head. I listened to the album through once, left it a couple of days and then listened to it again. So many of the tracks I remembered, but thought I'd known them for years. At first I was convinced I was listening to last year's album.

On the negative side, Latvia's entry is by far the worst song with some truly awful lyrics; and the UK's offering is almost instantly forgettable, but sounds like it was designed in the hope that Rod Stewart would sing it.

So, yet another collection of interesting tracks. This really is a great package and for fans of the contest this is an essential purchase.

CD 1

01 - 'One Night’s Anger' - Hersi (Albania)
02 - 'Not Alone' - Aram (Armenia)
03 - 'Rise Like A Phoenix' - Conchita Wurst (Austria)
04 - 'Start A Fire' - Dilara Kazimova (Azerbaijan)
05 - 'Mother' - Axel Hirsoux (Belgium)
06 - 'Cheesecake' - Teo (Belarus)
07 - 'Hunter Of Stars' - Sebalter (Switzerland)
08 - 'Is It Right' - Elaiza (Germany)
09 - 'Cliché Love Song' - Basim (Denmark)
10 - ' Amazing' - Tanja (Estonia)
11 - 'Dancing In The Rain' - Ruth Lorenzo (Spain)
12 - 'Something Better' - Softengine (Finland)
13 - 'Moustache' - TWIN TWIN (France)
14 - 'Children Of The Universe' - Molly (United Kingdom)
15 - 'Three Minutes To Earth' - The Shin And Mariko (Georgia)
16 - 'Rise Up' - Freaky Fortune (Feat. RiskyKidd) (Greece)
17 - 'Running' - András Kállay-Saunders (Hungary)
18 - 'Heartbeat' - Can-Linn (Feat. Kasey Smith) (Ireland)
19 - 'Same Heart' - Mei Finegold (Israel)

CD 2

01 - 'No Prejudice' - Pollaponk (Iceland)
02 - 'La Mia Città' - Emma (Italy)
03 - 'Attention' - Vilija (Lithuania)
04 - 'Cake To Bake' - Aarzemnieki - (Latvia)
05 - 'Wild Soul' - Cristina Scarlat (Moldova)
06 - 'Moj Svijet' - Sergej (Montenegro)
07 - ' To The Sky' Tijana (F.Y.R. Macedonia)
08 - 'Coming Home' - Firelight (Malta)
09 - 'Calm After The Storm' - The Common Linnets (The Netherlands)
10 - 'Silent Storm' - Carl Espen (Norway)
11 - 'My Slowianie - We Are Slavic' - Donatan & Cleo (Poland)
12 - 'Quero Ser Tua' - Suzy (Portugal)
13 - 'Miracle' - Paula Seling & OVI (Romania)
14 - 'Shine' - Tolmachevy Sisters (Russia)
15 - ' Undo' - Sanna Nielsen (Sweden)
16 - 'Round And Round' - Tinkara (Slovenia)
17 - 'Maybe (Forse)' - Valentina Monetta (San Marino)
18 - 'Tick - Tock' - Mariya Yaremchuk (Ukraine)

Bonus Track:
19 - 'Rainmaker (The Official #JoinUs Song)' - Emmelie de Forest

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Nick Smithson