Azerbaijan participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2018 with the song "X My Heart" written by Dimitris Kontopoulos and Sandra Bjurman. The song was performed by Aisel, who was internally selected by the Azerbaijani broadcaster İctimai Television (İTV) to represent the nation at the 2018 contest in Lisbon, Portugal. Aisel's selection as the Azerbaijani Eurovision entrant was announced on 8 November 2017, while the song "X My Heart" was presented to the public on 4 March 2018.
Azerbaijan was drawn to compete in the first semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest which took place on 8 May 2018. Performing as the opening entry for the show in position 1, "X My Heart" was not announced among the top 10 entries of the first semi-final and therefore did not qualify to compete in the final. This marked the first time that Azerbaijan failed to qualify to the final of the Eurovision Song Contest from a semi-final since its first entry in 2008. It was later revealed that Azerbaijan placed eleventh out of the 18 participating countries in the semi-final with 94 points.
Background
Prior to the 2018 contest, Azerbaijan had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest ten times since its first entry in 2008. Azerbaijan had won the contest on one occasion in 2011 with the song "Running Scared" performed by Ell and Nikki. Since their debut in 2008, Azerbaijan has had a string of successful results, qualifying to the final and placing in the top ten each year until 2014, including a third-place result in 2009 with the song "Always" performed by AySel and Arash and a second-place result in 2013 with the song "Hold Me" performed by Farid Mammadov. However, in 2014, Azerbaijan achieved their lowest placing in the contest to this point, placing 22nd in the final with the song "Start a Fire" performed by Dilara Kazimova. In 2017, Azerbaijan placed fourteenth with the song "Skeletons" performed by Dihaj.
The Azerbaijani national broadcaster, İctimai Television (İTV), broadcasts the event within Azerbaijan and organises the selection process for the nation's entry. İTV confirmed their intentions to participate at the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest on 11 August 2017. Azerbaijan had used various methods to select the Azerbaijani entry in the past, including internal selections of both the artist and song, as well as national finals to select their artist followed by an internal selection to determine the song. Between 2011 and 2013, Azerbaijan organized a national final titled Milli Seçim Turu to select the performer, song or both for Eurovision. In 2014, the broadcaster utilised an existing talent show format titled Böyük Səhnə where the winning performer would subsequently be given an internally selected song. Since 2015, the broadcaster internally selected both the artist and song that represented Azerbaijan, a procedure which continued for the selection of their 2018 entry.
Before Eurovision
Internal selection
Both the artist and song that represented Azerbaijan at the Eurovision Song Contest 2018 was selected internally by İTV. On 8 November 2017, the broadcaster announced that a national jury panel had selected Aisel as the Azerbaijani Eurovision contestant. On 3 March 2018, İTV announced that Aisel would be performing the song "X My Heart". The selection of the song was based on the decision of İTV and participants of an opinion survey that featured 300 music and television industry experts as well as Eurovision fans from 31 European countries; "X My Heart" received the most positive votes among three shortlisted entries with 87%. "X My Heart" was written by Dimitris Kontopoulos and Sandra Bjurman, and was presented on 4 March 2018 via the streaming service provider Spotify. The official music video was later released on 7 March 2018. In regards to the song, Aisel stated: "I feel a strong connection with the lyrics of the song, since believing in myself made me overcome several difficulties I had in my life. This is a message I want to send to everyone: believing in yourself can make you stronger than cannonballs."
Promotion
Aisel made several appearances across Europe to specifically promote "X My Heart" as the Azerbaijani Eurovision entry. On 7 April, Aisel performed during the Eurovision Pre-Party, which was held at the VEGAS Kuntsevo shopping mall in Moscow, Russia. Between 8 and 11 April, Aisel took part in promotional activities in Tel Aviv, Israel and performed during the Israel Calling event held at the Rabin Square. On 18 April, Aisel performed "X My Heart" during the bTV talk show programme Slavi's Show in Bulgaria.