EUROVISION 2024 CZECHIA: AIKO - PEDESTAL + ESCZ 2024

ČT organized once again ESCZ already in December 2023 with a live final and online voting running for a week with separate Czech and international votes. Aiko emerged victorious with Pedestal in a final of seven, selected out of 200+ submissions.

Aiko or Alena Shirmanova-Kostebelova (24) is a Russian born Czech singer songwriter who lives in United Kingdom. Her career started in reality talent show Česko Slovenská SuperStar in 2015. She made the girls top-10 but not the top-4. After that she mmoved to UK to pursue her career and released her debut album in 2018. Second album followed in 2020. She's done a few firsts for a Czech artist, like being featured in the Time Square's screens in New York. Her songs have made it to tv-series like Teen mom and Love island. Her third album was released last year. She has released also a dozen singles so far. Her entry Pedestal was revamped for Eurovision, here's the original one.

So, what do I think? To be honest, at first nothing much, hardly bothered to listen the song to the end when it was selected. Then sneakily it has won me over and now I may like it more than I could have ever think.

Also in our Home Jury this was a real surprise scoring solid 7's, 8's and 9's with one odd 4 in the mix.

ESCZ 2024

1. Aiko - Pedestal 23.898

2. Elly - The angel's share 12.876

3. MyDy - Red flag parade 7.031

4. Tom Sean - Dopamine overdose 3.500

5. Lenny - Good enough 2.375

6. Tomas Robin - Out of my mind 1.313

7. Gianna Lei - Starlet 653

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Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

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