Czechia 2024: Aiko with ‘Pedestal’

Our second song before the new year is already here with Czechia's selection of Aiko.

My first impressions of ‘Pedestal’ was that this really felt like a German entry. There's an attempt to channel some of Lena's (2010) energy and charm with some of the performance choices and some awkward Ann Sophie choreography and styling. Then there's the song which carries the same issues of anonymity that has plagued Germany for the last decade (2015 again and 2017 in particular). So anonymous in fact that no emoji could be found for the X link to this review (winking crying face). There's also a lack of conviction and authenticity to the rock chick vibe (already a dubious path to points) which stems from ‘Pedestal’ being so incredibly “album track”.

The national final performance was very poor but should come with the asterisk of ESCZ having for my money the joint worst production values with Ireland's Late Late Show. The results and breakdown of them are quite damning in their lack of correlation and I'll just say “finding” that level of international support will be more difficult at Eurovision.

Even assuming for improvements it’s hard to make a case for this as no piece of the package has potential above a 5/10 - Aiko's vocal and performance could improve but would still struggle to generate votes. The song could be revamped but is never going to stand out. And then this is Czechia - a country yet to convince on staging, lacking resources at the contest and with no reliable voting supporters.

No matter the reduced semi size, this is already up against it to qualify. I suspect this will be around my 27th favourite of the year, above the songs I actively dislike and that's the problem. What on earth is the reason to vote for this?

Personal Rating: 4/10

Competitve Rating: 1/10

Early Prediction: NQ. Bottom 3 in semi.