The Michigan Cross-Country Review

  Merry FiKmas! Albania's venerable national final, Festivali i Këngës, held its 62nd edition this week, and the nation's representative for Eurovision will be  Besa Kokëdhima with her song " Zemrën n'dorë" [Heart in Hand] . Let's take a look at her performance in Tirana: About the Artist Besa, from the central city of Fier, is a popular singer in Albania, having served as a judge on The Voice of Albania  and scoring a number-one single in 2020. She also won Albania's other  singing competition,  Kënga Magjike , in 2013.  Best Things We Lost Along the Way So, a bit more about Festivali i Këngës ("Song Festival" in Albanian). As mentioned before, it's been going on for a very long time, surviving Hoxhaist repression in the 1970s and 80s, and it became Albania's national final when the country joined Eurovision in 2004. Under the current format, there's a jury winner who becomes the official  winner of FiK, but it's the televote win

  Czechia held their national final, ESCZ, last week. In a rather controversial result (our first sketchy voting totals of the year!), Aiko  took the win with her song "Pedestal". Here's the studio track: About the Artist Alena Shirmanova-Kostebelova, going by Aiko professionally, is a 23-year-old singer born in Moscow and raised in the western Czech spa town of Karlovy Vary. She didn't have a Wikipedia page until she was announced as the winner of ESCZ. Best Things We Lost Along the Way Voting discourse! The Czech results were determined by 70% international vote and 30% Czech vote - already an interesting choice. Aiko won the international vote in a landslide, but she was only 5th domestically. Is there a conspiracy? Does it matter that she was listed first on the confusing ballot and was easily accidentally clicked? Who knows. In any case, three other songs would have been solid options as well: Elly - "The Angel's Share"  (2nd)  an upbeat pop ballad