Yes, that is significant, not only because several songs this year reference this fact, but also because there was just a giant wave of pro-European sentiment washing through Europe, which is very much reflected in this year’s winner. My poor, bleeding, post-Brexit heart can barely take it.
So, we’re in Zagreb, Yugoslavia, which is of course in Croatia nowadays. Apparently the whole hosting was a mostly Croatian affair, mainly because the various Serbian people who were slated to be involved (a presenter, the conductor) were starting to receive death threats. The pro-European wave of love for one’s neighbours clearly didn’t feed through into the host country itself, given that it fell apart a few years later. (I don’t really want to get into that because politics, but it wasn’t pretty.)
One thing we find out (repeatedly) from this contest is that 1990 was the European Year of Tourism, meaning that the postcards are all images from the competing country, showing off that country’s most appealing touristy spots. At least, I guess that’s what the brief was – some countries succeeded better than others. The postcards also featured Eurocat – possibly the worst-drawn cartoon cat I’ve ever seen. There were twenty-two competing countries (the same line-up as in 1989), and while there was no nul points entry this year, two countries shared last place. There were also two countries sharing second place – one totally deserved, one not. We’ll get to that.
1. Spain – Bandido – Azucar Moreno – Contest ranking: 5th – My ranking: 1st
This had a very bad start – first nothing at all happened, then the backing track started midway through the song, leaving all performers as well as the orchestra very confused. Luckily they simply started again, allowing the two Spanish ladies to properly deliver this absolute banger of a song. It’s fast and catchy, with Spanish guitars and castanets. Basically it’s as Spanish as paella, but without the excess ethnicity that made Quien Maneja mi Barca so hard to listen to. I’ve loved this song from the moment I first heard it four years ago, and it’s a firm fixture on my ‘every song I like’ playlist. Brilliant start to the contest, but unfortunately with the best song coming first, everything is mostly downhill from here.
2. Greece – Horis Skopo – Christos Callow – Contest ranking: 19th – My ranking: 20th
An overdramatic ballad by a singer with a massive mullet. It seems we’re not rid of the DAF ballads just yet.
3. Belgium – Macédomienne – Philippe Lafontaine – Contest ranking: 12th – My ranking: 3rd
This is very subdued and I’d call it a sad-boy ballad, but in this case the B-word isn’t actually a bad thing. There’s harmonies, it’s in minor key and it has a lovely melody. Believe it or not, I actually like this song!
4. Turkey – Gözlerinin Hapsindeyim – Kayahan – Contest ranking: 17th – My ranking: 8th
This is overall quite pleasant and easy listening (much more so than last year), but it’s also a little underwhelming. I like the accordions and there’s an occasional nice ‘halayla’ being sung, but there’s nothing here that truly wows me.
5. Netherlands – Ik Wil Alles Met Je Delen – Maywood – Contest ranking: 15th – My ranking: 15th
This song is a little bit Belgium, but worse, and a little bit Greece, but better. What that means is that this is a sad-girl powerballad which really just doesn’t do much for me. I don’t really hate it, but it’s just a bit DAF.
6. Luxembourg – Quand Je Te Rêve – Céline Carzo – Contest ranking: 13th – My ranking: 21st
Yet another DAF ballad, plus Céline is trying too hard (and failing) to bring some classic French vibrato into her voice. As a result she sounds off-key, and overall it’s just pretty terrible.
7. United Kingdom – Give a Little Love Back to the World – Emma – Contest ranking: 6th – My ranking: 19th
Oh Emma, that’s a dreadful, dreadful hairdo, and your song is a saccharinely sappy peace-ballad thing that you don’t sing very well. I’m going to call this DAF, and wonder very loudly whether you’d have ended this high if you’d been forced to sing in, I don’t know, Welsh or something.
8. Iceland – Eit Lagg Enn – Stjórnin – Contest ranking: 4th – My ranking: 6th
Thankfully this is an upbeat song, because I’m all balladed out right now. I guess Iceland were inspired by last year’s Rock Me Baby, because this has that same kind of quality to it. It’s not unpleasant, but fairly forgettable.
9. Norway – Brandenburger Tor – Ketil Stokkan – Contest ranking: 21st – My ranking: 14th
The first song about the fall of the Wall (hard to miss, with a title like that), which clearly didn’t help them score well. The verses are definitely DAF ballad territory, but the chorus speeds up and sounds a little better. Unfortunately the chorus also suffers from title repetitis, and it’s just a little dull overall. There’s a bit near the end that’s sort of nice, where the music mostly drops away, but overall I’m still not that impressed.
10. Israel – Shara Barkhovot – Rita – Contest ranking: 18th – My ranking: 22nd
Another country that chose to give us DAF drama, and also with a singer who doesn’t really sound like she’s very good. This is Luxembourg mark two, really, but worse.
11. Denmark – Hallo Hallo – Lonnie Devantier – Contest ranking: 8th – My ranking: 5th
Denmark clearly decided that they were doing well enough with the upbeat entries, so they brought more of the same. The background dancers are a little frenetic, but the song itself is nice enough in an ‘in one ear, out the other’ kind of way.
12. Switzerland – Musik Klingt in die Welt Hinaus – Egon Egemann – Contest ranking: 11th – My ranking: 9th
Egon is a dude in white with a white violin who keeps repeating the lines he sings on said violin, but in the same way that I sing along to a song that’s slightly outside my range: I have to skip an octave up or down whenever I can’t reach the right note. Given that that shouldn’t be necessary on a violin, I find it rather distracting. I suppose he’s not too bad for a proto-Alexander Rybak, but overall this just isn’t anything special.
13. Germany – Frei zu Leben – Chris Kempers & Daniel Kovac – Contest ranking: 9th – My ranking: 18th
This is an ultra-dull, post wall-collapse thing that I’m sure is supposed to be all rousing and uplifting, but in reality is just very, very DAF. Yawn.
14. France – White and Black Blues – Joëlle Ursull – Contest ranking: 2nd – My ranking: 2nd
This is very, very different, and in a very good way. It’s got a three-quarter calypso beat, interesting instrumentation and a drum break in the middle. I find the ending a little abrupt (I’m actually surprised that Cookiefonster didn’t complain about that in his review), but this really is not just a very unusual, but also a very good song. Interesting note: Joëlle was (or became) part of the French group Zouk Machine, who had a pretty big hit around this time with Maldon. Check it out, it’s a cool song.
15. Yugoslavia – Hajde da Ludujemo – Tajči – Contest ranking: 7th – My ranking: 13th
This is more or less the same song as what they gave us last year, but with a worse singer in a horrible pink dress. I think she’s trying to be Marilyn Monroe, but she lacks the charisma and all she does is annoy me. Aside from that the song is just very middling.
16. Portugal – Há Sempre Alguém – Nucha – Contest ranking: 20th – My ranking: 12th
Yet another singer who can’t sing all that well, although she improves somewhat along the way. Still, this is one more very middling not-a-ballad that I won’t remember a thing about when it stops.
17. Ireland – Somewhere in Europe – Liam Reilly – Contest ranking: 2nd – My ranking: 16th
I wish the juries back then would stop rewarding Ireland for sending these godawful DAF ballads. This one is a raspy-voiced-with-a-piano ballad-by-numbers, and god fucking knows how it ended up sharing second place with France, who actually brought something different.
18. Sweden – Som en Vind – Eden-Ådahl – Contest ranking: 16th – My ranking: 17th
Wow, I thought Greece had a mullet, but this guy would absolutely win in a mullet-off. Yes, I know there’s four of them, but you know which one I mean. Anyway, this is Ireland times four – a raspy-voiced DAF ballad, except there’s four of them and no piano.
19. Italy – Insieme: 1992 – Toto Cutugno – Contest ranking: 1st – My ranking: 7th
This is a song about the then-impending start of the European Union proper, and while I appreciate the sentiment, this is basically just another over-dramatic peace ballad, with the added downside that it gave us Toto Cutugno. (You’ll find out why this was a bad thing next year.) Maybe the chorus is just a little bit better than that of all the other over-dramatic ballads, and likely the wave of pro-European sentiment (*quiet sob*) that followed the fall of the Berlin Wall carried this further than it otherwise would have gone, but it’s just not really up my street. If you want a good song by Toto Cutugno, stick to l’Italiano – that’s a classic that’s actually very much worth listening to.
20. Austria – Keine Mauern Mehr – Simone – Contest ranking: 10th – My ranking: 10th
Another ‘the Wall has fallen’ song with a singer in a dress that looks like a giant sweet wrapper. It started off as a DAF ballad but then sped up, thankfully. It doesn’t make it much better, but at least it lifts it out of plain DAF level.
21. Cyprus – Milas Poli – Anastasiou – Contest ranking: 14th – My ranking: 11th
This is not a ballad, but it’s so dreadfully middling that it might as well be a DAF ballad.
22. Finland – Fri? – Beat – Contest ranking: 21st – My ranking: 4th
I find this a little difficult to place. They have hair like a bunch of rockers, but the song is kind of generic pop, except it then has a decent melody here and there, making it not quite as MOR as the rest of the generic pop tonight. Whatever you make of it, it was yet another shamefully low result for Finland, given that there were much worse songs here tonight.
Not a terrible year, to my standards. There’s three songs that I actually like, which is more than in many a previous year. The winning song could have gone to France, but the simple fact is that, as unique as France’s song is, I just like Spain’s unapologetic flamenco banger better. The interval act was… well, not there really. All we got was something like a tourist promotional video in light of the European Year of Tourism, just in case we’d missed that that’s what 1990 was. On we go, to the infamous hosting of 1991…
My list of winners:
- Luxembourg – 4 (1956, 1965, 1972, 1973)
- Belgium – 1 (1957)
- Italy – 2 (1958, 1964)
- United Kingdom – 4 (1959, 1961, 1967, 1981)
- Monaco – 1 (1960)
- Netherlands – 4 (1962, 1969, 1971, 1975)
- Denmark – 1 (1963)
- Norway – 2 (1966, 1985)
- Spain – 2 (1968, 1990)
- France – 3 (1970, 1976, 1977)
- Sweden – 1 (1974)
- Israel – 3 (1978, 1987, 1988)
- Germany – 2 (1979, 1982)
- Ireland – 1 (1980)
- Yugoslavia – 1 (1983)
- Turkey – 1 (1984)
- Cyprus – 1 (1986)
- Finland – 1 (1989)
Actual winners that I agree with: 16 out of 35.
Theft and Sorcery 
You sure love to make food analogies when saying how (insert nationality here) a song is. The 2007 final had a song that’s extremely, extremely Irish, but Ireland isn’t known for its cuisine, so I instead said it’s as Irish as a leprechaun playing a fiddle in a pub. I’m nowhere close to done reviewing the final yet: only 8 songs out of 24. Anyway you’re right, Spain this year is more of what Quien Maneja Mi Barca should’ve been.
People often say that rules are made to be broken, and I think that phrase applies to “Erica hates ballads”. It also applies to “Cookiefonster loves Balkan ballads”, as you’ll see in my 2007 final review. Maybe part of why you prefer Balkan ballads so much is because they’re pretty much always in minor key. But also because of the lovely instrumentation of course.
The ending of France’s song is rather abrupt, but at least it has some semblance of being a proper ending. Still, if I had composed this song I would’ve put more effort into the ending. The other French creole song you linked is totally upbeat, the kind of song this era of Eurovision should’ve had more of! But they would’ve probably flubbed it with the staging. Listening to French creoles feels strange because sometimes I hear multiple intelligible words in a row, other times I go “uh what?”
Speaking of ballads, Ireland got just as shamelessly awarded for their ballads back then as Sweden does with their swedo-pop these days. Specifically awarded by juries, in both cases. And in both cases I’m annoyed that the countries didn’t/don’t vary their musical styles that often. I’m curious whether you will like the Irish entry for 2024. It’s extremely different from the last few Irish entries and I don’t know whether you will love it or hate it. You probably won’t feel neutral about it.
I never heard L’italiano, it’s way better than Insieme. It’s got that Italian musical magic to it.
Eurovision 1990 might hold the award for dullest interval act of all time. It wasn’t really an interval act, more of an opening film placed in the interval because apparently it didn’t occur to the broadcaster to do something fun, like Balkan folk dancing. Riverdance is the definitive Eurovision interval act, just as Dancing Lasha Tumbai is the definitive Eurovision song.
Next up you have 1991, the year that everyone and their cousin has an opinion on. It should be fun to review, because the song lineup was pretty great! But after that is 1992, the year that everyone and their cousin agrees was boring as fuck.
Hey, what can I say? I like food, and I like pretty much any food. There’s the odd exception, just like there’s the odd exception of a ballad that I don’t hate. And yes, it being in minor key helps a lot – I do seem to prefer minor key music. (It’s probably no surprise that my favourite classical composer is Chopin.)
I hear what you say about Sweden, and it mostly annoys me because all the juries just seem to prefer that kind of successful but soulless pop. I really wish they’d enforce some musical variety in the juries, then it would mirror the make-up of the televote more. Last year’s jury vote was so boring, and I still don’t understand why they loved Israel so much. I mean, it was a nice enough song, but I really didn’t think it was that good.
My Irish friend has mentioned this year’s Irish entry to me, and she doesn’t think it will qualify, but I’m still going to resist the temptation to listen to it. I’m not even going to listen to Joost Klein’s song when it comes out tomorrow, even though I’m dying to find out whether I’ll like it or not.
Anyway, I don’t think you’ll find anyone in Europe (above a certain age) who doesn’t know l’Italiano. It’s one of those songs that was a massive hit all over Europe, and that continues to be played to this day, especially around the Mediterranean. It’s the only thing I’ll forgive Toto Cutugno for. That said, I’m actually looking forward to reviewing 1991 – I’ll have a lot to say about it!
Chopin’s music is great. His piano pieces look deceptively simple, but when you actually play them they’re a real challenge on the fingers. But that’s why they’re rewarding to master.
Oh, I HATED the jury voting sequence last year. It was basically just “our 12 points go to Sweden” over and over again, so goddamn repetitive. But as you said in your Reddit review, at least it’s better than the bland entries Sweden sent the previous few years. I once watched an hour-long video by ThePeaceAround analyzing the 2023 jury results and researching the names behind the juries. The conclusion she arrived at was that the juries were vastly dominated by pop music experts. That could also be why Israel did so well.
I’m totally baffled by the winner of the German national final this year—it somehow won the jury and televote, even though a different song that screams jury bait was right there. I thought the jury bait song (Oh Boy by Ryk) had the potential to reach the left side of the scoreboard, but then again I thought the same about Lord of the Lost and look where that brought them.
And I have a Swedish friend who’s salty about the winner of Melodifestivalen 2013 (which won the jury vote) and vastly prefers the runner-up (Heartbreak Hotel, which won the televote). My friend is also salty about the winner of Melfest 2010 (This Is My Life, a godawful soppy ballad), but that song actually won the televote some-fucking-how. The runner-up of 2010 (Keep on Walking by Salem Al Fakir) is one hell of a banger.