1990 Eurovision Song Contest
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The Eurovision Song Contest 1990 was the 35th edition of the
Eurovision Song Contest The Eurovision Song Contest (), often known simply as Eurovision, is an international Music competition, song competition organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) among its members since 1956. Each participating broadcaster ...
, held on 5 May 1990 in the
Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall () is a large concert hall and convention center in Zagreb, Croatia. It is named after Vatroslav Lisinski, a 19th-century Croatian composer. The building has a big hall with 1,841 seats and a small hall with 305 s ...
in
Zagreb Zagreb ( ) is the capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Croatia#List of cities and towns, largest city of Croatia. It is in the Northern Croatia, north of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the ...
,
Yugoslavia , common_name = Yugoslavia , life_span = 1918–19921941–1945: World War II in Yugoslavia#Axis invasion and dismemberment of Yugoslavia, Axis occupation , p1 = Kingdom of SerbiaSerbia , flag_p ...
. Organised by the
European Broadcasting Union The European Broadcasting Union (EBU; , UER) is an alliance of Public broadcasting, public service media organisations in countries within the European Broadcasting Area (EBA) or who are member states of the Council of Europe, members of the ...
(EBU) and host broadcaster (RTV Zagreb) on behalf of (JRT), and presented by Oliver Mlakar and Helga Vlahović, the contest was held in Yugoslavia following the country's victory at the with the song " Rock Me" by the group Riva. It was the first contest to be held in the
Balkans The Balkans ( , ), corresponding partially with the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throug ...
and the only to be held in a
socialist state A socialist state, socialist republic, or socialist country is a sovereign state constitutionally dedicated to the establishment of socialism. This article is about states that refer to themselves as socialist states, and not specifically ...
. Twenty-two countries participated in the contest, with the same countries that had participated in 1989 returning. The 1990 contest was the first to implement an age limit on the competing performers, following criticism of the participation of two child performers in the previous year's event; all artists were now required to reach the age of sixteen within the year of the contest. The winner was for the second time in its history, with the song " Insieme: 1992", written and performed by
Toto Cutugno Salvatore "Toto" Cutugno (; 7 July 1943 – 22 August 2023) was an Italian Italian popular music, pop singer-songwriter, musician, and television presenter. He was best known for his worldwide hit song, "", released on his 1983 album of the sam ...
. and shared second place, with and rounding out the top five countries. France and Spain both placed within the top 5 for the first time in several years, while Iceland recorded their best ever result.


Location

The 1990 contest took place in
Zagreb Zagreb ( ) is the capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Croatia#List of cities and towns, largest city of Croatia. It is in the Northern Croatia, north of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the ...
,
Yugoslavia , common_name = Yugoslavia , life_span = 1918–19921941–1945: World War II in Yugoslavia#Axis invasion and dismemberment of Yugoslavia, Axis occupation , p1 = Kingdom of SerbiaSerbia , flag_p ...
, following the country's victory at the with the song " Rock Me", performed by the group Riva. It was the first time that Yugoslavia had hosted the contest, and marked the first time the contest had been held in the
Balkans The Balkans ( , ), corresponding partially with the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throug ...
and the first edition to be held in a
socialist state A socialist state, socialist republic, or socialist country is a sovereign state constitutionally dedicated to the establishment of socialism. This article is about states that refer to themselves as socialist states, and not specifically ...
. The chosen venue was the
Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall () is a large concert hall and convention center in Zagreb, Croatia. It is named after Vatroslav Lisinski, a 19th-century Croatian composer. The building has a big hall with 1,841 seats and a small hall with 305 s ...
(), named after the 19th-century Croatian composer
Vatroslav Lisinski Vatroslav Lisinski (, 8 July 1819 – 31 May 1854) was a Croatian composer. Lisinski was born Ignatius Fuchs to a German Jewish family. He would later change his name to Vatroslav Lisinski, which is a Croatian calque of his original name. For ...
and whose main hall has an audience capacity of over 1,800. Constructed between 1963 and 1971, the venue underwent significant renovation ahead of hosting the Eurovision Song Contest.


Participants

The same twenty-two countries which had participated in 1989 returned for the 1990 contest; this marked the first time since that no changes to the composition of the competing countries were made compared to the previous event. Among the competing artists in this year's event was Ketil Stokkan, who had also represented . Additionally, Kari Kuivalainen, who had represented , returned as a backing vocalist for the Finnish group Beat, and the Slovene group supported Italy's
Toto Cutugno Salvatore "Toto" Cutugno (; 7 July 1943 – 22 August 2023) was an Italian Italian popular music, pop singer-songwriter, musician, and television presenter. He was best known for his worldwide hit song, "", released on his 1983 album of the sam ...
as backing vocalists, having previously represented . Many of the competing songs made reference to the changing political and social landscape across the
European continent Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the eas ...
following revolutions in Central and Eastern European countries in 1989 and spoke of the future of the European continent. The and entries referenced the increasing freedoms experienced by citizens in countries formerly under repressive regimes, the and entries harked back to the
fall of the Berlin Wall The fall of the Berlin Wall (, ) on 9 November in German history, 9 November 1989, during the Peaceful Revolution, marked the beginning of the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the figurative Iron Curtain, as East Berlin transit restrictions we ...
six months prior and the opening of frontiers along the
Iron Curtain The Iron Curtain was the political and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. On the east side of the Iron Curtain were countries connected to the So ...
between east and west Europe, while the made reference to the planned signing of the
Maastricht Treaty The Treaty on European Union, commonly known as the Maastricht Treaty, is the foundation treaty of the European Union (EU). Concluded in 1992 between the then-twelve Member state of the European Union, member states of the European Communities, ...
in 1992 which would form the
European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...
and lead to greater
European integration European integration is the process of political, legal, social, regional and economic integration of states wholly or partially in Europe, or nearby. European integration has primarily but not exclusively come about through the European Union ...
. Other social and political messages were also present among the competing entries, including a message for racial harmony from , an ode to the environment from the , and 's
Philippe Lafontaine Philippe Lafontaine (born 24 May 1955) is a Belgian singer and composer. Biography Lafontaine was born in Gosselies, Belgium. He spent a short time in a Jesuit college that he left at 17 to pursue a career in music. His first successes came fro ...
presenting a love song for his Macedonian wife.


Production

The Eurovision Song Contest 1990 was produced by the Yugoslav public broadcaster (RTV Zagreb) on behalf of (JRT). Goran Radman served as executive producer, Nenad Puhovski served as director, Zvjezdana Kvočić served as designer, Seadeta Midžić served as musical director, and
Igor Kuljerić Igor Kuljerić (February 1, 1938 – April 20, 2006) was an important Croatian composer and conductor. His large opus followed the stylistic changes and evolutions of 20th and 21st century music. Biography Born in the coastal city of Šibenik ...
served as conductor leading an assembled orchestra, with assistance from . A separate musical director could be appointed by each broadcaster to lead the orchestra during their performance, with the host conductors also available to conduct for those which did not appoint their own conductor. On behalf of the contest organisers, the
European Broadcasting Union The European Broadcasting Union (EBU; , UER) is an alliance of Public broadcasting, public service media organisations in countries within the European Broadcasting Area (EBA) or who are member states of the Council of Europe, members of the ...
(EBU), the event was overseen by Frank Naef as
scrutineer A scrutineer (also called a poll-watcher or a challenger in the United States) is a person who observes any process that requires rigorous oversight. Scrutineers are responsible for preventing corruption and detecting genuine mistakes and problem ...
. Over 400 journalists covered the event. The overall costs to organise the contest was about 6 million Yugoslav dinars. Following the confirmation of the twenty-two competing countries, the draw to determine the running order of the contest was held on 10 November 1989. Rehearsals for the participating artists began on 30 April 1990. Two technical rehearsals were conducted for each participating delegation in the week approaching the contest, with countries rehearsing in the order in which they would perform. The first rehearsals, comprising 15 minutes for stage set-up and 35 minutes for performances, were held on 30 April and 1 May. Following these rehearsals each delegation was provided an opportunity to watch back recordings of their performances and engage in a press conference. Each country's second rehearsals were held on 2 and 3 May and lasted 35 minutes total, followed by another viewing session and press conference. Three dress rehearsals were held with all artists, two held in the afternoon and evening of 4 May and one final rehearsal in the afternoon of 5 May. An audience was present during the two dress rehearsals held on 4 May; the final dress rehearsal on 5 May was also recorded for use as a production standby for use should broadcast of the live event became impossible. During the week of rehearsals, problems arose regarding the choice of presenters for the event. Oliver Mlakar and Helga Vlahović had been selected to host the contest, officially announced publicly in March 1990, however a second couple, Rene Medvešek and , had also been chosen as a reserve hosting pair. No agreement on which duo would host the contest had been settled going into the rehearsal week however, and
screen test A screen test is a method of determining the suitability of an actor or actress for performing on film or in a particular role. It is typically a secondary or later stage in the audition process. The performer is generally given a scene, or sel ...
s of the voting sequence with the contest's executive supervisor Frank Naef were scheduled to determine which of the pairings would get the job. The ages of Mlakar and Vlahović, respectively 54 and 45 years old at the time, had also resulted in criticism from press outlets ahead of the contest. Subsequently, Mlakar and Vlahović walked away during rehearsals on the Wednesday before the event and announced their resignations as show hosts, leading to a hastily arranged press conference to announce Medvešek and Marković as their replacements. Meetings held behind closed doors over the following 24 hours however led to Mlakar and Vlahović returning to the contest as the show's presenters. For the first time in its history the contest featured an official
mascot A mascot is any human, animal, or object thought to bring luck, or anything used to represent a group with a common public identity, such as a school, sports team, university society, society, military unit, or brand, brand name. Mascots are als ...
, "Eurocat", an animated
anthropomorphic Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities. It is considered to be an innate tendency of human psychology. Personification is the related attribution of human form and characteristics to ...
cat created by the Croatian illustrator Joško Marušić. Eurocat featured within the video postcards which served as an introduction to each country's entry, as well as providing an opportunity for transition between entries and allow stage crew to make changes on stage. The postcards for the 1990 contest centered around the theme of
tourism Tourism is travel for pleasure, and the Commerce, commercial activity of providing and supporting such travel. World Tourism Organization, UN Tourism defines tourism more generally, in terms which go "beyond the common perception of tourism as ...
, in conjunction with 1990 being the European Year of Tourism; each participating country commissioned their own postcard to highlight their country as a tourist destination, with Eurocat introducing these clips while highlighting cultural
stereotype In social psychology, a stereotype is a generalization, generalized belief about a particular category of people. It is an expectation that people might have about every person of a particular group. The type of expectation can vary; it can ...
s associated with the competing countries. With the advent of
music video A music video is a video that integrates a song or an album with imagery that is produced for promotion (marketing), promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a music marketing device intended to ...
s during the 1980s, the television production of the contest also adapted to new aesthetics as it entered the 1990s; in contrast to previous editions, the 1990 contest saw an increased use of dynamic camera direction, with footage captured from cameras moving to and around the stage during the performances and showing angles that could not be seen by spectators in the auditorium. This change in the visual aesthetics was part of a transition which made elaborately staged performances possible, bearing similarities to music videos and which went on to develop throughout the 1990s and into editions of the contest held during the twenty-first century.


Format

Each participating broadcaster submitted one song, which was required to be no longer than three minutes in duration and performed in the language, or one of the languages, of the country which it represented. A maximum of six performers were allowed on stage during each country's performance. Each entry could utilise all or part of the live orchestra and could use instrumental-only
backing track A backing track is an audio recording on audiotape, CD or a digital recording medium or a MIDI recording of synthesized instruments, sometimes of purely rhythmic accompaniment, often of a rhythm section or other accompaniment parts that live m ...
s, however any backing tracks used could only include the sound of instruments featured on stage being mimed by the performers. The 1990 contest was the first to implement restrictions on the age of the performers, following criticism of the young age of the and entrants in the previous year's contest, 12-year-old and 11-year-old Nathalie Pâque respectively. For the 1990 event performers were required to be at least 16 years old in the year they competed in the event; although the United Kingdom had selected 15-year-old Emma as their representative, as she turned 16 later in the year she was still eligible to compete. The introduction of this rule, which remains in effect but which now specifies that the contestant must be 16 years old on the day of the contest final, means that
Sandra Kim Sandra Caldarone (born 15 October 1972), better known as Sandra Kim, is a Belgian singer of Italian descent who won the Eurovision Song Contest 1986 in Bergen, Norway. Her father was an Italian immigrant from Torrebruna in the Province of Chie ...
, who won the contest for at the age of 13, will hold the record of the youngest ever Eurovision winner in perpetuity, barring any further changes to the rule. The results of the 1990 contest were determined through the same scoring system as had first been introduced in : each country awarded twelve points to its favourite entry, followed by ten points to its second favourite, and then awarded points in decreasing value from eight to one for the remaining songs which featured in the country's top ten, with countries unable to vote for their own entry. The points awarded by each country were determined by an assembled jury of sixteen individuals, who were all required to be members of the public with no connection to the music industry, split evenly between men and women and by age. Each jury member voted in secret and awarded between one and ten votes to each participating song, excluding that from their own country and with no abstentions permitted. The votes of each member were collected following the country's performance and then tallied by the non-voting jury chairperson to determine the points to be awarded. In any cases where two or more songs in the top ten received the same number of votes, a show of hands by all jury members was used to determine the final placing.


Contest overview

The contest took place on 5 May 1990 at 21:00 ( CEST) with a duration of 2 hours and 47 minutes and was presented by Oliver Mlakar and Helga Vlahović. The contest was opened with a pre-recorded film entitled ''Zagreb: City of Music'', which showcased various locations in Zagreb and featured performances of various musical styles and genres. Another pre-recorded film featured during the interval between the competing entries and the voting sequence; entitled ''Yugoslav Changes'', which highlighted the various cultures, landscapes, cuisines and industries within Yugoslavia. The trophy awarded to the winners was presented at the end of the broadcast by the contest's executive producer Goran Radman. The contest's first entry suffered from a technical incident. The conductor of the Spanish entry was unable to hear the backing track, as the sound engineers had failed to raise the volume of the tape, and could not cue the orchestra to commence on time. When the volume was eventually raised the track was already partway through the song, meaning the orchestra and performers were out of sync with the tape, resulting in the two Salazar sisters of Azúcar Moreno leaving the stage as the backing tape continued to play. The tape was ultimately reset and the performance restarted with no further issues. The winner was represented by the song " Insieme: 1992", written and performed by
Toto Cutugno Salvatore "Toto" Cutugno (; 7 July 1943 – 22 August 2023) was an Italian Italian popular music, pop singer-songwriter, musician, and television presenter. He was best known for his worldwide hit song, "", released on his 1983 album of the sam ...
. It was Italy's second win in the contest, following their first victory in . At 46 years old Cutugno became the oldest Eurovision winner at that point. achieved their first top 5 placing since , placing equal second with , while 's fourth place finish was the country's best ever result to that point. also achieved their best finish since , placing fifth. The 1990 contest marks the last time that the future " Big Five" countries all placed within the top 10: alongside Italy's first place, France's equal second place and Spain's fifth place finish, the placed sixth and placed ninth.


Spokespersons

Each participating broadcaster appointed a spokesperson, connected to the contest venue via
telephone line A telephone line or telephone circuit (or just line or circuit industrywide) is a single-user circuit on a telephone communication system. It is designed to reproduce speech of a quality that is understandable. It is the physical wire or oth ...
s and responsible for announcing, in English or French, the votes for its respective country. Known spokespersons at the 1990 contest are listed below. * Anna Partelidou * Solveig Herlin * Eileen Dunne * Joop van Os * * Colin Berry


Detailed voting results

Jury voting was used to determine the points awarded by all countries. The announcement of the results from each country was conducted in the order in which they performed, with the spokespersons announcing their country's points in English or French in ascending order. The detailed breakdown of the points awarded by each country is listed in the tables below.


12 points

The below table summarises how the maximum 12 points were awarded from one country to another. The winning country is shown in bold. France received the maximum score of 12 points from six of the voting countries, with Italy receiving three sets of 12 points, Iceland, Ireland, Switzerland and Yugoslavia receiving two sets of maximum scores each, and Austria, Germany, Luxembourg, Spain and the United Kingdom each receiving one maximum score.


Broadcasts

Each participating broadcaster was required to relay the contest via its networks. Non-participating member broadcasters were also able to relay the contest as "passive participants". Broadcasters were able to send commentators to provide coverage of the contest in their own native language and to relay information about the artists and songs to their television viewers. These commentators were typically sent to the venue to report on the event, and were able to provide commentary from small booths constructed at the back of the venue. The contest was reportedly broadcast in 37 countries, with a number of non-participating broadcasting countries name-checked by Helga Vlahović during the event, specifically Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Japan, Poland, Romania, South Korea and the Soviet Union. The contest was also reportedly broadcast in Tunisia and other countries in Africa. Reports at the time indicated that the estimated global audience could be as high as 600 million viewers, with Vlahović also mentioning that the contest could be seen by as many as one billion people. Known details on the broadcasts in each country, including the specific broadcasting stations and commentators are shown in the tables below.


Notes and references


Notes


References


Bibliography

* * * * * * * * *


External links

* {{Eurovision Song Contest
1990 Important events of 1990 include the Reunification of Germany and the unification of Yemen, the formal beginning of the Human Genome Project (finished in 2003), the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope, the separation of Namibia from South ...
Music festivals in Yugoslavia 1990 in music 1990 in Yugoslavia 1990s in Zagreb 1990 in Croatia May 1990 in Europe Events in Zagreb Music festivals in Zagreb