The present Croatian capital of Zagreb was the choice of Yugoslavia's broadcaster JRT as host city for the 1990 Eurovision Song Contest. 22 countries participated in the 1990 Eurovision Song Contest, the same ones as in 1989. Many of the songs were about the political changes in Europe like the fall of the Iron Curtain and a united Europe. Norway's song Brandenburger Tor and Austria's Keine Mauern Mehr reflected the German re-unification topic.

The Spanish performance was plagued by technical problems. First the backing track failed to play, then it was started too early. The delegation's conductor completely lost control and the Spanish duo, Azúcar Moreno, left the stage. The second attempt was successful and the duo ended up in fifth place. The Belgian entrant, Philippe Lafontaine, reached the 12th place with his song Macédomienne. Afterwards, he refused to release the CD as the song was a love token for his Macedonian wife, however he did release it years later to help a refugee project in Bosnia & Herzegovina. Eurovision veteran, Serge Gainsbourg, wrote the French entry White And Black Blues performed by Joelle Ursull which was a spectacular multicultural song with lots of African drumming. It ended up sharing the second place with Ireland.

The well-known Italian singer Toto Cutugno won this year's song contest with the song Insieme: 1992 which was about a united Europe in anticipation of the completion of the European Single Market, due at the end of 1992. Both the French and the Italian songs went on to be big hits in Europe and were played all summer long. Even nowadays, both songs are regarded as Eurovision evergreens.