For the second time in its history, the contest left Europe, and along the way it lost the orchestra. This is a catastrophic moment in Eurovision history. Let us take a moment to consider Ossi, Noel, and all we have lost as a consequence of this tragic decision. And now let us get on with things. Iceland gave us some mid-'90s pop-dance: kind of like Whigfield covering Gina G (with perhaps a hint of something a little more Dubstar if you squint), "All Out of Luck" begins with a curiously adorable days-of-the-week verse, goes into a dull bridge and then opens up into a memorable little chorus. Croatia and Germany had different ideas about how to curry favour: they appealed to the home crowd. Croatia's entry took a Spanish Ashkenazi approach to Jerusalem: suitably menacing but draped with dance-pop flourishes and a lot of pleasant "woa-o-o-oh"-ing (the singer, Doris Dragović, had previously represented Yugoslavia in 1986, when she looked a little less like she'd been broken free of the Ark of the Covenant and more like she'd escaped from an episode of Dynasty). Germany's appeal to Israel was considerably less subtle. Entitled "Journey to Jerusalem" in two languages, and sung in four (German, English, Turkish and Hebrew), it was penned by our dear friend Ralph Siegel (and was accused but acquitted of self-plagiarism of a 1984 work entitled "Where Does the Journey Go?"). The performing ensemble are Germano-Turkish (Eurovision gold in our eyes (Ibero-Finnish would perhaps be Eurovision platinum, but would perhaps also qualify simply as Finnish)), the song falling largely into the latter territory. For the second year running, the AView jury and Europe as a whole came to the same conclusion regarding the winning song. This time it came from Sweden, who had evidently decided to examine for inspiration their history-book on the shelf, and gave us a pink-marbled woman (looking a bit like that female muppet in Animal's band) performing something profoundly Roy Wood-en. The verse owes a little something to ELO's "Turn to Stone" while the chorus is rather more Wizzard ("I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day" very specifically). "Take Me To Your Heaven" is utter cheese, but it's a particularly rubbery sort of cheese that bounces with a pounding glam-rock rhythm and is veined with sax-stabs. The key-change is one of the more perfect examples through which we've been dragged. The whole thing is a fitting tribute to Birmingham, albeit a year late. For each year's songs we apply our points in the 12-10-8 style of the modern contest, irrespective of how the voting functioned at the time. In brackets is the position the song came on the night: HERE ARE THE VOTINGS OF THE AVIEW JURY: 12pts (1st) SWE Charlotte Nilsson "Take Me to Your Heaven" 10pts (3rd) GER Sürpriz "Reise nach Jerusalem - Kudüs'e seyahat" 8pts (4th) CRO Doris Dragović "Marija Magdalena" 7pts (2nd) ISL Selma "All Out of Luck" 6pts (16th) TUR Tuğba Önal & Grup Mistik "Dön Artık" 5pts (11th) SLO Darja Švajger "For A Thousand Years" 4pts (5th) ISR Eden "Yom Huledet (Happy Birthday)" (יום "הולדת) 3pts (14th) NOR Stig Van Eijk "Living My Life Without You" 2pts (=8th) NED Marlayne "One Good Reason" 1pt (23rd) ESP Lydia "No quiero escuchar" Europe had Iceland second, Germany third, Estonia sixth, Bosnia & Herzegovina seventh, Denmark joint-eighth, Austria 10th, the UK and Belgium joint-twelfth, Malta 15th, Ireland 17th, Poland 18th, France 19th, Lithuania 20th, Portugal 21st and Cyprus 22nd. To see our original thoughts, recorded on the night of the contest, click here.

The winner: Sweden's answer to Roy Wood. Iceland: All Out of Luck. Croatia's Doris Dragović. Chicco Özden expresses Sürpriz (...a typical German entry). CONTROVERSIES The language rule was dropped this year, along with orchestras. It was also announced this year that from 2000, the big four contributors to the EBU (France, Germany, Spain and the UK) would get automatic passage into the contest. Prior to the contest Bosnia and Herzegovina's original selection, Hari Mata Hari, were disqualified after their entry was discovered to have been released in Finland some years previously. Likewise Germany's original entrant, Corinna May, was disqualified after her song was found to have been released by a different act in 1997. Norway protested against Croatia's use of synthesized vocals. As a consequence their score was reduced for their relegation tally, but was maintained for the annual leaderboard.

Let's now take a snapshot of how the various nations did over the course of the 1990s. For the sake of comparison, the top ten places in the final official standings for each contest are assigned 12-10-8 style points. In the case of a tie for place, the nation that received the highest individual score from a single jury takes the place, and if no resolution is forthcoming from this method then the benefit goes to that nation which our own jury scored the higher. Any ties in the final tally are broken by average performance, and where that is the same they are broken by highest annual placing.

Alongside the '90s snapshot, we'll also take a look at the running total since 1957. Change since the '80s tally is given in brackets.