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Original poster

To Think the 90's Were The Best Decade We've Had?

221 replies

A4710Rider · 20/04/2018 10:50

Certainly from a personal point of view;

Real music with guitars and drums and everything.

The emergence of dance music.

Mobile phones hit the market place (it made it so much easier to meet people you met previously - instead of having to ring their house number and speak to their Dad)

We were even allowed to choose our own email address. [email protected]!

TV was great, as were the Films

The 80's were just depressing and the 00's were a non event.

OP posts:
800msprint · 20/04/2018 16:33

Oh god yes! I've been spending a few daydreams reminiscing about my freedom years. Also love my DH and kids but oh! For those years again!

spidey66 · 20/04/2018 16:42

I was born in 1966 (hence the username!).

I enjoyed the 80s for the music, films and fashions. I think it was a great decade to grow up in, at least in London where I was (and still am). BUT we had Mrs T as PM, which meant pit closures, and certain areas of the country suffering as a result. Interest rates were high, so though house prices were not as crazy as they are now, once you had a mortgage you were paying through the nose for it.

I started my nurse training in 1990, having worked first. I was one of the last nurses to train through the traditional route so was earning (though not much) and was living in nurses home to start with (no longer available) and then HA and a council property which are no longer as widely available, so had reasonable rents and my only debt at the end was my overdraft of £150. I loved my training, and enjoyed Britpop (Jarvis Cocker is still my hero!)

So....I would say both the 80s and 90s were good for me.

feelinggoodinspring · 20/04/2018 16:43

The 90s were always a very happy time for me because that was when most of my childhood happened. I was born right at the end of 1989.

Tink2007 · 20/04/2018 16:46

The late 1990s were the best for me. I was a baby of the 80’s and turned into a teenager in 1997.

Days of Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears and all other types of happy pop music fill my memories.

It just felt such a happier time.

Paintingtheroseswhite · 20/04/2018 16:48

Oh god yes.....absolutely fantastic time to be alive [wanders off humming the Happy Mondays]

cantstopfuckingeating · 20/04/2018 16:53

Yanbu
Music is pure shite these days... it will leave no legacy!
I loved the 90's!

RealityHasALiberalBias · 20/04/2018 16:55

Two words:

This Life.

Sometimes I still buy a bottle of Soave and pretend to be Anna.

OpenthePickles · 20/04/2018 17:02

This Life

Ooohhhh I forgot about This Life...loved it. Think I need to watch it again.

Helpmeplan · 20/04/2018 17:08

A4 are you localish to Aldershit now?

halfwitpicker · 20/04/2018 17:10

It was that snippet of time before social media ruined everything but we had enough tech to communicate our needs efficiently. So stuff happened but wasn't documented.

TheSconeOfStone · 20/04/2018 17:16

YANBU. I was 16 in 1990. Underage drinking in a small Cornish town, gigs and raves in Plymouth and Cornwall coliseum in st Austell. First festival was glasto after my a-levels, just wandered up to my local record shop with £50 in my hand a few weeks beforehand.

3 years of indie clubs and gigs at uni then London from ‘96 to ‘99. Gigs, cider, cheap travel.

Bought a doer upper for cheap in ‘99. Had to leave London for that though.

End of the Cold War, coming out of recession, Cool Brittania, grunge, Britpop, rave, folk rock. Loved it.

Bowlofbabelfish · 20/04/2018 17:19

Yes you could wear anything - I had short hair, long hair, tea dresses and boots, jeans, miniskirts, frocks and dubious makeup or none at all. The conformity now I find really interesting - it’s not a look I like but that’s not the point, it’s more that I wonder why all the girls look the same and dress the same? Their hair is the same. Where are the goths? The indie kids? The rockers?

It seems like it was a brief bright spot where blokes could wear frocks or jeans and still be men.

TV was great - x files, this life, Northern exposure...
Music was great - grunge, indie, britpop, tori amos... the films were great.

Everything was great. Bring back the nineties.

MaJiPe · 20/04/2018 17:31

I think the 90s were much cooler in the Uk than in the country I grew up in.

I was a child in the 80s and a teenager in the 90s, but I have to say I prefer 80s/90s movies and music by far - i'm not knocking a whole decade, though; 1991 was the year MTV started in my country (by then it would only play music, not stupid realities) and it really did leave a mark.

But I guess I started listening to the radio very early and my musical memory is populated by madonna in her prime, smiths, the cure, depeche mode, cindy lauper, siouxsie, a-ha, culture club, cocteau twins, britpop, synthpop and the like.

Mivery · 20/04/2018 17:31

This very clearly comes from someone who grew up in the '90s Wink The '00s were a non-event? Come now.

Every decade has something special about it to reminisce fondly on.

WingsOnMyBoots · 20/04/2018 17:58

Yes I think it depends on your age! I was born mid 60's so really my childhood memories and younger years are 70's and 80's. The 90's are a bit of a non-event for me.

CPtart · 20/04/2018 18:06

Amazing decade the 90's. I qualified as a nurse in 1993 and then went back to uni to do a degree full time, getting both a student grant and a decent salary working night shifts on the bank.
I was early 20's, felt and looked good. Great music. Met DH. So many happy memories and no social media obsession.

Strokethefurrywall · 20/04/2018 18:32

I fucking loved the 90's and agree it was the best decade, so young and carefree. I was born in 1979 so came of age through the 90's and it's definitely the decade with the most memories for me:

  • My So Called Life on TV
  • Euro 96
  • My sister and I having our birthday party at home and everyone coming for a house party and headbanging to Smells Like Teen Spirit
  • We were all in love with Eddie Vedder
  • Amazing bands
  • the long hot summer of 95
  • Baby Doll dresses
  • Heartbreak High on TV
  • Front row at Silverchairs first London gig at LA II and Daniel Johns throwing his shirt at me... the list is just endless

and later in the decade, going to music college and spending days lying in the sun playing guitars and/or getting stoned in my friend's flat.

I remember the years from my 15th - 18th birthdays the clearest, it really felt like the entire decade was one long endless summer!

Thefirsttulip · 20/04/2018 18:37

I so agree op! The days when you could harmlessly drink in pubs/get served in off licences. Nowadays you have to be at least 35 before they won't ID you for alcohol. The music was good, it had something for everyone; cheesy pop, dance/club, hip hop, boy bands, girl bands, indie, britpop, grunge. It was all there!

I have a strong feeling though that the '20s are going to be a similar decade! I think this generation will come up with amazing music/fashion and politics will be turned on its head!

The 00s were just - meh.

It's all about the 20s people! Mark my words!

Strokethefurrywall · 20/04/2018 18:45

Wait wait, I've just thought of a couple more...

  • The Big Breakfast with Johnny Vaughn and Denise Van Outen;
  • Dodgy - Staying Out for the Summer
  • Will Smith - Summertime
  • Skunk Anansie (best band ever!)

I heard Summertime the other day and I rolled my window down, cranked it and sang along. Didn't quite have the same effect as it used to given I was dropping my kids to school...

gateto · 20/04/2018 18:47

I was born at the very start of the 90s so I suppose didn't have the fun time in my teens then (just the spice girls tshirts worn to non uniform day in primary school alongside my tellytubbies jelly shoes) but regularly say to my parents I wish I could go back to the 90s, they look at me like I'm mad!

Thirtyrock39 · 20/04/2018 18:55

Loved Euro 96- Chris Evans breakfast show playing the hilights every morning over songs like 'she said' that whole summer was brill

Used to get the nme every week and buy all the recommended singles on 7 inch on Monday mornings

I also loved all the britpop fashion- girls with short hair and Adidas tracksuits being sex symbols so much healthier and realistic role models than Kardashians etc (although i have read that a lot of the britpop girls were all on heroin so maybe not actually that healthy!!)

Thirtyrock39 · 20/04/2018 18:57

Agree with saucyjane that it makes you feel old when you realise we are now like our parents being nostalgic about the 60s!

Marmite27 · 20/04/2018 18:58

I had ALL my teens in the 90’s, as I was an 80’s baby.

I look back to the 90’s with immense fondness.

We instructed our wedding DH to bring lots of 90’s dance, because we wanted a race when the oldies went to bed. DJ was chuffed he got to play at being Pete Tong at The Ministry for the night. Grin

My iconic 90’s song wasn’t my favourite back then, but evokes so many memories now.

N-trance - Only Love Can Set You Free.

Thirtyrock39 · 20/04/2018 19:02

Trainspotting posters and everyone reading Bridget jones (the film didn't come out till the 00s)

ForalltheSaints · 20/04/2018 19:10

I think it was probably the decade where people were the most optimistic, certainly in the UK.

Work for me was not good (made redundant three times, left another job after major fall out with the MD), but life outside work was. Agree with some others about music, not so sure about fashion (I am on a music video and seeing me in 1998 is not good), and also about the lack of selfies.