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

[A4710Rider]

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.

The 90's was a ten year long party for my best friend and I.

A4 sheets of acid tabs, bricks of cannabis and barrels of snakebite and black with depth chargers.

We had fun eating magic mushroom curry, whilst listening to the likes of the orb, waterboys, levelers and ozric tentacles playing live, dressed as rainbow butterflies.

Then the reality of parent hood happened with a bump the size of planet collision.

The 90s were my teen years.

A year or two ago my students said to me that they thought the 90s was a great decade, and if they could be a teenager at any time, they'd pick the 90s. I've always been a bit . Sure, I enjoyed my teenage years but wouldn't have singled out that decade in particular.

But after reading this thread, I'm a convert. Yes, the 90s was a great decade, especially the optimism back then.

I would also add that for me, being a teenager, we had much more freedom without the pressures of today. I had my part time job (at 15), and every now and then we'd get the train up to London to go shopping on Oxford Street. My daughter is 14, I couldn't imagine her doing that now. Also, going off to uni open days with my mates, we just got on the trains and off we went... no parents in sight. We pissed around for the first 18 months of our A levels, drank under age - my college student union even used to hire out a local nightclub, and everyone went (despite the fact most people were underage). And we went to lectures when we felt like it, and if we failed, it was on our heads. The school didn't worry about success rates etc...

Life was just so much easier.

OccamsRazor "A4 sheets of acid tabs, bricks of cannabis and barrels of snakebite and black with depth chargers."

aw, I love this! And everyone was happy! I went to warehouse parties that were closed down because, well, it was on the list for police to do that, but I didn't see one incident of violence on account of drugs.

now there seem to be a quite a few.

I'm right in thinking most of these clubs closed down because of drugs right? So at some point, people made a conscious choice to use drugs and booze to fuel anger? Or...what?

I don't have kids, I have a few friends without kids, so I was still bar hopping till about....2015? We're all wondering where the happy went. i wasn't a druggie, and tbf lots of people were just enjoying the atmosphere.

this thread is reminding a bit of a thread someone started about New Age travellers....there was something nice about that 90s period and I can see it's gone but I haven't got to grips with how and why yet.

Love this thread. You're all right, 90s were the best! No internet, just answer phones. Great music, freedom, cheap rent, and you could get a job just by walking into a pub or shop and asking!

I took myself to various places and always worked. Landed in London had a pub job the next day. Lots of travellers there so you met people from all over the world.

Best memories, clumpy massive shoes, crop tops and baggy military trousers. Spliff cafes, Brixton clubs, Camden market, Pulp in Kentish Town, Vic n Bob, Beer gardens, grunge, brick lane curries before it was hipster, haggling mini cab drivers, 97 election, stayed up all night, things can only get better! We were so excited about millennium night. Y2k never happened tho.

SpringNowPlease2018 it was not the drugs so much as the vibe.

It was innocent, fresh, fun, positive...... after the first gulf war in 1991 the conservatives were voted out in 1997, anything was possible. Life was for living, partying, togetherness.

Remember the tree protests? Where young folk lived for months up trees to stop the big corp' from cutting them down. The poll tax demos, the live export demos, the feeling that change was in the air, that what was started in our parents generation was passed on in our generation and we could do it! We could be the change that we wanted to see..... how naive

That for me was the vibe that sums up the 90's.

I turned 14 in 1990, so this really was my coming of age decade- I got married in 1999.

Lots of freedom: freedom to screw up without photos on the internet, freedom away from being constantly available on your phone, freedom to be less than perfect as plastic surgery/ Botox/ tattooed make up etc wasn’t a thing.

I wore short skirts, DM boots and cropped vest tops- velvet blazers from charity shops or an oversized denim shirt. Drank pints for £1 and danced inappropriately until 4am.

God I miss it all.

Ah, the 90's Camden music and clubs scene.

Reading Festival 1992.

It's still the 90's in my head.

Omg yes my school shoes were like this (before the dms)

Occam, you mean the M11 link road? I knew a few of them!

Sorry to be a downer but even at 17 I was all, "hello, overpopulation" and no one listened. that's what a lot of this is about. Over commerce on a small island is just one side of the coin.

Oh and driving along the Embankment at night....! I would take my mum's car out at 2am just to enjoy that.

I'm sitting in my flat with the window open and I've been hearing all kinds of swearing from people at the bus stop since about 9pm. People are angry. No one is dressed as a rainbow butterfly

Totally agree, it feels like the 90's was only ten years ago. For me, it was like one long hot summer in a pub beer garden drinking pints and listening to some of the best music ever (oasis, massive attack, then onto house & trance) carefree times with mates. I miss the 90's. The era had soul. It had respect.

I was born in the late 60s. Was early twenties to early thirties during the 90s. Much preferred it to the 80s. Music, festivals, travelling, full moon parties in Thailand, a fantastic job where I got to hang out with celebrities. No decade can compare

The 90s? No way OP. You obviously weren’t around in the 60s. Glorious decade that was.

They were a great decade in many ways, so were the 80s though.
It makes me old when I think that all the people born in the 90s are now adults.

My "best decade" really spanned both, probably 1985 when I started college through to mid nineties and the first few years of working.,

the 80s had much more of an identify than the 90s. If I was invited to am 80s party I would know exactly what music to expect what to wear etc. A nineties party would be much harder especially towards the mid/late 90s (early 90s are basically an overspill from the 80s).

Employers still treated you like adults and going to the pub on a Friday lunchtime was part and parcel of working life.

Yes! Fond memories of a cider or 2 on a Friday lunchtime. God if we went for a drink at lunchtime now you'd be looked at like you were a louche reprobate alcoholic type.

Agree, though i have a nostalgic fondness for 80s music, the music of the 90s was probably better (some of it was made in the late 80s, but o was listening to it in the 90s, so it counts as 90s).

I keep meaning to put together a 90s compilation (not any old compilation - it has to be my fave stuff) to listen to in the car.

I remember the week before the final episode of This Life.
Everyone wondering if Miles and Anna were going to run off together and instead we got the drama between Millie and Egg.
And Warren showing up at the end... best ending of a TV show ever.

And of course in those days you had to be home on time to watch it. And then wait to discuss it the next day at work. 😊

I loved the 90s.

I think life for younger people is much more serious now In the 90s you could walk into a pub/hotel/cafe and ask if there were any vacancies and pretty much land a job and you could get served under age (at 16/17) in some pubs and off licenses.

Now you need a CV to just land a part time job in a cafe waitressing and everywhere is so strict with asking for ID for anyone who looks under 40 it seems. It's taken the carefreeness out of youth and everything has to be so serious!

My dp and I took a walk around town and decided to spontaneously go into a club we used to go to (before we knew each other ) years ago. We are in our 30s but the door asks ID as standard to everyone, we had to do a weird "eye laser" security check thing and it cost us £8 each just to get in the door. I almost turned around and walked straight out but was curious at the same time. The club had no "fun" in it, just very serious looking 18/19/20 year olds standing around. The fun vibes had gone and no one was dancing or being silly. The girls looked like Kardashian's and it was quite saddening really.

When I think back to when I was that age (and younger "underage") in that club, we just walked in the door, paid maybe £1.50 or I think it was free before a certain time and danced. Everyone was happy with great vibes, girls were dressed up but expected to be a bit sweaty/shiney/disheveled by the end of the night with no shoes on.

We left after an hour because it was boring and too serious. No wonder young people don't go out much anymore with the expense and the 3rd degree just to get in!

Life for young people now is harder because they have to almost sell themselves to an employer to get a job with a great CV and life is so much more expensive! I really feel for them and hope my children's generation (born mid- late 00s) have a better time of it when they hit their teens and grab a bit of fun back into youth!

80s music was better B.B. 90s.

There was the elation of New Labour getting elected in 1997 too. I was mid twenties and genuinely believed my two tiny DSs were going to grow up in brighter times. They’re 22 and 21 now - pretty grim to contemplate the political climate of their 20s. Although they did get the brief buzz of the last general election results!

I hated Millie, she was so wrong for Egg

I wasn't someone who was in a rage about anything before the 1997 election but I was worried about the NHS and very happy that Labour got in

now I look back it and think okay, there was no way to know what the future would hold, but it's so sad in terms of how things worked out.

So I like to think of the 90s as pre 1997 tbh. I still always say 19th and 40th were best years of my life - for very different reasons though.

with 19th, it was mostly London that made it so fantastic. Now I bleeping hate the place but it's nice to have a potter down memory lane.

I was between 13 and 23 in the 90s, and yep, it was a good decade in many respects - lots of hot summers, good music and a general sense of optimism in the air. That said, the summer of '96 was a rather depressing one for me - it was my first summer back home from uni, and as much as I loved my parents, it felt a wrench being away from where I was studying (and I had sod all money to boot). It was also the high watermark of lad culture, which wasn't good if you were a sensitive, insecure 19/20 year old - especially when girls started cooing over Liam Gallagher, who was basically the kind of knuckle-dragging idiot who used bully the crap out of you at school.

Whilst I think that teenagers are under more pressure now in some ways, it does seem easier for kids who are nerdy to be themselves. At 17, I was a fat, sweaty, nerdy Doctor Who fan, which in dateability terms in 1993 pretty much made you pond life! Things seem to have changed, to the point where I really do envy (and yes, I know I shouldn't...) the nerdy teenage lads of today, who don't seem to get the automatic knockbacks I got then.

Re. the drugs thing - I think the increase in cocaine use has been a significant factor in making people more fighty in comparison to the 1990s, especially when taken in tandem with a shitload of alcohol.

In truth though, I'd go back to the 1990s in a heartbeat, not least to taste the spirit of optimism again - my own, as well as the nation's. I read an interview with the Manics in this month's Q magazine, and they came across like disillusioned and slightly broken middle-aged men. There's the last band I thought would end up like that, and it's so sad.

Plus we're all so bloody angry and divided nowadays....

Employers still treated you like adults and going to the pub on a Friday lunchtime was part and parcel of working life.

Not just Friday lunchtime.

Actually if you worked in London the IRA phoned through constant bomb threats. Only one in 250 or so was a real bomb, but they didn’t know which one would be real so every time they would have to shut down the area and comb it for a bomb so they’d evacuate you from work and of course you’d have to go to the pub, because, where else?

A security alert then was greeted with glee for a long boozy afternoon. Now it just means you might die. . Even terrorists were better in the 90s.

Plus we're all so bloody angry and divided nowadays

Ah, now this I lay squarely at the door of social bloody media. People have always been divided, they just didn't know it until every brain fart was shared on Facebook and Twitter.

I loved the 90s

2000 brought with it hell on Earth for me and things were never the same after that. I was damaged and heartbroken in a way I never thought possible. Just a teenager and doomed from that point.
But, to go back, to 1994 and be so happy again. I’d give anything