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Author: Gary West

  • Great Movies of the ’90s: As Good as It Gets – A Retrospective

    Great Movies of the ’90s: As Good as It Gets – A Retrospective

    Five movies I’ll probably try to talk my daughters into watching someday.


    Any list of great, interesting and memorable movies from the ’90s could go on forever. Classics like Forrest Gump, Good Will Hunting, Dances with Wolves or Home Alone immediately come to mind.

    There’ll be blockbuster classics here, but also quieter indie movies. The ’90s were my decade of exploration in pretty much every sense, and going to the movies was still a proper cultural and entertainment event.

    Speaking of cinema: yes, back then going to the movies actually felt like a little occasion. With friends, or sometimes even on your own. And because it was a social thing, the movie was usually dissected over a beer afterwards before everybody headed home.

    What else were you supposed to do as a teenager in the Ore Mountains?

    Clubkino Siegmar, the open-air cinemas at Vox or AJZ, or the Luxor Cinestar — those were the kinds of places a village kid like me ended up going to. Just adding a little local flavour here.


    The Game

    Rather than coming up with yet another debatable, taste-driven and ultimately pointless ranking, I asked myself a few different questions:

    • Which movies still echo in my head today? I’ve watched some of them a few more times over the years, but the strongest memory is usually still that very first viewing. And if a movie has stayed lodged in my brain all this time, it automatically has a decent shot at making the list.
    • Why did they stick? This is about scenes, moments and whatever those films meant to me personally.
    • How did I find them in the first place? Media hype? Recommendation? My own discovery? Pure accident?
    • Would I eventually annoy my daughters into watching them? That’s actually the deciding question. Some things age badly. Others somehow remain timeless. Fight Club, for example, genuinely shocked me when I watched it again after 25 years — mostly because of how naive and almost staged its rebelliousness suddenly felt. Back then? I stood up in the cinema and applauded. The only one. Didn’t care. I was completely blown away.

    Out of Sight

    So those four questions produced the first five movies I want to put out there. Please forgive me if, say, Titanic isn’t among them. No question: it’s an absolute masterpiece, a cinematic battleship, overwhelming and emotionally flattening when it wants to be.
    But for all its status as genuine cultural heritage, it simply hasn’t echoed through my own life in quite the same way.

    So here it is: a completely personal list to argue with, roll your eyes at, rediscover, dismiss, remember — whatever works.


    First Strike


    1. Léolo

    The story of a boy going through puberty in a poor Canadian neighbourhood in the 1950s, while fantasising that he is actually Italian.

    What is fiction? What is psychosis? What is a fragment of memory?

    Hard to tell.

    What you do get is a film full of bizarre, rough and sometimes pretty outrageous scenes.

    Léolo collage: a daydreaming boy, a Sicilian tomato and a Montreal tenement in a poetic grunge 90s style
    “Because I dream,I am not.”

    After-effect: When I think about this movie, I think of cinematic poetry. This really is lyricism captured on celluloid. A genuinely unusual piece of art.

    How I found it: A recommendation from a good friend who had a huge influence on my cultural education. That alone makes it special to me.

    Dad recommendation: Yes — but only once puberty is already well underway. Definitely not one for six-year-olds, and mentally it isn’t exactly light entertainment either.

    A bit of trivia: Writer and director Jean-Claude Lauzon died in a plane crash in 1997. The film draws strongly on Réjean Ducharme’s novel L’Avalée des avalés, which also plays a role within the story itself. Experiences and emotions from Lauzon’s own life found their way into the film as well.

    Highly metaphorical, wildly creative and packed with layers of meaning.

    That’s why, to me, Léolo is basically “poetry in motion (picture)” — cinematic poetry.


    2. The Big Lebowski

    An ageing hippie gets dragged, through a series of stupid coincidences, into something halfway between a gangster story and a bizarre odyssey through the L.A. art scene.

    The Big Lebowski collage: a bathrobed slacker, bowling pins and a White Russian in a grunge 90s L.A. style
    “That rug really tied the room together”

    After-effect: Even though I’ve seen the film several more times since, a few things are permanently burned into my brain: “I hate the fucking Eagles,” Donny’s ashes ending up all over the Dude, and the Dude’s entire stoic couldn’t-give-a-shitapproach to life.

    And, of course, watching Americans gleefully take the piss out of Germans.

    How I found it: A standard cinema trip with a mate. I don’t think either of us really knew what we were walking into — other than the Coen brothers being a pretty reliable sign that it might be good.

    It was basically: “Fancy going to the movies?”

    We laughed our asses off. That I remember.

    Whether the night ended in a pub afterwards? No idea.

    Dad recommendation: Definitely. It’s a cult movie.

    Whether my daughters will ever understand why the hell any of this is funny? Who knows.

    Maybe the charm and flow really are timeless.


    3. Terminator 2: Judgment Day

    This time, the T-800 is John Connor’s protector, fighting an overwhelmingly superior enemy: the T-1000, a newer and much more dangerous model.

    An action-packed thriller full of “speshul ee-fex.”

    Terminator 2 collage: a chrome cyborg with a glowing red eye, a skull and apocalyptic fire in a grunge 90s style
    “I need your clothes, your boots, and your motorcycle.”

    After-effect: Strangely enough, I don’t think I’ve ever sat down and watched the whole thing from start to finish again.

    But every time a random scene appeared on TV, I’d immediately stop and soak it up.

    How I found it: Media hype, late 1991.

    Everybody wanted to see it.

    So we went.

    In packs.

    On mopeds.

    I remember the cinema in the neighbouring town being absolutely rammed. Half my class was sitting in there, and clouds of cigarette smoke hung in the room, cutting through the projector beam.

    That’s how cinema is supposed to feel.

    Great moment. Great movie.

    Dad recommendation: Yes. I’d genuinely love to see how my daughters react to it.

    Unless, of course, some real-life Skynet has completely ruined the dystopian charm by then and turned half the movie into a documentary.

    Then they’ll probably look at me and ask:

    You guys saw all this coming and did nothing?

    Maybe showing them this one isn’t such a good idea after all.


    4. Pulp Fiction

    A gangster tale told through interlocking storylines, built around dialogue, music, violence and one hell of a lot of style.

    A Tarantino masterpiece.

    Pulp Fiction collage: smoking woman, two men in suits, a briefcase of cash and a gun in a grunge 90s Los Angeles scene.
    “Say what again. Say what again, I dare you, I double dare you motherfucker, say what one more goddamn time!”

    After-effect: More than anything, it’s the soundtrack, the coolness and that completely unique atmosphere that stayed with me.

    It’s one of those movies I can still switch on today and immediately fall back into.

    How I found it: I definitely noticed all the hype at the time — but I didn’t actually watch the movie until quite a bit later, probably around 1997.

    So there’s no legendary cinema story attached to this one. No special night. Nothing dramatic.

    I simply caught up with it eventually.

    And immediately understood what everybody had been talking about.

    Dad recommendation: Yes.

    If only because it’s such an important piece of ’90s film and pop culture.

    Whether my daughters will ever find it as cool as I do is another question entirely.


    5. Lost Highway

    So… what’s it about?

    Not the easiest question to answer.

    You basically have to surrender yourself to Lynch’s sequence of metaphors, changing identities, thriller moments and sudden shocks.

    Lost Highway collage: a night highway, a pale mystery face and noir neon in a dark grunge 90s style
    “I like to remember things my own way.”

    After-effect: “I’m at your house. Call me.”

    That still sends a shiver down my spine.

    And this one I definitely remember discussing in a pub afterwards. My friend kept imitating the scene until it finally dragged me back out of whatever disturbed state the movie had left me in.

    How I found it: Drove to the Luxor with a bunch of friends and simply picked it from the programme.

    There were usually a few indie films hiding among all the blockbusters, so you could more or less just show up and take your chances.

    We came out mildly traumatised.

    Dad recommendation: Maybe this one is more along the lines of:

    “Look at the kind of insane shit your dad used to watch.”

    Mostly just to impress them a little.

    A bit of trivia: Lost Highway became an important door-opener for Rammstein in the US. After Andy’s rather unpleasant encounter with a glass table, “Heirate mich” kicks in.

    And that’s exactly how I remember it:

    That riff hit the scene like a fucking sledgehammer.

    Don’t want to miss more 90s Echoes? Grab the Backstage Pass!

    Now it’s your turn: Which ’90s movie still echoes in your head today — and why? Drop it in the comments.

  • The Denim Hit Machine — a Saga of Pop Culture, Advertising and the Sound of the 90s

    The Denim Hit Machine — a Saga of Pop Culture, Advertising and the Sound of the 90s

    From Marvin Gaye to the Muppets, from Madonna to Massive Attack

    Funny what a random thought can dredge up.

    This morning, doing the school run after a pointless phone call from my boss, Stiltskin’s “Inside” walked straight into my head — that brutal, unmistakable guitar riff and Ray Wilson’s raw, majestic voice. Don’t keeeep it — inside.

    Later, sitting on the toilet, I ended up reading a piece about how the song and the band came about. How that whole strange constellation came together in the first place. Levi’s needed a song for an advert. The song landed so hard that a band had to be thrown together in a hurry, only for that band to fall apart just as brutally as the final twang of the hammer-riff in “Inside”.

    And still, those Levi’s hypes left an astonishing glitter trail running from Shaggy and Fatboy Slim all the way to Flat Eric. Zoom in a little further and you find Nick Kamen, Massive Attack, Madonna, Genesis, the Smashing Pumpkins and even the Muppets woven into the same saga.

    What’s Up?

    But let’s take it from the top.

    The story starts with a London agency called BBH — Bartle Bogle Hegarty — and one of its co-owners, a certain Sir John Hegarty: the man who rediscovered Audi’s “Vorsprung durch Technik” and put it back to work.
    His credo was simple:

    Advertising doesn’t have to be loud or overloaded. It has to be clear, and culturally memorable.

    By then Hegarty had been round the block — creative director, shareholder at Saatchi & Saatchi, founder of TBWA’s London office. In 1982 he opened a new chapter as co-owner of BBH, and clients like Audi and Levi’s were won over fast.

    And so, in 1985, riding the 50s revival that was hip at the time, came the first TV spot for the 501 — a pair of jeans that by then counted as thoroughly unfashionable.
    That spot played Sir John’s credo to the hilt. A model called Nick Kamen — yes, that Nick Kamen, “I Promised Myself” — walks into a small-town 50s launderette, strips off with maximum cool, and sits there in his boxers among a roomful of stunned customers. Over the top of it hammers a replica recording of Marvin Gaye’s “I Heard It Through the Grapevine”.

    You couldn’t get more culturally on-message than that.

    Vogue

    The ad was such a hit that the rights holders behind the original music, faced with an unexpected shower of money, rushed out reissues. And suddenly, everybody wanted a piece of Nick Kamen.

    He happened to be a musician too, so the offers didn’t take long. Madonna badly wanted to produce an album with him, but time got in the way. She ended up handing him one of her songs instead.
    “Each Time You Break My Heart” became Kamen’s first international hit. His 1990 banger “I Promised Myself” went to number one in Sweden and Austria, number five in Germany — and barely made a dent in the UK.

    Something Changed

    Meanwhile, the Levi’s formula — male model + soul classic — kept running hot until, by 1994, the whole thing had been squeezed dry.
    New ideas were needed.

    Enter Peter Lawlor, a well-connected young producer with a head for business and a brief detour through the New York trading world behind him.
    Handed the job of coming up with a song for the new Levi’s spot, he clocked pretty quickly that even acts like Massive Attack were in the running. Everybody was feeling their way forward. The brief kept changing.

    What gradually became clear was that they wanted some kind of anthem, so Lawlor wrote a sustained choral piece.

    Then it emerged that this choral section was supposed to be broken open by something more emotional — but none of the compositions convinced anybody. BBH came back to Lawlor. At least his opening had made the cut.

    Right Here, Right Now

    Lawlor remembered a song that had been sitting in his drawer for the best part of a decade. He produced the whole thing over one weekend, playing every instrument himself — then dropped it again in favour of a more electronic, supposedly hipper version. Remember: Massive Attack and other painfully cool people were in the running.

    That one got a polite thumbs-down. So Lawlor played his last ace: the rock song. And it caught fire. So hard, in fact, that demand for the song from the advert exploded. There was just one small problem. A band was needed.

    Fake Plastic Trees

    Lawlor placed an ad, and a struggling young singer called Ray Wilson climbed into his clapped-out VW and drove down to London to audition.

    The single got shoved out fast, and I genuinely still remember the ad for it — along with the near-brawl on stage between Ray Wilson and Peter Lawlor. Lawlor kicked Wilson in the face and sent the mic flying out of his hand. MTV loved it and ran the clip on a loop as a trailer.

    Clearly, the band members weren’t exactly soulmates.

    After the first album, it was over. Wilson — genuinely a fantastic voice — went on to a spell with Genesis that lasted until the end of the 90s.

    Billy Corgan, meanwhile, repeatedly felt the need to introduce his own band, the Smashing Pumpkins, as Stiltskin. He was convinced Lawlor had nicked that deep guitar sound off him. Supposedly, his “Today” had even been approached for the Levi’s ad. But that one belongs in the legends department.

    Wow — skip to around 3:45 and it’s one kick away from a full-on stage brawl. So much for band chemistry. Even though they seem to be making up again in the end.

    Spaceman

    Through all of this, the machine kept rolling. A certain Norman Cook — later better known as Fatboy Slim — supplied the song and bassline as a member of Freak Power for that controversial drag-queen-in-a-New-York-taxi spot.

    Then came a claymation ad powered by Shaggy’s “Boombastic”, which detonated in glorious dancehall fashion.

    And then a big-beat alien girl knocked the world off its hinges one more time. Remixed by Arthur Baker, the song and bassline came crashing in with such juicy big beats and such promise that everybody expected some kind of better Prodigy track.

    Plenty has been written about the disappointment when Jas Mann’s original turned out to be something else entirely: grungy, dark, brooding, melancholy and socially critical.
    Funny thing is, just as with Stiltskin, I’d actually bought the CD single — and I got on perfectly well with the very different song underneath all that hype.

    Anyway. Another strange furore kicked off by a popular pair of blue jeans.

    Roll With It

    Next came Smoke City’s “Underwater Love”, a remarkable trip-hop-meets-bossa-nova chanson and another perfectly fitting sound capsule that stamped itself onto the decade.

    Worth pointing out: these songs weren’t custom-built like “Inside”. They were already out there. Levi’s simply gave them an enormous boost.

    The last big track in this whole zeitgeist-splattering parade was Mr Oizo’s “Flat Beat”, after the Lilys had been allowed to scrub away at their indie guitars with “A Nanny in Manhattan”. Both spots came from directors who’d go on to bigger things: Michel Gondry shot the Smoke City one, Roman Coppola the Lilys. B

    A cheerfully bobbing yellow puppet called Flat Eric — built by the people behind the Muppets, no less — and a crunchy slab of techno couldn’t stir up much more drama. Apart from everyone aping that stupid little bobbing motion.

    The one telling detail was that the track got pushed through almost against the client’s wishes — a small sign that the shared instinct for the pulse of the moment was beginning to fade on all sides. The formula had hit its end point.

    The End Is the Beginning Is the End

    Levi’s was already on the way down by the time the Strokes helped bring skinny jeans back — with mass layoffs and factory closures along the way.
    And even that brief skinny-jeans revival of the early 2000s never restored the strong market position the brand had enjoyed in the 90s.

    BBH won the American business again in 2002, but in 2010 it was the agency itself that chose not to continue. Apparently, there was simply nothing left to say. The culture machine had come apart.

    What’s left is a wave of hype that made stars and let them fall, dozens of astonishing stories, and half a decade of pop culture that, in its wild mix of rock’n’roll, commerce and appetite for invention, could only have come out of the 90s. Less calculation, more instinct.

    And I’d genuinely love to know: 90s folks — do any of you still wear Levi’s? If you do: chapeau, Sir John. Praise be to clever marketing. Oh, and — since this is where the whole toilet research started: does anybody actually know what “Inside” is about?

  • Why the Gen-X Line Is a Guessing Game

    Why the Gen-X Line Is a Guessing Game

    Don’t Speak

    Anybody remember Napster? Back in ’99, it was this online platform where you could search for pretty much any song and pull it down as an MP3 — not from the platform itself, but straight off some stranger’s hard drive on the other side of the world. Unlike tapes, which got passed hand to hand until the sound turned to mush, Napster let you search a catalog, find a match, and download by the truckload.

    Nothing since has made discovery feel that rich, that unpredictable — new band names, weird song titles, all of it just one click away from “Download.” A whole world away from walking into a store and buying the physical CD.

    We knew it wasn’t legal. But we had the tech, and honestly, a little smugness too — us music nerds sticking it to the big label bosses. What we conveniently ignored was the artists actually depending on those CD sales, the small indie bands who needed every purchase. That’s where music started getting cheapened, mass-produced like fast fashion.

    Torn

    Rights, licenses, royalties — contracts have been sorting out who owns what since the printing press. But before the mid-90s, mass distribution of music was physically limited. Sharing meant grinding through tape copies, one generation removed from the last. Then digital files changed everything — copied without loss, at a scale nobody had planned for. CDs got ripped and passed around freely on platforms like Napster.

    Nothing Else Matters

    So why weren’t users the ones who got sued? Because going after one platform beats chasing 20 million individuals. The RIAA filed suit. Metallica went after Napster too, over an unreleased track that leaked before its time. Napster’s defense: they never stored or delivered the music, just connected users to each other. Didn’t matter — Napster was shut down in 2001, but file sharing didn’t die with it. BitTorrent picked up the slack. It wasn’t until 2003 that iTunes gave the industry a legal download option it could live with — and today streaming has made downloading nearly pointless. Back then, technology outran the law. Now copyright gets watched with laser focus.

    Ironic

    So can you even build a 90s-spirit shirt shop without touching the anthems that defined the decade — the songs that gave it its color? Was Daddy Grunge doomed before it even launched, if celebrating 90s culture means violating rights? Do I just avoid rebuilding band logos, album covers, iconic art altogether?

    What’s left is something else: essence. What actually survives from a song once you strip the copyright away? How do you turn a memory into your own image? Maybe that’s the punchline all along. I can’t slap “Nirvana” on a shirt, trace the In Utero cover, and call it mine. The memory has to become something new — filtered through time, soul, and humor. A memory, an image, an inside joke. If you recognize the song, you recognize it. If you don’t, you’re just wearing a weirdly drawn shirt.

    And that’s how copyright, of all things, became the unwitting creative director of the Gen-X line.

  • A Self-Critique, or: Why Principles and Business Always Collide

    A Self-Critique, or: Why Principles and Business Always Collide

    …and Commerce Always Wins.

    Wear Sunscreen

    Right now, it’s very hot in Germany. Hotter than ever before since meteorological records began. And there is a scientific consensus that the Earth’s atmosphere is heating up because of growing fossil fuel emissions. Climate change is, for the most part, man-made — caused by the industrialised nations and by people like me who open yet another print-on-demand online shop.

    Back in the ’90s, humanity already knew that this problem had to be tackled globally. One generation later, laws and regulations have come into force that can be traced back to those decisions, increasingly taxing the use of fossil fuels and the release of greenhouse gases.

    Naturally, this drives up energy prices and the cost of living. It confronts people here with complex decisions about major purchases — a car, a heating system — as well as everyday life. Complexities that make them angry. Angry enough that, among other things, populism is once again finding fertile ground.

    The Show Must Go On

    Surely we can’t be expected to rethink — let alone sacrifice — the routines we’ve worked so hard to build. Things like flying abroad twice a year or ordering T-shirts made in Bangladesh online.

    And consumption just keeps rolling on as if there were no tomorrow. But heaven forbid petrol or electricity should become more expensive.

    This particular high, carrying neo-nationalist undertones since 2001, goes hand in hand with global capitalism. It seems to be drifting into ever more brutal resource conflicts while still showing no sign of slowing down. Meanwhile, large parts of the population outside the glorious West are only now reaching a level of prosperity they have no intention of giving up.

    Killing in the Name

    As a result, more and more people are competing for limited natural resources. Habitats for animals and plants are disappearing faster and faster. Energy and housing costs continue to rise — after all, building materials are natural resources too — and the public mood grows rougher and hotter, all beneath the steadily warming cheese dome we call our atmosphere.

    Does the world really need another brand shipping T-shirts with 90s-inspired designs around the globe from a print-on-demand shop?

    Certainly not.

    So why am I doing it anyway?

    Especially considering how little it fits the 80s kid I used to be — the one who always took the final warning in wildlife documentaries to heart: that shrinking habitats were pushing those fascinating creatures towards extinction.

    The teenager who never understood the never-ending party called the Love Parade because, to him, it always looked like dancing on the edge of a volcano.

    My Favourite Game

    Today I understand that all of this has a lot to do with life itself.

    One person pours a lot of money into a classic car, drives it once a year to meet fellow enthusiasts, and spends the rest of the year simply polishing it.

    I just happen to enjoy making music, so I combine everything I’m reasonably good at — entertaining, drawing, songwriting and creating content — into one project.

    The tax office calls that a hobby business.

    Everybody else calls it a quirk.

    Only now have I truly understood sayings like “to each their own” or “live and let live.”

    Maybe collectively remembering old songs distracts us from crises and guilty consciences for a little while.

    We need reflection.

    A pause.

    And a little more optimism.

    One shitty T-shirt won’t save the world.

    It might even make it a tiny bit worse.

    But maybe, just for a moment, it also makes it a little more fun.

    And as long as nobody is buying too many of them, Daddy Grunge doesn’t really have a moral conflict on its hands.

    So, let the fuckening begin.

  • Likes, Kids and the Rest of (Online) Life

    Likes, Kids and the Rest of (Online) Life

    Somewhere between MySpace and fatherhood, the algorithm showed up.

    I belong to the generation of internet and social media veterans: dial-up internet in 1995, StudiVZ, ICQ, MySpace, eventually Facebook. Never Twitter, awkwardly Instagram, and even a brief stop at Google Plus. Not as an early adopter or trendsetter—more of a follower, really—but at least never the last idiot to show up.

    And honestly, I enjoyed most of those journeys: building communities organically, making connections, rediscovering old friends and meeting new ones.

    Push The Feeling On

    But whenever I tried to promote ideas or projects organically, it was frustrating.

    Today I realize I behaved like I did at the local village disco back in the early ’90s: always driving to the same party with the same buddies to meet the same crowd and have a bit of pointless fun. And that worked reasonably well on social media too (by the way, what the fuck happened to Facebook? 😂) — just not when it came to becoming an overnight viral success.

    Connected

    As for how it could work better, ChatGPT and Claude are never short on professional advice. And just like that, I feel the old reflex kicking in again: the temptation to throw myself (semi-professionally) into the pull of the social media attention machine.

    But I know how exhausting that can be. How it can slowly change your personality. And how much time it consumes.

    So I always have to pull myself back:

    “It’s a hobby.”

    And:

    “My kids benefit more from having an attentive and involved father.”

    (Even though—let’s be honest—that can be exhausting too. But nobody gives you those early years back.)

    As interesting as creative experimentation can be, or interacting with followers when it actually happens, real connections simply carry more weight. If only because communication between real people happens on so many more levels (smiles, leers, scoffs, smirks).

    And if you’ve already lost a few meaningful connections throughout your life, you know just how valuable shared time really is.

    Time is something nobody gives back, either.

    Even Flow

    Well, that’s the dilemma of the attention machine.

    But I’ll figure it out. It certainly isn’t the first trade-off I’ve had to deal with.

    And even if those little dopamine drips feel great, you can’t actually buy anything with them.

    The ideal solution, of course, would be for Daddy Grunge to go viral immediately.

    That way there’d be no slow, creeping pull—just an overwhelming rush that would have to be contained by any means necessary.

    Ah well.

    Honestly, I’d much rather be talking about all this over a beer with real people.

    A Gen-X Daddy

  • The 90s Cure: Healing a burnt-out world!

    The 90s Cure: Healing a burnt-out world!

    Not Nostalgia. Recovery.

    So here we are now — stuck between the day-job grind, the responsibilities of fatherhood, and the ambitions that never quite faded. In my case, those ambitions were always built on music.

    Growing older shouldn’t feel like being buried alive, yet here it is: a mountain of routines, bills, and a culture engineered for distraction, hyper-capitalism, and permanent noise. 

    That is likely why the 90s still glow. Were they really better? Of course not. We lacked the tools that define our lives today. But somewhere in the technological leap, something human — a specific glimpse of hope — got lost.

    Bitter Sweet Symphony

    Is this just a GenX perception? On paper, the world is better off now: crime has gone down, and poverty and hunger have decreased. A lot was happening back then: The Wall had fallen. The Eastern bloc crumbled, the Cold War was over. Apartheid ended, Europe looked like it might finally come together and the world seemed to agree that they could tackle a major global challenge—climate change—together. The web opened new horizons. Science moved fast. Culture exploded – even the Beatles sort of reunited. Amazement was here, there, everywhere. Globalization was key. The world seemed to be on a Love Parade.

    But the decade carried its own brutality. The Gulf War. The Balkans. Rwanda. Mid-way through, the light dimmed: the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin dealt a blow to the peace process in the Middle East. Mass shootings and market crashes proved that instability was always lurking. And we know now that while feminism finally reached the public eye, the exploitation of women remained rampant.

    Kurt Cobain’s suicide silenced the voice of a generation. Princess Diana’s death shook the world. 

    Still, why does the spirit of the 90s feel so unattainable now?

    Smells Like Teen Spirit

    The magic was the rawness. Styles were still forming. Scenes had edges. You could inhabit grunge and dance culture, alienation and hedonism, depth and nonsense — often all at once. Life was an exploration: spontaneous parties, concert trips, and long talks deep into the night. We followed impulses, not algorithms. We gathered in loose, chaotic crowds. Even the internet was a playground for stumbling across things, not a machine for performance and constant self-display.

    There was more space to be unfinished. More curiosity. More joy. Things meant something.

    Human Behaviour

    This isn’t an “old guy” rant about everything going down the drain. It’s about recovery. It’s about reclaiming the drive to try things out before they are polished and made marketable.

    What’s missing today isn’t the past; it’s the permission to be raw and the will to embrace the new without needing to own it. That creates a better understanding of each other — and more empathy for each other’s path.

    Keep openness up. Embrace exploration. Right about now!

    That’s Daddy Grunge.