1990s

What was so great about the 1990s?

‘They’re selling hippie wigs in Woolworths, man… the greatest decade in the history of mankind is over,’ laments Danny the Dealer of the 1960s at the end of Withnail and I. These days, given the apparently insatiable appetite for all things 1990s, you could be forgiven for assuming that they’ve pinched that title. Nineties fashion and music are back: Pulp have just released their first album in 24 years, while Oasis are reforming for a series of mega gigs. There’s even been a Labour landslide. The Face magazine, which launched the career of the ultimate 1990s supermodel, Kate Moss, is currently pulling in the crowds with its Culture Shift exhibition

Charming and silly: Sam & Max – The Devil’s Playhouse reviewed

Grade: B Readers of a certain age (mine, roughly) may have fond memories of 1993’s Sam & Max Hit the Road – a joyously silly and absorbing two-dimensional point-and-click adventure starring the ‘Freelance Police’: a tubby cartoon Irish wolfhound called Sam and his partner Max, a ‘hyperkinetic rabbity thing’ with a propensity for random violence. It was Itchy & Scratchy meets Raymond Chandler, with puzzles to solve and wisecracks to enjoy. Point-and-click has gone the way of the abacus, but much of the feel of the original franchise is to be found in this remastered version of the final game in the series. As it opens, our heroes are locked

What happened to the supermodels of the 1990s?

‘What advice would you give to your younger self?’ has become a popular question in interviews in recent years. It’s meant to generate something profound but, musing privately, I always find it a puzzler. Sometimes I think that maybe I shouldn’t have wasted so much of my twenties talking nonsense in pubs, but on the other hand I really enjoyed it. So I usually settle on: ‘Don’t buy a sofa bed, especially not the kind with a concealed metal frame that you pull out.’ Unbelievably, I’ve done this twice. These vast, unwieldy contraptions cost a bomb, weigh a ton, make a terrible sofa and an uncomfortable bed. If you’re 16

In defence of Prince’s late style

In 1992 Prince released a single called ‘My Name Is Prince’. On first hearing it seemed appropriately regal. Cocky, even. Only in hindsight did it appear somewhat needy, a litany not of what Prince was going to do, but of the things he had already done. On it, he pulled rank on his status — ‘I’ve seen the top and it’s just a dream / Big cars and women and fancy clothes’ — called out young rappers for their potty mouths, and declared himself ‘fresh and funky for the 90s’. Context is everything. By 1992, Prince was still funky – but fresh? He had been, indisputably, pop’s premier agitator throughout