FEATURE:
No Nostalgia Here
IMAGE CREDIT: Podmasters
Why Talk '90s to Me Means Strikes a Personal Note
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ONE of the best new podcasts…
IN THIS PHOTO: Miranda Sawyer/PHOTO CREDIT: Sophia Evans/The Observer
out there is Talk '90s to Me. You can see the podcast on YouTube, Audible, and follow it on Instagram and TikTok. It is hosted by the brilliant Miranda Sawyer, whose brilliant book, Uncommon People: Britpop and Beyond in 20 Songs is out now. I have listened to the audio version. Sawyer interviewed a lot of Britpop artists, though her most notable and talked-about one might be when she spoke with Oasis’ Liam Gallagher in 1995. Gallagher said he hoped Blur’s Damon Albarn would die of AIDS. That quote made front-page news. Her new podcast is really incredible. I was a teenager in the 1990s and I think that there are misconceptions about the decade (Miranda Sawyer was a guest on this recent podcast, answering the question around how we remember the '90s). Rather than it being a nostalgia podcast or show like Fearne Cotton’s Sound of the 90s, this is one that examines and explores different aspects of '90s culture. It is a shame not that much is written about it. The Guardian did select it as one of their picks ahead of the first episode of the podcast in August: “Miranda Sawyer gets into full-on nostalgia mode in this series dedicated to the days of Cool Britannia, Girl Power, Trainspotting and much more. If you’ve not had your fill of Oasis yet, her first episode is a loving deep dive into fandom and how one Mancunian outfit went where no 90s band had gone before. Says former Q editor Ted Kessler, it all came down to the Gallaghers’ undeniable strain of “electricity … chaos and anarchy”. Miranda Sawyer is an incredible journalist, and she wrote about Cool Britannia earlier in the year for Tatler, as Oasis reformed and hit the road. For Talk '90s to Me, Sawyer spoke with Blur’s Dave Rowntree, and we do get some perspectives into Britpop and that time. The podcast does correct some misconceptions and mis-impressions. Rather than guests talking fondly about the time and there being no depth, we get this wider examination of the decade.
From musicians to comedians and authors, the range of episodes already out there is incredible. Aside from music, Miranda Sawyer and her guests have talked about iconic films, culture moments and T.V. shows. Sawyer is a brilliant interviewer and dives really deep. Incredible research and this amazing rapport with her guests, I do hope that the podcast lasts for a very long time. I do think that I get a bit nostalgic about the 1990s and what it was like. I hope a future episode explores what it was like for women and the realities for them. In terms of the tabloids and the imbalance and discrimination that was rife through the decade. I have been thinking about festival headliners and how few women were headlining. It is clear that the 1990s was a blast and a hugely memorable time. In terms of pop culture especially, it was monumental. The music was particularly fine and influential. I have blocked out a lot of the '90s and what was happening. Getting insights into events like the KLF burning a million quid, the different boybands that were around in the decade, to the significance of shows like Seinfeld, I have reassessed the decade and connected with things I had forgotten. I wonder if there is a book that looks more generally about these topics. A wider look at the 1990s. I want to move to The Times and their four-star review of Miranda Sawyer’s Talk '90s to Me:
“If you’re my age, listening to people talk about the 1990s is rather like being forced to endure a conversation about a legendary party you weren’t invited to. You might term the affliction generational fomo. Look, I’m glad you all had a marvellous time taking Ecstasy and voting for Tony Blair, but do you have to rub it in? I find myself assuming a glazed expression. “A pervasive sense of cultural optimism, you say? Oh, [wincing] that sounds wonderful … and the music was brilliant too? How nice for you. And low house prices as well? [grimacing now] … well I’m glad you had such a good time … but if you’ll excuse me I have to wail despairingly to myself in that corner over there.”
I would very much like to believe the Nineties were not all they were cracked up to be. Maybe the reasonably priced houses and inexorable spread of liberal democracy had a downside? Alas, the journalist Miranda Sawyer’s brilliant (but upsettingly joyful) new podcast Talk ’90s to Me confirms it was indeed a blast. Damn it.
“There is an optimism throughout the Nineties,” she observes to her second guest, the Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh (what Nineties podcast would be complete without him?). Welsh suggests the decade “really started in ’87 [or] ’88”. The crucial factor was rave. “People just started dancing in fields and factories.” Sawyer suggests that in the rave scene “you got that mix of characters that wouldn’t have met … spotty students, football hooligans”. That discovery of unexpected unity among different kinds of people led to “a certain optimism that kick-started that decade”. Unity …? Optimism …? Truly, the past is another country. We millennials prefer to subsist in ever tinier cultural niches while using the internet to abuse anyone even slightly different from ourselves.
At least I can console myself with the thought that I would have loathed raving and taking drugs in fields. Blissfully dancing outside experiencing a sensation of ecstatic oneness with thousands of my fellow human beings sounds like hell on earth to me. It’s one aspect of Nineties fun I’m glad I missed out on. In some ways I suppose it’s nice to belong to a generation for whom introversion and social incompetence are de rigueur. And compared with that of your average pasty, porn-addled, bed-bound, TikTok-hypnotised Gen Z misanthropist my social life looks like something out of The Great Gatsby.
Welsh is rather stern on the dullness of the young. “I was at a festival outside of Dublin at the weekend,” he says. “And I’m thinking, I’m having a good time and I’m … I’m dancing. But the drug intake, the alcohol intake compared to how this would have been 20 odd years ago is just, it’s practically nothing.” It’s a weird unnatural inversion of the old days when puritanical elders used to chide the young for their fast-living ways. Instead, Welsh thinks young people should “be getting out and having a bit of fun and causing a bit of mischief, you know?” Have fun? Cause mischief? Absolutely not.
I liked Welsh’s semi-mystical explanation for why the decade was so enjoyable. “The Nineties was the last party,” he says. In the same way that before a “tsunami the animals know that something’s coming”, people had an intuitive sense that “the internet was coming”, with the impending tyranny of algorithms, AI, big tech and the hollowing out of the cultural industries. So people thought, “Let’s take everything from every era we’ve enjoyed … because it might be a long time before we can have it again.” Nonsense, of course, but a compellingly eerie thought”.
Not that I have any cache to talk about anything from the 1990s but, for me, it was the music and the physical media. The magazines and the tangible nature of music and how that fostered my love of music. So much of what has already been covered on the podcast has really hit me on a personal level. In terms of the music episodes, my favourites have been around Madonna and George Michael. Guests John Sizzle and Jack Guinness sharing their expertise and insights. I am going to wrap up in a minute. I want to bring in this review before I wrap up:
“Journalist and broadcaster Miranda Sawyer had a front seat to the various cultural machinations that defined the ’90s. She has recently captured this time perfectly in book form with her fantastic Britpop book, Uncommon People, and so she is uniquely placed to provide a fresh viewpoint on a decade that has already been poured over ad nauseum across several mediums. And so, it makes sense for Sawyer to return to the decade again with her new podcast, Talk ’90’s To Me…
While many of the topics covered so far are well worn touchstones by now (Oasis, Princess Diana, Nirvana etc), Sawyer also shines a light on some of the darker, less well-travelled corners of the ’90s with episodes on George Michael, The Prodigy and Madonna, and while some of the topics she chooses are clearly alien to her (she must be the only person of her generation not to have an in depth knowledge of Friends), the addition of various guests ensures that there is always at least one expert on hand to provide compelling insight.
The guests cover the full gamut of ’90s pop culture with musicians (Dave Rowntree from Blur), writers (Ted Kessler, Andrew Harrison) and fashionistas (Plum Sykes) and this holistic view is what ensures that Talk ’90s To Me never feels like a podcast that is treading over the same old ground. While there is definitely an absence of working class voices (Sawyer herself sounds almost comically posh – her pronunciation of ‘Blur’ as ‘Blurrrrrrrrrgh’ is particularly jarring), this is also a reflection of the lack of the working class representation in the arts in general, although the ’90s was a lot more diverse in terms of class within the arts than the cultural landscape we find ourselves in now.
Talk ’90s To Me works for both grizzled ’90s survivors such as myself and for newcomers alike. I can’t wait to see where it goes from here. It has the potential to become the most essential ’90s podcast since Quickly Kevin, Will He Score?”.
I do think that there are these deep-rooted impressions of the 1990s. Maybe we get too misty-eyed or nostalgic. Whilst Talk '90s to Me is positive and we do get to hear guests talk about amazing films, shows, music and events from the decade, there is a deeper side. Some of the darker elements. The podcast has this rolling playlist (which I am including at the bottom) where a guest selects their '90s track. Mine would be Charles and Eddie’s Would I Lie to You? If you have not heard or seen the podcast then do go and check it out, as I really love it. Rather than this blast of empty nostalgia, Talk ‘90s to Me is, in its own words, a podcast that is about “Diving deep into a wild decade of chaos, creativity and hedonism – from Oasis to ‘Friends’, from grunge to girl power, from Kate Moss to alcopops to ‘Trainspotting’ and beyond. Join award-winning Observer journalist and Smash Hits graduate Miranda Sawyer as she meets the people who were really there for the decade of Cool Britannia, Cantona and the Chemical Generation”. Spend some time in this wonderful decade celebrating….
THESE common people.