Play hard: Is '90s lad culture making a comeback?

The Gallagher brothers were part of the lad ‘90s culture — work hard, play hard. As they prepare to return with a sold-out tour and the global political stage shifts to the right, are we witnessing a return to retro-male values?

Oasis band members Noel Gallagher (left) and Liam Gallagher (right), during a photocall at Wembley Stadium.

WITH Oasis reforming to play a sold-out world tour, it prompts memories of the Gallagher brothers and their bandmates dominating the charts in the mid-90s while simultaneously trashing hospitality suites and swigging champagne in Downing Street. However, in a recent article published in the British monthly magazine Men’s Health, writer Phil Hilton argues that “the male culture that defined the ’90s is showing the signs of a resurgence” — and he’s not a fan of it.

Hilton used to work for men’s glossy title FHM in its mid-90s heyday, when it and Loaded boomed from the shelves. It was a time of peak ‘lad’, a culture closely aligned with Britpop’s rise. Everyone was indeed ‘mad for it’, he writes — even if the culture of the time, which venerated the swaggering bad boy, seemed oblivious to deeper issues.