They are surely cringing at MTV at the thought of this horrific milestone, but, hey, we all get old.
I was five years old when MTV launched, and I was blissfully unaware of cable TV. Cable was way beyond the reach of my family’s checkbook (it was very expensive to subscribe to cable back then, and the equipment was bulky).
My first exposure to music videos was, in fact, Friday Night Videos, launched in 1983. It was a very (!) abbreviated version of MTV, a weekly, two-hour block of videos for those of us without the luxury of cable. Friday Night Videos Intro (Sep 30, 1983) – YouTube
For that little bit of time, I saw and learned a lot. I got to see the art of music videos once a week and I looked forward to it (and actually managed to watch most of it, at all of seven years old. Lol).
And seeing the masters at work (Peter Gabriel, David Bowie, Michael Jackson, Duran Duran, Prince, and Madonna, to name just a few), how the fuck could I even entertain the thought of watching the continual stream of shit that passes for music these days? (Shit that even the kids, who pop has always been geared towards, don’t even like!)
MTV cornered the market on the then-new music video format. It was because of them that music videos became a required part of music promotion. And things got so big for MTV so quick that they launched VH1 (Video Hits 1, kiddies) in 1985.
Around the time cable made its way into my house (1987), MTV started branching out from the 24-hour music format with Remote Control, originally hosted by the late Ken Ober (1957-2009), which was both MTV’s first non-music show and game show.
And things would only get worse with The Real World, which premiered in 1992, one of the very first shows in a new genre called reality tv. I recall the show didn’t gain traction until around the time I graduated high school (1994, I have no problem putting out there), but, even in the early-90s, it was becoming part of pop culture slowly.
Then there were the shows which were music-oriented, but were more focused on the hosts’ personalities, interviews, and segments than on music videos alone.
The three main programs that come to my mind are: Headbangers Ball (1987-1995; and 2003-2012 on MTV2), 120 Minutes (1986-2003), and Yo! MTV Raps (1988-1995). (Side note: I never knew 120 Minutes was the oldest of the three.) So, MTV was switching things up half a decade into the game.
MTV made videos into an art form, and, in so doing, introduced a younger generation (Gen X) to older pop music acts we probably wouldn’t have otherwise heard of (apart from our parents’ scratched out albums and oldies radio stations that we tended to avoid just by virtue of being young).
But in MTV’s 1980s retrospective documentary, aptly titled Decade, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGpjjw_als0, Frank Zappa pointed out that if your looks didn’t go well on videos, your career was ruined no matter how good you were. So, videos, as with everything else in life, came with benefits and downsides.
Music-wise, in retrospect, it was interesting that the then-current pop acts (e.g., Madonna, Prince, The Bangles) shared space on MTV, and the music charts in general, with older acts such as Aerosmith, Grateful Dead, The Moody Blues, ZZ Top, etc. There was room on the charts for pretty much everyone.
It was thanks to Friday Night Videos that I got my first visual of The Beatles, with their interview segments with Paul McCartney and Yoko Ono, etc., but MTV was my first real visual of The Boys.
Around 1987, perhaps ’88, MTV hyped the showing of a video that was made long before the term was coined, so it was a big deal then.
The video? “Strawberry Fields Forever,” made in 1967. I was fascinated with the psychedelic tone of the video (then known as promotional shorts) and remain so to this day in 2021.
And The Beatles are the de facto creators of music videos, having first made them in 1965 to drastically cut down the amount of travel they’d have to do to make the big shows of the time (such as Ed Sullivan and Top of the Pops). The format started picking up steam in the 1970s, but there was no central place to broadcast them.
A lot of music-themed shows were mostly live performance (such as The Midnight Special) or celebrity-hosted shows focusing on dance numbers or the celebrity’s own music and comedy sketches (such as Tony Orlando and Dawn).
Videos were brilliant promotional tools as watching them made me want to go out and buy the entire album to see what else I would like. It was a job in and of itself practically begging for money to buy an entire album, even a single, but I managed … most of the time. Lol. Of course, having a video in heavy rotation on MTV managed to reach a larger audience and, perhaps, to egg on kids to buy singles and entire albums.
Yes, videos did manage to shorten attention spans, but, in the 1980s, they were visual artistry. Some videos are legendary 35+ years later for good reasons (and others for strange reasons).
I believe the one person who perfected the art of music videos was, hands down, Madonna. Nearly everything she did imprinted itself into my mind. Her videos were memorable mini-films that many kids today slobber over, being sorry that they missed a golden time in history (historical note: The period had its ups and downs, mostly downs). Although, strangely enough, my favorite Madonna video remains “Bad Girl,” from her 1992 album, Erotica. https://youtu.be/OsHnROYjdgo
Some memorable videos for me have been: Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer,” for its outstanding artistry and animation, https://youtu.be/OJWJE0x7T4Q. Also, for stranger reasons, jazz legend Herbie Hancock’s “Rockit.” https://youtu.be/GHhD4PD75zY I’m sorry, but those headless and half-mannequins scared the shit out of me as a seven-year-old. (I can handle them better these days. Lol.)
Also, Neneh Cherry – Manchild – YouTube. I just love Raw Like Sushi, beginning to end, to this day, and the way this video was shot has stayed with me since I first watched it at 13 years old. And King Diamond – Welcome Home [OFFICIAL VIDEO] – YouTube remains an intense video for me to this day. (Interesting: Cherry is Swedish and King Diamond Danish.)
And something that gets little notice these days is the fact that Metallica refused to make videos for years because they felt it was selling out. Their first video wasn’t until 1988, when they released “One” (from “…And Justice for All”), and it was BIG news. The premiere was hyped all over MTV for what had to be weeks, and that the video was shot in black & white lent an even deeper air of mystery around it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WM8bTdBs-cw
(P. S. Read the book the movie was based on, Johnny Got His Gun, written by Dalton Trumbo. The movie was also directed by Trumbo. It’s reading for a lifetime along the lines of 1984, Fahrenheit 451, and Brave New World. No exaggeration.) https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/johnny-got-his-gun-dalton-trumbo/1100191665?ean=9780808514732
For me, videos were good until the early-1990s. What ruined everything for me was after Kurt Cobain committed suicide. Pop music went to total shit once Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, N’Sync, and The Backstreet Boys showed up.
Yeah, I was older by then, in my early-20s, past the prime age group for which pop is marketed to, but I knew pop music was fucked by then. Never ignore the feeling of doom once it kicks in. Also, prepare yourself for the worst because it rarely gets better.
Since then, the consensus has been that pop music just … blows. (All the people complaining about it on YouTube can’t be wrong.) And the saddest part of all is that the kids who this stuff is made for don’t even like it. But … once they get a hold of older music, their main sentiment is, “Why can’t music today sound like this?”
Since the mid-2000s, it’s been one loser after the other from American Idol, and other glorified karaoke shows, polluting pop music charts. It’s a factory that churns out shit week after agonizing week: “Songs” that say nothing “sung” by people who can barely hold a tune in a bucket (many of them didn’t even win the fucking shows they were on), written by folks just looking to make a quick buck, and produced by folks better known for being jerkoffs on “talent” shows (talking to you, Simon Cowell) than producing any music, much less music of lasting value.
Pop music didn’t have to go the way it did. There are people who are no doubt making good, meaningful music who are struggling in clubs (and online), who just need a chance and a good p.r. team behind them.
In the end, pop charts don’t count for shit today because look at the no talents populating them: Kayne West, Cardi B., Nicky Minaj (the Lil’ Kim wanna be), and these so-called K-Pop losers (how can anyone ignore the beyond abusive way all those kids are treated as they are trained to be pop superstars? There’s nothing organic about K-Pop).
No wonder kids today are depressed and have major attitudes.
I don’t know who 98% of the acts are on the charts today, the oldest of which are my age, and I don’t mind keeping it that way. In theory, pop music should be for everyone the way it had been for decades, but I see that was an anomaly in the sands of time.
I can barely watch a few seconds of what passes for videos these days. It’s a boring formula that ran its course 20 years ago: Drugs, plenty of tattoos, dry humping (and I’m far from a prude, but that’s what videos are today for the most part – everyone dry humping each other even when the “song” has nothing to do with sex), ultra-expensive sports cars, women used as background sex objects, ad nauseum.
And these losers can’t even sing! It’s majority Auto-Tune and outright talking. (It’s the main reason why Kayne West and Jay-Z will never impress me.)
I guess middle age is a time in life when you no longer give a shit about what’s popular, current, etc. (except if you have kids, then you’re stuck paying to support what’s hot at the moment. Better you than me, lol).
So, welcome to middle age, MTV. It’s long overdue for an image upgrade, like changing your “brand name” to something more appropriate because you haven’t been Music Television for damn near 20 years now.
It’s the main reason why Gen Xers keep flooding the Internet with comments about the channel no longer being about music. It’s all about these so-called reality shows (which, in fact, are scripted), and nothing to do with music anymore.
You’ve glorified and celebrated teen pregnancy and boorish behavior such as the pack of losers on The Jersey Shore. You duped the public into believing reality TV was real with garbage shows such as The Hills. What any of that has to do with music, I’m still wondering as are a lot of other people.
But some people were diligent enough to save the first few hours of MTV for posterity. The Very First Two Hours Of MTV – YouTube It’s nice watching this and other old MTV clips for a memory of what was once an innovative cable channel.
Happy Birthday and, most of all, R.I.P., MTV.
I want my Music Television back!
donnad1976 