MTV turns "30" today...

[Perfxion]

See if we can get a discussion going on....


Today, 30 years ago, MTV launched and changed music forever. Some might say for the better, a lot might say for the worst. How do you think making music videos the mainstream tool for artist to promote their music over live shows changed music.

In my opinion, the cons of music video era is the cookie cutter acts with no talent become famous (Britney Spears) while people with talent who just look ugly for lack of a better term are thrown to the wayside(Christopher Cross). The major pros is that when MTV just through videos on without any kind of blocks for shows, it allowed an expansion of someone music pallet. Plus it allows people like Michael Jackson to make it more than just a performace of a song into its own art form(Beat It or Thriller).

BTW: I am not talking about the pop culture station it is currently that isn't anything about music. I am just talking about a line in the sand that starts the "video music era" from the end of the "FM radio era".

 

[Red Baron]

Dire Straits • Money for nothing (1984)

 

[Gary]

Sifl and Olly - Interview with an Orgasm

best show

 

[Big Beard Booty Daddy]

I remember getting cable when I was younger. The first thing that we put on was MTV and an episode of Remote Control was on. I loved it.

MTV was great for opening up new avenues for bands, but now MTV is horrible (I know we aren't talking about this here). I say, video may have killed the radio star, but MTV killed the music star.

 

[The Coat Is My Father]

I had a babysitter in the mid 90s who used to watch MTV all the time when I just wanted to watch my poor quality VHS of Power Rangers episodes over and over, so we used to match wills on that. I remember a lot of Metallica, REM, and Soundgarden videos, as well as an excessive amount of talk about the Eagles reunion.

 

[Precious Roy]

I have legit not watched MTV in a decade except for some episodes of Jackass, Viva La Bam and Wildboyz.....and probably not once in the last 5 or 6 years. Not really bragging so much as noting how far out of touch I am from the programming on the channel compared to what it was in the 80's--->mid 90's

 

[BUTT]

I first started regularly watching MTV around '95, as my brother always had it on. He would watch the "Best of the 90s" which always aired around 6PM. I would get excited whenever they would show "Come Out and Play" because that was Raven's theme. Other favorites were "Machinehead," "Heaven Beside You," "1979" and, most of all, Marilyn Manson's cover of "Sweet Dreams." I also enjoyed when they would give half the screen over to "Yack Live," feedback on the videos playing from the MTV.com (or maybe it was AOL? Or Compuserve? Or Prodigy?) chatroom, back when chatting on the internet was a novel idea. I suppose this was in a way a forerunner to CNN reporting what their viewers were saying on Twitter. Still as late as '97 they would do stuff like devoting an entire week to playing what they deemed to be the Top 500 videos of all time, and it wouldn't be in the typical "Play clips from the video while snarky talking heads comment on it" that became a hallmark of VH1 in the 90s, they would just play the videos in full. I don't know exactly when it was that "MTV doesn't play enough/any music videos" became a meme, but I would suspect it was around the time that TRL debuted and they started truncating their videos (as well as interrupting them with two lines of scrolling text and douchy clips of dumb girls saying "I WANNA SEE ONLY GOD KNOWS WHY BY KID ROCK BECAUSE IT'S GREAT TO SEE HIS SENSITIVE SIDE WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO)" to make more time for celebrity guests and other wacky shit. I didn't mind this shift so much, because the boy band and nu-metal videos of the time weren't anything I particularly needed to see. It does bother me that they have become an awful fucking network with shitty, shitty shows. They're airing That '70s Show now! Eww.

 

[Big Beard Booty Daddy]

Really, the only thing that's good about MTV now is it gives me a job.

 

[Czech]

They're airing That '70s Show now! Eww.

What? I thought ABC Family, Nick at Nite, MeTV, and countless UHF stations were airing That '70s Show. How many channels can pick up those fucking reruns? Eight years ago, I thought I'd gotten my fill of That '70s Show reruns.

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

Does anybody know if VH1 Classic is reairing the first few hours of MTV again like they did for the 25th Anniversary? Does anybody care?

My first memories of MTV revolve around watching Beavis and Butthead with my dad and subsequently, my mom banning my younger brother and me from watching MTV for a while. First shows I remember actively watching on my own were Sifl and Olly and 12 Angry Viewers. I vaguely remember when TRL was just Total Request with Carson Daly sitting in some dinky ass studio before it merged with MTV Live.

 

[Incandenza]

MTV2's weekday schedule—so I just learned—is four-hour blocks of old ("old" here meaning within the last decade) MTV shows. At night, it's reruns of 90s sitcom favorites Malcom & Eddie, Martin, the Wayan Bros., and In Living Colour.

 

[BUTT]

VH1 Classic is showing MTV highlights right now. Currently airing is Pee Wee Herman's 1991 post-jerk VMA appearance.

Remember when MTV2 was just M2 and MTV aired a daily preview every weekday afternoon? By the time we got the network, however, it had already started to suck, even before they declared that "if Linkin Park is MTV's official band, Green Day is ours."

Aww, Michael and Lisa Marie. The vague sadness I felt when he died is coming back.

 

[Incandenza]

My local cable company got MTV2 at the beginning. I'd watch it now and then, appreciating that it was nothing but videos even when a lot of it was stuff I didn't care for. Occasionally I'd get lucky and they'd show a Replacements video or something.

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

MTV2 started going downhill when they started regularly airing commercials in like '01. I'm sure it was never that great to begin with but I have fond memories of the brief era when I regarded Coldplay as "an underground rock band" (and thought they weren't going to be nearly as successful as their contemporary, Travis!)

 

[Gary]

My first MTV memory is watching Liquid Television when it first aired. My mom wasn't too thrilled by what she saw. I also remember a Partridge Family marathon at one point.

 

[Gary]

Also, I think they brought Matt Pinfield back to host a new incarnation of "120 Minutes."

 

[Big Beard Booty Daddy]

Also, I think they brought Matt Pinfield back to host a new incarnation of "120 Minutes."

Yup, it's going to monthly and he's going to be doing interviews with bands like Muse.

 

[Gary]

They now show reruns of "120 Minutes" on VH1 Classic. Before that, it was a show called "The Alternative", which was hosted by one of the guys from VH1 Classic's tragicomic series "That Metal Show."

 

[JHawk]

The sad thing is MTV is now too old to be on MTV.

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

They now show reruns of "120 Minutes" on VH1 Classic. Before that, it was a show called "The Alternative", which was hosted by one of the guys from VH1 Classic's tragicomic series "That Metal Show."

That Metal Show rules, numbskull.

 

[Agent of Oblivion]

I'll take Beavis and Butthead and you can shove the rest up your ass. MTV was never good.

 

[Perfxion]

MTV when it showed videos it was good, if not a little redundant due to the limited number of videos that they would show. Pop Culture shows killed the M but kept the station alive. I started watching with Fab Five Freddy and downtown Julie Brown were VJs. I remember remote control and loved that show.

Biggest problem with MTV right now is the fact that it and MTV2 have nothing to due with music until the VMAs. Granted I do have Hits, James, and U on cable which still show videos. But you wouldn't have to make a big deal of a music channel showing videos for only 1 hour. Add VH1 to the list of stations that just sucks so much.

 

[strummer]

I first started paying attention to the channel in about 1987 or so when my babysitter(my cousin) would watch Remote Control. I loved that but wasn't much of a music fan then so that was pretty much the only show I watched. Then they started airing Monkees reruns and I loved that shit. I watched the VMAs every year from about 88-97. Of course B&B. I would watch the first air episodes at 11 and then stay up and watch the rerun a few hours later. Other than Jackass and VLB I haven't paid attention since 97 or so

 

[SFH]

The sad thing is MTV is now too old to be on MTV.

There's an article on Yahoo (http://new.music.yahoo.com/blogs/heard/12618/mtv-apparently-wants-to-be-29-forever/) saying MTV is not acknowledging the milestone because if they do, that means they are no longer hip.

 

[Byron The Bulb]

Daria is the best thing MTV ever aired

 

[The Coat Is My Father]

Tiffany from the Fashion Club is Byron's ideal woman.

 

[daileyxplanet]

My earliest MTV memories was watching Singled Out and Love Line, when I was in 3rd grade. Also Beavis & Butthead, Ren & Stimpy and Oddities (wasn't that the show with the alien in his head?)

 

[A Happy Medium]

I believe that one was just called The Head. I also really started watching it regularly around 1995 or so. I recall that on New Years Day 2000, they ran through the entire video catalog on MTV2. I'm not exactly sure when it ended. Still, it was neat for the first week until you realized you wouldn't see certain things for a couple of months.

 

[Youth N Asia]

I cannot remember the last time I made an effort to watch anything on MTV. Maybe a random episode of Bully Beatdown or a True Life here and there. I stopped watching The Real World at Hawaii. It just because people desperate to be on tv around that time. I watched way more MTV as a kid and teen in the 80's and 90's. When it's 90's music day playing on the radio at work I know everything. Even songs I wouldn't care to know, all because of MTV.

I loved MTV2 when it first aired. When they claimed all videos all the time, but it just became another dumping ground for their bad tv shows. Only time to see music on MTV and MTV2 is when everyone's asleep. When I flip past MTV now and see Martin, Jersey Shore, or some shitty movie from 8 years ago I wonder who's in charge thinking that this is good stuff to put on. I understand that people will watch the Jersey Shore, but I remember a few years ago when they were showing the second or third Matrix movie over and over and over again. I don't see any Jersey Shore past what The Soup shows.

I'm amazed every yeah when they do VMA shows. I understand it's tradition, but other than Youtube I don't know where you see videos anymore.





But anywaaaaay. Loved MTV in the 90's. The Head, Dead at 21. Unplugged was great from time to time. I had a taped from tv copy of REM's set for years. I had to stop watching Cribs in the 2000's. Shit got on my nerves. Remote Control was great as a kid, I think I'd have appreciated it more so now though.

2ge+her was shockingly funny at times. I as ashamed to like that movie and show as much as I did. I remember thinking when Tom Green hit that it still wasn't as good as Buzzkill.

 

[Precious Roy]

Randee of the Redwoods Presidential Campaign Convention, MTV (1988) - Part 1

Weird Al Vs. Julie Brown Vs. LL Cool J 1/3

LL Cool J Mamma Said Knock You Out 1991

Cindy Crawford House of Style Promo as Dennis Leary 1993