Terrence Clay
2023-04-08 06:57:35 UTC
https://medium.com/@denniswillis_81779/how-mtv-broke-its-promise-cdd7a9abc844
Dennis Willis
Jul 27, 2021
In the pop-saturated early 1980s, one slogan stood above the rest:
I Want My MTV.
Four decades after the birth of the nascent music video network and it’s stunning effect on pop culture, there is now an even more ubiquitous statement that presents itself endlessly in the form of a punchline.
I’m sure you’ve heard it.
MTV doesn’t play music anymore.
In fact, you can’t even mention MTV to somebody without getting this snarky addendum. Hard to believe, but MTV is now forty years old, and really only favored music for the first twenty.
So why are so many people still so mad about this?
Because it was a betrayal of our vows, plain and simple.
MTV swooped into our lives, made us fall in love, walked together with us on our personal musical journey and eventually broke our hearts, slowly pulling back on the relationship until we were forced to admit it had left us for Teen Mom.
It’s not that we grew up and didn’t like youthful music anymore. The music left us. It sucks to get dumped.
How did we get here? The way we always do.
Chasing the quarterly bottom line. The tail wagging the dog.
Nowadays, when we put on our nostalgic hats and look through our rose-tinted glasses at the way things were 40 years ago, we hazily recall those early days with the key five VJs: Mark Goodman, Nina Blackwood, Martha Quinn, J.J. Jackson, and Alan Hunter.
Except most of us don’t.
The “I Want My MTV” campaign became a thing because the upstart network was only available in the major cities at first. I was raised in Pacifica, California, a coastal town ten miles south of San Francisco and we didn’t get MTV until late 1986. Ironically, that occurred only after Viacom bought the network from Warner Cable and the “original five VJs” were gone.
But despite its initial limited reach, the long arm of MTV was everywhere. Overnight, the pop charts and Top 40 radio switched over from 70s holdovers like Queen and Rod Stewart to young UK and Australian artists who had visually-exciting videos such as INXS, Duran Duran, Eurythmics and Culture Club. Imitators such as Friday Night Videos and Night Tracks sprung up on weekends, and kids traded VHS tapes with hours of continuous recording.
Music went from being something you listened to, to something you watched, and you left it on for weeks. You’ve heard of the YouTube rabbit hole? MTV invented that shit, one 3-minute video at a time.
We got MTV-inspired commercials, TV shows (Miami Vice), and movies (Streets of Fire, Purple Rain). MTV provided the canvas for artists like Michael Jackson and Madonna to paint on. It was a big neon-colored symbiotic relationship and we were all along for the ride.
MTV played our music, inspired our fashion, created huge media stars, enraged our parents the way rock and roll is supposed to, and even provided clear-headed reporting when a tragedy occurred or when Frank Zappa and Dee Snider appeared before Congress to oppose the Parents Resource Music Center’s labeling of edgy music.
Kurt Loder was our Dan Rather.
MTV had a conversation with us for two decades — at times pandering, and at other times elevating. For every time Rock the Vote set out to teach young viewers about how democracy worked, there was a Spring Break whip cream bikini contest. It’s all relative.
And let’s be real. It’s entirely possible the 1985 Live Aid concert would have happened anyway, but would it have had the global and cultural impact if PBS ran it?
Twenty years later, nostalgic viewers returned to MTV’s 2005 coverage of Live 8 only to find songs interrupted by endless commercials, never to return again.
Art vs. Commerce. It’s a bitch.
Corporate overlords don’t care about nostalgia, and anytime you add corporate interests to something viral and thriving, it’s a crapshoot. Viacom’s quest to monetize MTV did initially lead to the creation of awesome themed programming blocks such as 120 Minutes, Yo! MTV Raps, Headbangers Ball, and Alternative Nation. Win-win, right?
But while I’m a huge Beavis and Butt-head fan, there’s no mistaking that Mike Judge’s satire (which also mocked music videos) was the beginning of a programming shift that would ultimately turn the network into the punchline it is today.
Once the Real World proved successful, it was only a matter of time before upper management twisted the format into Road Rules, which eventually slid into the morass of Jersey Shore and 16 and Pregnant.
In the same way that MTV pioneered 24-hour music television, it also inadvertently created the reality show, which thrives today only because Big Brother is cheaper to produce than CSI.
But if I’m being honest, MTV’s ebbs and flows have been a constant in my creative life.
When I was a teenager, I produced Soundwaves, an after-school public access music request program that was mockingly-popular for a myriad of reasons, but mainly because there was a hunger for music on TV, and Pacifica didn’t have MTV yet.
A decade later, we revived the show and set out to do everything that MTV had started to move away from, which included location shoots, music news, and a diversified playlist. We became a hit with the record labels, who showered us with interview opportunities, CDs and swag. We did that for 500 episodes.
In 2018, we rebooted the show again, inspired and frustrated by the knowledge that local radio stations had stopped playing regional artists. We thought we’d do it for a few weeks, tops.
Who was going to watch our goofy little internet music video show with its dated concept?
Turns out, a lot of people! Soundwaves TV hit a million streams within the first year, scored a partnership with San Francisco’s big rock radio station 107.7 The Bone, and now airs on a handful of broadcast stations.
People still want their MTV.
I shudder to think what kind of corporate-funded pandering shit-show MTV would be if it launched today. Presumably, it would lean heavily on TikTok, and short-form content, and be directed toward 12-year-olds. And that would be missing the point entirely. In MTV’s heyday, the network was more of a reflection of culture, as opposed to a desperate reaction to it.
Music itself is intensely personal, but the release is primal. Rock and roll — in all its forms and genres — is meant to be a little dangerous, or at the very least, kinda weird.
Here’s the rub: it’s never been easier to create. There are more things to listen to and watch than ever, coming at you all at once in your social media feed. And from a certain perspective, that’s an amazing thing.
But imagine being in a great band, writing great songs, making great videos and there’s no radio station or music network to play them anymore.
There is no chance to become the next Bruce Springsteen or Prince or Kurt Cobain. I see incredibly talented artists who have it all, every single day, and wonder what life would be like for them if there was an MTV (or even a local radio station) to give them a spin.
That’s why I do what I do.
Music is the soundtrack of our innermost experiences, and that will never change. But there are no more Dick Clarks or MTVs to guide us on our personal musical journey.
The gatekeepers may be gone, but sadly, so are the gurus.
More than ever, we need our MTV.
Dennis Willis
Jul 27, 2021
In the pop-saturated early 1980s, one slogan stood above the rest:
I Want My MTV.
Four decades after the birth of the nascent music video network and it’s stunning effect on pop culture, there is now an even more ubiquitous statement that presents itself endlessly in the form of a punchline.
I’m sure you’ve heard it.
MTV doesn’t play music anymore.
In fact, you can’t even mention MTV to somebody without getting this snarky addendum. Hard to believe, but MTV is now forty years old, and really only favored music for the first twenty.
So why are so many people still so mad about this?
Because it was a betrayal of our vows, plain and simple.
MTV swooped into our lives, made us fall in love, walked together with us on our personal musical journey and eventually broke our hearts, slowly pulling back on the relationship until we were forced to admit it had left us for Teen Mom.
It’s not that we grew up and didn’t like youthful music anymore. The music left us. It sucks to get dumped.
How did we get here? The way we always do.
Chasing the quarterly bottom line. The tail wagging the dog.
Nowadays, when we put on our nostalgic hats and look through our rose-tinted glasses at the way things were 40 years ago, we hazily recall those early days with the key five VJs: Mark Goodman, Nina Blackwood, Martha Quinn, J.J. Jackson, and Alan Hunter.
Except most of us don’t.
The “I Want My MTV” campaign became a thing because the upstart network was only available in the major cities at first. I was raised in Pacifica, California, a coastal town ten miles south of San Francisco and we didn’t get MTV until late 1986. Ironically, that occurred only after Viacom bought the network from Warner Cable and the “original five VJs” were gone.
But despite its initial limited reach, the long arm of MTV was everywhere. Overnight, the pop charts and Top 40 radio switched over from 70s holdovers like Queen and Rod Stewart to young UK and Australian artists who had visually-exciting videos such as INXS, Duran Duran, Eurythmics and Culture Club. Imitators such as Friday Night Videos and Night Tracks sprung up on weekends, and kids traded VHS tapes with hours of continuous recording.
Music went from being something you listened to, to something you watched, and you left it on for weeks. You’ve heard of the YouTube rabbit hole? MTV invented that shit, one 3-minute video at a time.
We got MTV-inspired commercials, TV shows (Miami Vice), and movies (Streets of Fire, Purple Rain). MTV provided the canvas for artists like Michael Jackson and Madonna to paint on. It was a big neon-colored symbiotic relationship and we were all along for the ride.
MTV played our music, inspired our fashion, created huge media stars, enraged our parents the way rock and roll is supposed to, and even provided clear-headed reporting when a tragedy occurred or when Frank Zappa and Dee Snider appeared before Congress to oppose the Parents Resource Music Center’s labeling of edgy music.
Kurt Loder was our Dan Rather.
MTV had a conversation with us for two decades — at times pandering, and at other times elevating. For every time Rock the Vote set out to teach young viewers about how democracy worked, there was a Spring Break whip cream bikini contest. It’s all relative.
And let’s be real. It’s entirely possible the 1985 Live Aid concert would have happened anyway, but would it have had the global and cultural impact if PBS ran it?
Twenty years later, nostalgic viewers returned to MTV’s 2005 coverage of Live 8 only to find songs interrupted by endless commercials, never to return again.
Art vs. Commerce. It’s a bitch.
Corporate overlords don’t care about nostalgia, and anytime you add corporate interests to something viral and thriving, it’s a crapshoot. Viacom’s quest to monetize MTV did initially lead to the creation of awesome themed programming blocks such as 120 Minutes, Yo! MTV Raps, Headbangers Ball, and Alternative Nation. Win-win, right?
But while I’m a huge Beavis and Butt-head fan, there’s no mistaking that Mike Judge’s satire (which also mocked music videos) was the beginning of a programming shift that would ultimately turn the network into the punchline it is today.
Once the Real World proved successful, it was only a matter of time before upper management twisted the format into Road Rules, which eventually slid into the morass of Jersey Shore and 16 and Pregnant.
In the same way that MTV pioneered 24-hour music television, it also inadvertently created the reality show, which thrives today only because Big Brother is cheaper to produce than CSI.
But if I’m being honest, MTV’s ebbs and flows have been a constant in my creative life.
When I was a teenager, I produced Soundwaves, an after-school public access music request program that was mockingly-popular for a myriad of reasons, but mainly because there was a hunger for music on TV, and Pacifica didn’t have MTV yet.
A decade later, we revived the show and set out to do everything that MTV had started to move away from, which included location shoots, music news, and a diversified playlist. We became a hit with the record labels, who showered us with interview opportunities, CDs and swag. We did that for 500 episodes.
In 2018, we rebooted the show again, inspired and frustrated by the knowledge that local radio stations had stopped playing regional artists. We thought we’d do it for a few weeks, tops.
Who was going to watch our goofy little internet music video show with its dated concept?
Turns out, a lot of people! Soundwaves TV hit a million streams within the first year, scored a partnership with San Francisco’s big rock radio station 107.7 The Bone, and now airs on a handful of broadcast stations.
People still want their MTV.
I shudder to think what kind of corporate-funded pandering shit-show MTV would be if it launched today. Presumably, it would lean heavily on TikTok, and short-form content, and be directed toward 12-year-olds. And that would be missing the point entirely. In MTV’s heyday, the network was more of a reflection of culture, as opposed to a desperate reaction to it.
Music itself is intensely personal, but the release is primal. Rock and roll — in all its forms and genres — is meant to be a little dangerous, or at the very least, kinda weird.
Here’s the rub: it’s never been easier to create. There are more things to listen to and watch than ever, coming at you all at once in your social media feed. And from a certain perspective, that’s an amazing thing.
But imagine being in a great band, writing great songs, making great videos and there’s no radio station or music network to play them anymore.
There is no chance to become the next Bruce Springsteen or Prince or Kurt Cobain. I see incredibly talented artists who have it all, every single day, and wonder what life would be like for them if there was an MTV (or even a local radio station) to give them a spin.
That’s why I do what I do.
Music is the soundtrack of our innermost experiences, and that will never change. But there are no more Dick Clarks or MTVs to guide us on our personal musical journey.
The gatekeepers may be gone, but sadly, so are the gurus.
More than ever, we need our MTV.