MTV Turns Twenty-Five Quietly

Yesterday, MTV turned 25 years old, but one would never have noticed by watching the network. Anniversaries are usually big deals, but MTV’s audience thinks ancient history was February. Besides, as revolutionary at its once was, MTV is no longer Music Television but Mediocre Television. Its competitors do what it once did, better.

August 1, 1981 was so long ago, Ronald Reagan was still the new president. On the Billboard Chart, Rick Springfield’s “Jessie’s Girl” had just kicked Air Supply’s “The One That You Love” out of the #1 spot. In New York City, there wasn’t any cable TV. When MTV did its launch, it had to drive people to a bar in New Jersey to watch the broadcast.

To say that everything changed when the Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star” came on as the very first video shown is not excessive. Videos were not a real music art form, Walt Disney’s “Fantasia” notwithstanding. Mike Nesmith of the Monkees and Bob Pittman (who would be MTV Networks CEO and president) had a show called “Pop Clips,” but MTV was an entire network devoted to playing music videos. Suddenly, it mattered how a band looked (not really a good thing) and eventually, it wasn’t enough to show musicians playing instruments – something original had to make up part of the video (very good thing).

Forgetting that “you dance with the one that brung ya’,” MTV decided to move into something other than just music videos with news-ish “This Week in Rock,” “Club MTV” and “Remote Control.” Now, the videos have been exiled in the MTV empire to MTV2, VH-1, and VH-1 Classics. The flagship now offers “Pimp My Ride,” a show about fixing up dying cars, “Next!” a speed dating game show, and “Yo, Mama,” a contest about insulting the mother of a competitor (“Your mother is so stupid, her kid’s on this show!”).

With the metamorphosis of MTV, the golden age of the video passed. Movie directors used to work with bands in places like Sri Lanka to create a vision of the song. Now, any dolt with a camera can hire a dozen model-wannabes to dance behind DJ Dumbass and make it to TV. There are still some interesting pieces done, but they are the exception, not the rule, and they are on MTV’s lesser networks, or better still, rival stations FUSE and International Music Feed.

It used to be “I want my MTV,” but after video killed the radio star, the little idiot committed suicide. Compare Bowie’s “Ashes to Ashes” and Duran Duran’s “Hungry Like to Wolf” to anything on today, and one will see the point.

© Copyright 2006 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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