It's the 40th anniversary of the launching of MTV, otherwise known as Music Television. The channel still exists, but it's anything but a music video channel these days. It's sad that reality TV replaced the music, but I have to admit I had a bad feeling when they put that crap show known as The Real World on the air. Even sadder is that nobody has come along to do what MTV used to do, because I believe it could still work. You have so many channels these days, why wouldn't there be room for this?
Back in those days, the cable box was just making its way into people's homes. I don't know if we had the cable box when August 1st, 1981 came along. It might have been a few months after when I became aware of this channel. The music industry freaked out about it, and the record labels didn't want to support this upstart channel. They thought it would hurt their own bottom line. However, record sales started to go up for the artists who did put videos on this channel. Suddenly, the labels wanted in on the deal.
There is speculation about where the concept for Music Television really came from. Was it Michael Nesmith who deserves the credit? He was on the Monkees long before he started playing with the music video concept, and certainly segments of that show took on the appearance of MTV music videos. Actually, bands would do promotional videos long before MTV became a thing. Those videos would play at record stores as a way to entice people to buy their records. Whenever the case, the rocket launched and the first song on the air was Video Killed The Radio Star by The Buggles. The music industry wasn't quite the same.
Radio stations had DJs, but MTV had VJ's. They were JJ Jackson, Martha Quinn, Nina Blackwood, Mark Goodman and Alan Hunter. These guys and gals would introduce the newest videos. They got to interview the artists and even check out some of big concerts. What an exciting time it must have been to be on the ground floor of launching this channel. This is before Viacom got their hands on it and pretty much turned it into crap. We were getting music videos. If there was nothing on TV, you could just flip to the channel and kill a couple of hours enjoying some music and some cool videos
There were many promotions that they did. there were lots of contests that they had, but they had the campaign to get the channel on various cable systems. Back then, some of those cable carriers were reluctant to put a channel like this in their lineup. Hence, "I want my MTV" became the catch phrase with Billy idol and other artists saying the phrase. For all of the criticisms of this channel, there really was nothing like it. We were introduced to music we might not have otherwise heard, some of it good and some of it bad.
One of the big critics of the channel was Frank Zappa, and it's very interesting to go back and listen to some of the things he said about the music industry and the world in general. He wasn't that far off the mark. His concern was that MTV was all about style over substance. How you looked was more important than how well you could play or the songs you created. True, there was some garbage on MTV, but there was good music being created and shown to us. It's sad that artists like Christopher Cross didn't catch a break on MTV because he didn't have the look. Some of the top '70s acts didn't quite make the transition and missed the wave that MTV rode In on.
I could easily get into talking about the different artists. Billy Idol, Pat Benatar, Duran Duran, Twisted Sister, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Van Halen, Prince, Genesis and so many more. If you were there, you know. You probably enjoyed this channel. It changed the music industry, and I don't necessarily think it hurt it. Music was immensely popular in the 1980s and records were selling off the shelves. Concert tickets were selling out, and MTV had a hand in all of that.
As we went into the 1990s, things started to change. The channel became less about music until it was ultimately phased out of the lineup entirely. They created MTV2, but even they phased music out as did VH1. It boggles my mind that there is no channel doing what they did when we have so many channels to choose from. You can't tell me that there's not enough room for one channel that does this. Better yet, why doesn't Viacom make a Classic MTV channel that shows things as they aired all those years ago? It's just a time that has gone by, but those of us who saw it in its infancy can attest to how cool MTV was. I can't believe it's been 40 years.
