MTV---Rembember when it was cool?

[AdmundfortGeographer]

And for the record - November Rain is a kick-ass song, so that's a bad example of indulgent videos for undeserving songs.

That's because it wasn't.

I said, "Sure, spending massive amount of money on "epic" videos was partly ego stroking for tempermental narcisistic musicians regardless of the quality of the music, good or bad."

 

[WizarDru]

Yeah, I remember when MTv was good.

I remember ALTv. I remember when "Thriller" was an event. I remember when VJs actually were worth listening to. I remember when MTv was about MUSIC, and not lifestyles. I remember when MTv was RELEVANT.

MTv used to be THE place to go to for news about musicians, interviews, the latest music and videos. Oh sure, they didn't cover lots of lesser known acts...but they made lots of acts much bigger than they might otherwise have been, due to exposure. Want to know why so many UK artists hit it big in the early 80s? Because the UK had already been doing videos for a long time, thanks to shows like Top of the Pops. I mean, do you really think Juice Newton would have gotten as much as exposure as she did without the power of videos? Duran Duran was widely (and IMHO unfairly) criticized for being popular purely on the strength of the videos from the Rio album, and less on the album itself.

I remember shows like 120 Minutes and Headbangers Ball and YO! MTv Raps...when actual enthusiasts for those kinds of music actually got heard and there was some diversity of the material on the channel. One didn't hear the Pixies or Sonic Youth or Bauhaus or dozens of other groups in regular rotation...but they did get played.

Anyone who caught MTv's "coverage" of Live8 should be able to tell that they've lost any connection with their audience and their goal. Why bother covering the concerts if you're going to talk over the acts? I listened to it over XM's 8 channel broadcast...and when we went in a restaurant to get dinner, I was appalled at their slapdash coverage of it. It didn't matter if it was the Kaiser Chiefs, Green Day or Pink Floyd...they botched it all.

These days, MTv's role has been usurped by Fuse TV.

 

[Mean Eyed Cat]

When I first got cabel I watched MTV because it had a cartoon on I liked called "The Maxx", which was about a woman's superego and id coming to life and battleing it out, it was a pretty trippy show and I liked it.

I loved The Maxx. Is that out on dvd yet?

 

[Pseudonym]

I also remember begging to be allowed to stay up on Sunday nights for the one show on MTV that played alternative music. IIRC it was called "120 minutes." There were a lot of groups I loved that I could only hear on that show. When the Kate Bush video for "Experiment IV" premiered on that show I watched it live and taped it (on my Betamax) so I could watch it again and again.

I remember a time when the definition of "alternative" was the music that they didn't play on MTV. 120 minutes came along and that changed somewhat. It seems like so long ago. Perhaps I am just getting old.

 

[LightPhoenix]

Do you have any figures to back this up? Otherwise, I disagree completely. I know many, many people who bought CDs because they heard the song on MTV and liked it. Many people will turn on the television for "background noise" before they turn on the radio.

No, I don't have any figures. I would look it up except for that I'm not sure these figures exist. I wouldn't disagree with your general premise of people hearing the song on MTV buying the CD. It's no different than hearing a song on the radio, or downloading one song and then the rest of the album from iTunes or BitTorrent or what not.

However, I would strongly argue that the video had nothing to do with it, because of what you just typed. You didn't say "background visuals", you said "background noise (emphasis mine)". I would argue that is had nothing to do with videos, and everything to do with a) the play of songs as an audial medium on MTV, a popular channel, and b) the rapidly rising popularity of television, and cable television in particular, as an alternative noise filler to radio. I suspect you would be hard pressed to outline an unbiased correlation between video production and CD sales. On the other hand, I can easily show that singles played on the radio drive CD sales. If MTV was basically radio-television, then my point is easily shown, but yours is not.

Basically, MTV was no different than any of the "Top 40" radio stations, with the exception of videos. And I figure that if videos were a significant method of generating revenue through CD sales, MTV would have maintained their early format through the efforts of the music industry. What actually happened is MTV basically abandoned videos altogether. That doesn't really instill me with the belief that videos were the cause, so much as hype. Hype can still be gotten on the radio, and can be gotten on TV without videos.

[edit] And my dream was sooo to be on remote control, and be flipped over backwards.

 

[Soel]

I also remember begging to be allowed to stay up on Sunday nights for the one show on MTV that played alternative music. IIRC it was called "120 minutes." There were a lot of groups I loved that I could only hear on that show.

This show was my favorite MTV show of all time, and exposed me to an entirely new world of music, and had a profound impact on my life. It had a sister program, Alternative Nation that aired weeknights but was only an hour long...

I also loved MTV's odd programs, like Liquid Television and Liquid Extract (sister program to the former) which featured cool and at the time, cutting edge animated vignettes and series. There is a dvd, but unfortunately it is missing a lot of the best material from the show. These shows paved the way for other animation to appear on MTV like Aeon Flux and MTV's Oddities (Maxx, the Head.)

 

[WizarDru]

I would argue that is had nothing to do with videos, and everything to do with a) the play of songs as an audial medium on MTV, a popular channel, and b) the rapidly rising popularity of television, and cable television in particular, as an alternative noise filler to radio. I suspect you would be hard pressed to outline an unbiased correlation between video production and CD sales. On the other hand, I can easily show that singles played on the radio drive CD sales. If MTV was basically radio-television, then my point is easily shown, but yours is not.

I return to my earlier point: there was a massive influx of UK bands who had never broken the charts in the US when MTv first came out, who were in large part attributed to MTv as the source of their success. In the early 80s, MTv was a huge novelty; it's no accident that the 'hair bands' all consisted of pretty boys, and that some older bands struggled. Videos quickly created an arms race amongst record producers - do you remember the hulabaloo around the videos for 'Thriller' or 'Blue Jean'? How some videos had stories that ran through them? Top 40 was influenced by MTv for a while, not the other way around. Artists like Weird Al Yankovic, Men at Work, Human League, the Thompson Twins, Thomas Dolby, Duran Duran, Loverboy, Def Leppard, White Snake, and many others owed their success in some part to their clever or visually interesting videos. Do you remember how Metallica threw the world on it's ear by being successful WITHOUT having a video?

The reason MTv didn't maintain their format is that A) Reality Shows are very cheap, B) Videos lost their marketing punch and C) sorting through all the videos became too much work. In short, the novelty wore off, and videos became just another marketing tool. The advent of the Internet has also removed a lot of MTv's 'gatekeeper' status. Videos and band information was obtainable in a lot of other locations, and MTv realized quickly that it was no longer the go-to guy, any longer. Consider a band like Tenacious D, which broke out through HBO, not MTv, or groups like the Decemberists or the Killers, who break through with grassroots movements, or Pitty Sing and Razorlight, who get exposure through movies or Royksopp and Powerman 5000, who get their big breaks via video games.

MTv was once a powerful marketing force and music industry mover-and-shaker...now they're a tired old has-been. My name is Mok, and thanks a lot.

 

[LightPhoenix]

Consider a band like Tenacious D, which broke out through HBO, not MTv, or groups like the Decemberists or the Killers, who break through with grassroots movements, or Pitty Sing and Razorlight, who get exposure through movies or Royksopp and Powerman 5000, who get their big breaks via video games.

MTv was once a powerful marketing force and music industry mover-and-shaker...now they're a tired old has-been. My name is Mok, and thanks a lot.

I would agree that MTV acted as a decent gateway, playing some stuff that hadn't ever been played before. That doesn't change the fact that MTV acted not as a jumpstart for videos, but a jumpstart for music. Had there been a nation-wide popular music station that played these songs, I have no doubt in my mind that they would be as popular as they are now.

To grab at two examples... Tenacious D is still very much a cult following. I'd bet you that more people could tell you who Jack Black was because of his movies than because of Tenacious D. The Killers got *known* through a grassroots movement, yes. They got *popular* because of pop music stations pimping them.

MTV's only real strength was that they were basically a nation-wide music station - videos were purely secondary to that. Again, the fact that MTV gave up on that is indicative that videos did not mean a thing sales-wise. If it did, MYV would still be showing videos. MTV does not show videos now, therefore it wasn't economically viable in any sense. Meanwhile, bands *still* become popular because of radio pimping. I'll bring up The Killers as a prime example of this... if their existence wasn't shoved down our throats by Top 40 stations (boo Clear Channel, boo) then they'd still be a fringe group.

Bands got popular on MTV because MTV pimped their music. Same way they did now. Videos were a novelty, as you said yourself. If they weren't, we'd still have videos on MTV, instead of endless reruns of Real World and Road Rules.

MTV was definitely a huge musical force in the 80s, I'm not denying that. The idea that it was because of videos is simply ludicrous though. It was because of several factors, the very least of which was videos. Culture at the time was embracing television in a way no one had before, and I'd argue no one has since. MTV's ability to act as a national music station instead of a local one owed to it's popularity and it's influence. The utter lack of any other major method of exposure to music outside of what was played locally added appeal. The fact that Clear Channel and other conglomerates were much less strong than they are now weakened opposition. These are why MTV was able to succeed as a music station, and even that barely at all. Videos were simply icing, they were hardly the reason for success of MTV.

Again, if videos were what made MTV, then it would still play videos. Once radio got it's act together (or subsumed in The Evil), once the internet came along, MTV simply died. If videos meant anything, MTV would still exist.

 

[WizarDru]

To grab at two examples... Tenacious D is still very much a cult following. I'd bet you that more people could tell you who Jack Black was because of his movies than because of Tenacious D. The Killers got *known* through a grassroots movement, yes. They got *popular* because of pop music stations pimping them.

I see what you're saying, and I agree...to a point. I think you undervalue the power of the video, particularly when they were new. I remember middle-school and high-school, and how many videos in and off themselves were a topic of conversation...especially when they were linked together, often as a story of sorts. And let's not forget, MTv does still show videos...just not at the times or in the quantity they used to. Scoring a spot on Total Request Live is still a powerful marketing tool; the difference now is that the videos no longer have their huge appeal. Certainly, a good video won't sell bad music (although that was argued pretty strongly in the early 80s, as I mentioned), but a bad video could hurt a good song.

I don't mean to make the case that the music was ancillary to the popularity of the bands...but Greg Kihn, for example, didn't break out of his local music scene on to the national one solely based on his music. He, like plenty of other bands, reached the attention of a large audience because of his videos. Yes, they were a gimmick...but if he hadn't made a video when videos were still a fledgling tool, he wouldn't have rose to stardom (and later plummeted just as quickly) without it. Consider someone like Huey Lewis and the News or Chris De Burgh, consider the Fixx or Alphaville or aha. All of them have continued to put out music for the last 20 years - but they have been shunted to the back bins of the world, where many no longer even know they still put out albums.

In the 1982-1984 period, we had what was collectively called the Second British Invasion. So pervasive was it, that for the first time ever (and only time since then) there were more British acts on the charts than American ones in the US Charts. Why? MTV. All those bands had videos ready and willing to go, and MTV needed to fill the airwaves. It took several years for US acts to catch up. When they did, MTVs first true golden period was over....the field had been leveled. Videos were a powerful tool ONCE...now they are just a part of the landscape. I mean, Thriller was selling adequately for Michael Jackson when it first came out: Epic threatened to withhold all their artists if MTV didn't show the "Thriller" video, so they played it. The next week, the album (which had already been getting air-play nationwide) sold 800,000 albums. Groups like Hall and Oates, who had been getting national airplay for over a decade, suddenly found their careers skyrocketing with their MTV exposure. I think the truth may lie in the middle, though. Being a national shared experience is a part of it, and the videos themselves were a part of it.

Showing Videos is still commercially viable. Fuse shows that, and MTV2 used to. But Viacom realizes that it can make more money with it's own cheap programming than with the 'radio station' concept it used to use. It's not that showing videos isn't economically viable...it's that selling 'Newlywed' t-shirts is more profitable.

And at the risk of sounding like an old fart, I think part of the reason is that the videos are mostly totally derivative, now. In the early 80s, you had stuff like Yes' "Owner of a Lonely Heart" and "Leave it", Thomas Dolby's "She Blinded me with Science", any video from Duran Duran's "Rio" album, Golden Earing's "Twilight Zone", Genesis "Illegal Alien", Mike and the Mechanics "All I need is a miracle", David Lee Roth's "California Girls", anything by Peter Gabriel and so on. Many of the videos since the 80s come across as 'contractual obligation video #3'....usually where the director has figured out some new visual gimmick to use while the band plays what is, essentially, an uninspired concert clip. Occasionally, this is interesting, like in the White Stripes' "Lego" video. All too often, it's just bad...as in the case of most rap videos, which are usually the singer walking through a crowded room with girls in bikins hanging off of him in full bling mode (Outkast excepted, of course).

 

[MaxKaladin]

Many of the videos since the 80s come across as 'contractual obligation video #3'....usually where the director has figured out some new visual gimmick to use while the band plays what is, essentially, an uninspired concert clip.

You still see some that remind you of the 80s though, like the "Stacy's Mom" video. Then again, I'm part of the "Old Fart" brigade and I don't see many modern videos, except occasionally flipping past VH1 (which is where I saw the "Stacy's Mom" video).