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Message: <blockquote data-quote="WizarDru" data-source="post: 2495838" data-attributes="member: 151">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. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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