Early days of MTV

Loved these VJs...

I loved the first season of Remote Control.

One of the first videos I remember seeing is Elvis Costello 'Everyday I Write the Book.'

I didn't get MTV until 1983 when I was in high school. When we visited our cousins in the summer they had MTV and I all I wanted to do was watch it. I remember them playing 'Electric Avenue' and 'Our House' a lot.

MTV made Madonna and in 1984/1985 I couldn't get enough of her.

MTV came to cable in my area in 1982. The thing I remember most about it is how interesting it was to see the actual performers in something other than an onstage setting. In that respect, it brought style and fashion to kids who wouldn't have been exposed to it otherwise. Boy George, Spandau Ballet, Cyndi Lauper, Duran Duran, etc. I was in 6th grade, 11 years old, my friends and I were 4 or 5 years away from picking up fashion magazines or driving to visit big cities. Without MTV, we wouldn't have had as much awareness of pop culture.

A kid in my class would talk about all of the videos that he had watched before he came to school that morning.

Nina Blackwood did a lot of coke.

It was so exciting and most young people were glued to the tube, watching the new videos and hoping to see a favorite run again. It was interesting to see how artists tried to outdo each other in their videos.

I want my MTV!

I grew up in Michigan, which was the target audience for MTV, and we got it within six months of the channel launching. It wasn't even available in Manhattan for the first years, and the VJs had to go to New Jersey to watch it during the opening party.

R6, where are you from?

Martha Quinn was the greatest VJ of all time.

R12, I'm from rural NC.

What's the first video you remember seeing on MTV?

R11, not to be offensive, but why would they target Michigan? It didn't get to Columbus, Ohio, for a while and that was known as the #1 target market for everything.

Melt With You by Modern English and I Ran by Flock of Seagulls got a lot of airplay.

Love is a Battlefield was on every 15 minutes.

Duran Duran was epic during that time.

R6, good for you. I don't know how they picked which areas to target. Rural N.C. seems a little odd though.

[quote]Martha Quinn was the greatest VJ of all time.

And that cunt Kennedy was the worst.

I totally agree with the above posters who mentioned that MTV completely influenced fashion for decades. Everyone wanted to look like their favorite artists and few of us would have had much of any exposure to them otherwise. Style became half of the equation to achieving hit songs. Looks became more important than before. You were expected to be fit and hot. And plenty of artists were trying to start fashion trends - often more than they cared about the quality of their music.

It depended on your cable provider. Some Midwestern cable companies were flooded with MTV promotional materials in the early days. That's why MTV is included in all of the basic cable lineups because it was in early sell.. Detroit is a major music market, more so than Columbus, I imagine.

I liked Alan the cute blonde VJ

Alan Hunter is in David Bowie's "Fashion" video.

This is r4 again, my cousins who had MTV lived in Michigan. I lived in Florida and we didn't get it until years later.

Florida was definitely late getting MTV. At least where I grew up.

it was ruined by 1983, when bands started specifically marketing videos to MTV. Before that MTV would play anyone who had a video or promo, like Cliff Richard, ON-J and even the Carpenters.

I always thought Mark Goodman was a tool.

It felt like it died with Downtown Julie Brown and a succession of lame VJs.

[quote]it was ruined by 1983

Bitch please.

I still can't believe Singled Out was ever on MTV

Racist as all hell....

Billy Idol was made for MTV.

R33 you're still up?

[quote]Downtown Julie Brown

Wubba wubba wubba! ugh she was the worst.

M2 (or MTV2) launched in 1996, and actually went back to playing music videos.

Grace Slick's VJ daughter China Kantner

[quote] It felt like it died with Downtown Julie Brown

Yes Downtown Julie Brown was awful, but the true Julie Brown took MTV to its peak of glory.

My younger cousins consider TRL to be the early days of MTV.

I came home from school one day and a huge projection tv, a laserdisc player, and a microwave had been delivered. A few days later my parents upgraded our cable to get more channels and I remember watching MTV for the first time while eating a 10-minute "baked" potato, marveling at how luxurious my life had just become. Not long after, I learned that my parents were divorcing and that was their way of softening the blow.

Most of the videos sucked. Even the better ones were played to fucking death. I hated Madonna's videos; God, it was obvious she was so untalented, such a mediocre singer and dancer. I got sick to death of that fucking "November Rain" video by Guns'n'Roses. It was considered some kind of masterpiece but it was really an expensively made piece of shit.

Oprah proved that you can spend hundreds of millions of dollars and fail trying to get into the cable packages and homes that MTV is in automatically.

Wow, R42, when did YOU watch? was it during HEadbangers' Ball?

I loved the first wave of Duran Duran.

I remember when they used to play a lot of Rod Stewart videos.

I like The Midnight Special more.

I saw it from the very beginning. The videos were fascinating - many were very low-budget and looked like something your friends' garage band put together. There were minimal special effects and the band members all had to act it out and rely on enthusiasm to make it entertaining. There was also a lot more goofy humor and clowning in the early days.

Each video tended to have a distinct theme (outer space, the 1940s, the jungle, the Middle Ages) and each one looked totally different from the next one - different atmosphere and tone. The video often had nothing whatsoever to do with the lyrics of the song. A lot of mixed-up, fun stuff. Things started to change with the advent of Duran Duran's "Rio", which was very slick-looking. After that it all started to look like Hollywood movies. By the early 1990s it was garbage.

r42 is a big piece of shit and OLD.

I wish MTV would devote a channel to re-running the old stuff and not just the videos. I'm talking about VJ intros, MTV awards, news, etc instead of running three hours of "My wife and Kids."

In my mind and in my car,

We can't rewind, we've gone too far.

Pictures came and broke your heart.

Put the blame on V.C.R..

I remember how they made such a big deal out of Duran Duran's "Wild Boys" video being the most expensive video back then. Big premiere n' all.

Adding to r52. I think it was also the first time I saw a behind the scenes feature of a music video.

Nope, my mother was an overbearing cunt and had the cable company block MTV. And we didn't even get cable until 1991!

I live in Columbus Ohio and I had friends who had the channel. I don't think it was on basic but if you had a box or extended cable you could get it. I'd go to their house and there would be a group of us sitting around the television watching the videos. This was in 1982. We were all African Americans in our 20's some of us with degrees. And here we were watching these new television programs called "music videos" playing the popular songs; we were absolutely fascinated. The only problem was they were only playing white videos; I remember us watching this one video by an obscure girl group and trying to decide if one of the girls was black. It was kind of pathetic, actually but we still watched. It would be another couple of years or so that they would start airing videos from Michael Jackson's "Thriller" and usher in playing songs by black crossover artists.

MTV stayed white for a long time but soon you had options like BET or special channels where you could order a video to be played by calling in and paying a fee (does anyone remember those?), so you could see R&B videos, but in the very beginning there was only MTV and what they did was truly ground breaking.

"My mother was an overbearing cunt." I did NOT raise my boy to talk that way to his mother!

Imagine growing up gay in the middle of fucking nowhere & having zero exposure to other gay people other than the ones you could see on MTV (The Real World)...then having your mother purposely cut that off from you, R56. Not to mention, I liked all of the creativity I saw on MTV at the time. But NO! Mom didn't want us "exposed" to all that so she called up the cable company and had them put a block on it!

I highly recommend the book "I Want My MTV" which describes the early days and rise of the network. It has s ton of interviews and is LOL funny.

This is what rock stars looked like before MTV.

I was six years old and we got a box that sat on the tv called a "converter". Channel 20 was MTV and channel 21 was Nickelodeon and my life revolved around those two channels. Now everyone says how racist it was, which seems odd to me bc my fave DJ was JJ Jackson and Prince, MJ, DeBarge and Menuedo were on constantly.

It was definitely better when they kept the "shows" to a minimum and played videos or at least countdowns. Not sure if it was "ruined" in the 90s but for sure in 2000s

JJ "Triple J" Jackson was like the paternal figure of the original five. He and Martha Quinn seemed like the two who were really knowledgeable about music and had a passion for it.

I think they did a near clean sweep of the original VJs in 1985 or so. I quit watching then, mostly in order to spend more time studying and smoking pot, but erasing that original line-up made giving it up a lot easier.

I remember People are People and Close to the Edit.

Plus Take on Me nonstop.

It introduced me to the wacky Brit com The Young Ones that show never gets old.

Crack that whip . . .

MTV then, and MTV now:

MTV Renames the Video Music Awards' 'Moonman' to 'Moon Person'

In keeping with some new changes at the network, MTV is doing away with the gendered VMA trophy, lovingly called the "Moonman," in favor of a gender-free space traveler, which will be henceforth known as the "Moon Person."

In an interview with the New York Times, MTV's president Chris McCarthy said that, in addition to getting rid of the gendered categories at the 2017 MTV Movie Awards and upcoming 2017 MTV VMAs, winners would be taking home the gender neutral figure.

In the interview, McCarthy said, "Why should it be a man? It could be a man, it could be a woman, it could be transgender, it could be nonconformist."

A far as the "race issue" argument is concerned...

I believe it was Jackson's "Billie Jean" that was the first AA artist to have their video played on MTV. Or at least the first one in heavy rotation.

The first AA female for this was Summer's "She Works Hard for the Money".

Both of these songs were released in 1983, almost two full years after MTV's premiere.

This is the first video I saw on MTV , followed by the Rolling Stones.

The "race" non issue is described in the book.

Older food will remember that in the 70s, major market radio stations targeted different demographics. We didn't have "Jack FM" or "All the Hits" radio back then. Instead, a station was exclusively Hard Rock or Classical or Country or Soft Rock or RnB, etc.

MTV was developed to be a Rock Music station. They didn't play many black artists because few black artists were making "rock" music in the 70s. Just like a Soft Rock radio station isn't going to play Megadeth, a Rock station isn't going to play Peabo Bryson.

But soon, MTV's popularity exploded and they realized that the Rock format was needlessly limiting. So they played more black artists. Simple as that. Racism and prejudice were never an issue.

Older folks, not Older food

I grew up in the Detroit area and remember housesitting for my friends parents and seeing MTV for the first time. I was glued to the TV! It was so awesome!

I think you mean radical, R70. Or gnarly!

My cousins in LA got it years after I did in the midwest, and when they finally got it, they would set their VCR to record everything with 8-hour tapes day after day.

Well my generation of MTV was the late 90s. So I grew up listening to Britney spears, Destineys Child and The BackStreet boys etc. TRL was really big for me and my friends. Along with BET's 106 and PARK. Which was like a black TRL on BET. they'd also have white artist on as well. Those were some interesting day's. Glad it's over now.

90s MTV had almost no resemblance to early 80s MTV.

I was 10 when MTV launched and my family didn't have cable but my friend's family did and it was on 24/7. My MTV watching heyday was Michael Jackson "Thriller," Duran Duran "Hungry Like the Wolf," Van Halen "Jump," etc.

THE QUEEN

I was glued to the tv for the premier with the Buggles video and watched the first ever airing of Thriller on Halloween. Both times in the basement of my friend Christine's house smoking pot.

I quit watching when they started showing less videos and more stupid game and reality shows. Ceased altogether in the early 90's. Terrible.

Yes, once they drifted away from videos it was just a matter of when.

The TRL age (late nineties) was fun and exciting: Brit, Xtina, Backstreet Boys, NSync vs. Puff Daddy vs. Kid Rock vs. Limp Bizkit. But then Napster hit and the balloon popped.

They're revamping TRL though it'll have to be totally new to satisfy today's teens.

I remember seeing Billy Joel's video for Allentown on an early Sunday morning, and was surprised that a video with bare man ass would be played on heavy rotation.

I think I remember first watching MTV at a Godfathers pizza joint. It would have been very early 80's while in college. I was mesmerized. But of course I was stoned all the time back then too.

R49 is an insipid idiot who simply loves MTV videos. I don't know how old this twat is (he doesn't know how old I am, either). But it doesn't matter what his age is. He's an idiot. And he'll be that until he dies.

Fuck off, r83!

When it came on the air in my suburb in NY state, one of maybe only 40 channels available, it really shook things up. I was in eighth grade. My musical tastes had been shaped mostly by my parents' record collection and Top-40 and album rock radio until then.

But the playlist in those early MTV years was different. I loved Martha Quinn and Nina Blackwood among the original VJs but came to appreciate JJ Jackson and Mark Goodman as more knowledgeable. And I bought a lot of albums with money I earned from the paper route and got in allowance or gifts: Duran Duran, the Go-Go's, the Police, The Jam, Pretenders, Joan Armatrading and lots of others.

When "Don't You Want Me" by The Human League went to number 1 in the US it was MTV's influence on radio and record buying, I believe.

[QUOTE]Nina Blackwood did a lot of coke.

She looked it

I saw JJ Jackson in line at Rockaway records in LA a couple years before he died. I don't think anyone else recognized him but me, and I remember thinking "hey everyone this guy's a big deal!"

Did the music magazine and teen fan magazine popularity coincide with the rise of MTV? My family didn't have cable but I remember Boy George and Simon LeBon and Michael Jackson staring at me from a sea of pop culture magazines on the rack at the grocery store.

I spent all of my allowance money on 45 singles and those magazines. Poring over a new issue was heaven.

It was all such a novelty back then in '81, '82. Yes, cheap sets, poorly made videos etc but so what ? Actually the earliest music videos that were really any good were HOT FOR TEACHER by Van Halen & of course Michael Jackson's THRiLLER.

I remember the same videos being played over and over. There were so few of them when MTV started up and they had to repeat them every hour. We had it on in the background while we were getting high.

I loved Tom Petty's "You Got Lucky" video

I remember waiting for Duran Durans' "Reflex" I would not move. They even had a countdown. By the time "Wild Boys" came out I was done.

I disagree heartily r21. I thought Kennedy was awesome.

The go-gos our lips are sealed was my first video 1982

I remember waking up extra early so that I could watch a few hours of music videos before I had to leave to go to work. It was a great way to start the day.

dark headed mark goodman made my knees weak

Some of the earliest videos I remember:

Greg Kihn Band - Jeopardy

Eurhythmics - Sweet Dreams

Michael Jackson - Billie Jean

Fleetwood Mac - Hold Me

Pat Benatar - Love Is A Battlefield

This is a great oral history ...

The original MTV VJs offer a behind-the-scenes oral history of the early years of MTV, circa 1981 to 1985, when it was exploding, reshaping the culture, and forming “the MTV generation.

I used to record MTV Spring Break because every once in a while they'd show a guy in a speedo & I'd of course proceed to jerk off to it furiously. Those were the days. Wish I could find that VHS tape.

I lived in Detroit at the time and there was no cable company in the city until about 1987. So from 83-86, I relied on driving to Utica, to my high school best friend's sister house so that we could get drunk on MTV all weekend. Literally from late Friday to mid Sunday.

Man, those were the days.

Fans of Kennedy can watch her lick Trump's asshole as one of the stars of the Fox News network because of course that's how she wants to spend her time.

It took awhile for MTV to come to places I lived at in the early 80s. I remember family and friends would watch TBS' Night Tracks and NBC Friday Night Videos to get our video fix, since there was no MTV available. I had MTV at least by 1985 because I recall of the incessant playing of Raspberry Beret when it first came out.

Obviously Tarantino was watching. His movies are the same as MTV. He's a weird aspie so he wasn't outside like normal teens.

I was in college in 1981 (junior year) in Columbus, OH. I could get MTV (AND the new Playboy channel) by inserting a spatula in the side of the converter box and inserting a big safety pin between two of the connections.

View To A Kill

R104, cool. How can I up my Optimun?

They played this out in the VERY early days, when MTV was only on for an hour or two each day.

I was fascinated by Total Coelo's I Eat Cannibals -- the entire production must have cost maybe 10 dollars, and the song less. It was remarkable what dreck made it on the air for the first few years.

This one creeped me the fuck out

Families like mine who didn't have cable had to get our video fix from Casey's "America's Top Ten" syndicated TV show. It was only 30 minutes so it only showed 2 or 3 full videos.

People bitch about MTV not playing videos but if they were still playing videos would anybody still be watching?

R109 Alexis Arquette's small screen debut

While this was later on - around 1990 - this remains my favorite MTV moment, from the MTV Music Awards.

In the 80's MTV could make or break a band or artist based on video play. The MTV Video Awards became the most popular awards show even beyond the Oscars and Grammys. Music videos were an art form for a brief period but now they are almost completely irrelevant. However, at least we have The Real World, Teen Mom and Catfish to fill the void.

"You Better Run" by Pat Benatar was the 2nd video played on MTV.

r4 again here, funny I mentioned 'Our House', haven't heard it in years and today I heard it on the way home from work on the radio.

I remember being scandalized as a ten year old over this one. "He's singing about S! E! X!"

Remember guest vjs? I waited with baited breath for Duran Duran and inxs' turn at the guest vj slots. One summer 1983/84(?) dweezil zappa was a guest vj all summer in the afternoons. I loved him.❤️Also Alan hunter was my bae.

Here's John Taylor and Andy Taylor in 1985. They are totally wasted.

It is ridiculous to call a channel Music Television and fill it with reality programming. It's like a channel called Reality TV that plays only music videos.

My favorites were Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty with Stop Draggin My Heart Around, which I think was #79 on the original MTV playlist. The other was The Go Gos' Vacation in 1982. MTV came out about the time I had cable for the first time in my life. I couldn't believe there was something to do after midnight (when the local tv stations signed off).

I watched a lot of MTV until I started working full-time. I usually watched Night Tracks on TBS after that.

R119 I remember watching that -thx for the link!

I love this thread!

The best thing about MTV is you always knew what were their most popular videos by how many times a day they were played. It was heaven when one of my faves hit the heavy rotation cycle.

And of course, how would we have ever seen the great Billy Squier and "Rock Me Tonight"? The MTV book mentioned above has an entire chapter devoted to it, if I recall correctly

I loved the video for "Turn to You" by the Go-Go's with Rob Lowe and the band dressed as men. I couldn't find it on youtube, but this making-of video is there.

Buzz Bin! 120 Minutes!

Shit, Yes! My 32" Sony Triniton television was permanently fixed to MTV for years!

From the moment I arose in the morning; from the moment I arrived home from work; to house party background entertainment; MTV was always "On"!

Loved "House of Style" with Cindy Crawford! (I secretly enjoyed "Jack Ass," as well - Loved me my "Wee-man"!)

They played this 20-minute David Bowie video for "Blue Jean" a few times a day

I used to love 120 Minutes with Matt Pinfield when he would play less well-known / alternative bands.

Karma Chameleon

Our Lips Are Sealed

Slightly off topic. Does anybody remember a show where you could call a 900 number and request videos with a certain code? I don't know if it was all over the country or a NYC area station.

I liked how Remote Control mocked other game shows. When a guest would be eliminated, they would fly back in the chair and get yanked off set. I also liked Ken Ober, which is probably why I started to like shorter, funny guys who are into music.

If the thread is deteriorating into an old MTV music video link-fest, this is an essential New Wave hit. I loved Holly's glasses.

MTV might not have played a lot of black artists at first, but JJ Jackson was the highest paid VJ at the time, and was given the most prominent after school and prime time video playing hours.

My straight friends, who are now married with kids, were way more into Boy George than I was, and talked about him all the time.

It was so exciting, almost embarrassingly so in hindsight. I remember a whole bunch of us in an office in L.A. leaving our desks to go watch Toni Basil's "Mickey" on a communal TV. It seemed ground-breaking. (It actually wasn't). But at least music was still fun then and there really was a music business, more than ever. So fucking sad now.

"Aeon Flux," one Bad Ass Bitch!

I like how Belinda just hunches over in the driver's seat during Jane's solo from 2:35-2:42 as if we don't see her.

Boy George was a huge star in the early 80s. He was all over TV and magazines.

I remember Loverboy had some MTV contest and the winner would be in their new video. The winner was some great big fat girl, and she was in the video for maybe 1 second. She sat at a computer console and pushed a button. My friends and I thought the whole episode was hilarious for some reason.

R67 - thank you for that. Always wanted to see it again to check if it was as absurd as I remembered.

We didn't get cable. I had to settle for Friday Night Videos on NBC.

I was in high school and working at a movie theater when MTV came to our cable (81-82). I remember getting off work around midnight, stopping at Jack-in-the-Box to get something to eat, then sitting in our den watching videos while I ate. It was a nightly ritual.

I was at my friend's house and his sister ran to the phone to call her friend and said 'Big Country is on MTV!"

The Winter Steele part of Liquid Television was my favorite thing ever on MTV (that and Just Say Julie). Winter Steele is like some of my family.

I think that I was glued to MTV in some way shape or form until perhaps 1997 or so. Even after the obvious requirement of having a great video to accompany your single for a musical artist came and went - all of us who were MTV babies (and I was all of 3 years old when they launched) all expected the same into the late 90's. At some point, we realized that this era was over and most of us pretty much left the network because we did not see much value anymore. That said, I sure was addicted to the first maybe 7 or 8 seasons of "The Real World" - so in this country, they certainly indoctrinated us into reality television. Good, bad or indifferent - that was the case.

"Working for the Weekend" Loverboy

"I Will Follow" - U2

We didn't get MTV on my local cable provider for the first year, so when I had a trip to NYC I made sure that the hotel's TV got it, and then I proceeded to stay in the room almost the whole time glued to the set. Once we finally did get it in my hometown I think it was on 23/7 except when Late Night w David Letterman was on. '82-'84 were my favorite years, but I have to admit that when The Real World debuted it was almost as great.

Who would have thought that MTV would invent a type of TV(reality) which would practically take over in the aughts?

Yes, I know An American Family w the Louds preceded TRW, but that was a one off and not seen by the masses like TRW.

I remember Pat Benatar being played constantly and my mother always making very Dataloungey comments about her face. They usually had something to do with puffer fish, and of course she was right.

[quote]We didn't get cable. I had to settle for Friday Night Videos on NBC.

Right? I never had cable growing up because my father was too cheap but ALL of my friends had it. Every single one of them. So whenever I would go their houses, I would sit and watch MTV for HOURS. The first video I remember seeing was “Hit me with your best shot” but the video left an impression on me was “True” by Spandau Ballet.

In fact, I didn’t get cable until I was in my 30s. Now I only watch MTV for Teen Wolf and...Wild-n-Out (sometimes).

In late August '81, I attended the monthly Ad Club meeting in my city. I was working my first post-college job at an advertising agency.

The presentation that day was by our local cable television company and it announced they had just added something called Music Television to their free line-up of channels.

They showed a sales clip of what the new television channel's content would be and said it would be operate 24-hours a day. Any day parts could be bought for our clients, they told the advertising media buyers present, and advertising rates would be "very affordable" while the network got established and ratings got measured.

I remember distinctly that the general consensus at my lunch table, about a dozen people "in the biz," was that this programming idea was probably not going to work longterm and that very few local advertisers would want to reach that demographic that MTV would attract, i.e., teens and young adults, that traditional media was not already reaching. Some media buyers said they might add to their media schedules as "fill," but even that would depend on how cheap the rates were.

Of course in hindsight, the channel's ratings skyrocketed.

I was 26 at the time and thought MTV was an *excellent idea!* and when I left the agency for another job in another city soon thereafter, I made sure I signed up for cable so I could "get my MTV."

Like others have said upthread, for me it was pretty much over by the early '90s. I liked the music videos but the other programming MTV started getting into sucked as far as I was concerned.

Maybe I outgrew MTV.

I remember seeing Olivia Newton-John's Soul Kiss video for the first time on MTV. Made me feel so alive.

Speaking of ONJ, I very vividly remember the video for Physical, which ended with two guys holding hands and going into the sauna together - which was remarkably daring for the early 1980s.

Even Yoko Ono got air time on MTV

Thanks for this thread, OP. I also wonder with (I think) R50 as to why they don't re-run their old shows w/ the old VJs on one of their lesser sub-stations or on VH1 (which they bought, yes?) All of those old broadcasts are just collecting dust anyway. I would come home from work (just like I used to do after school), turn it on for background noise, listen/watch videos while I cleaned my house, or wrapped up with some work at home or had people over for a game night or BBQ.

I enjoyed VH-1's Pop Up Video but I haven't seen VH-1 in awhile. Did they go the same route as Mtv and start playing sucky music by vacuous pop stars and lots of reality shows?

There's no money to be made by showing old content to old people. If you ain't a teenager with disposable income, they don't care aboutchoo.

They're bringing back TRL with Carson Kressley starting in October. That show used to be huge back in the day. Artists will get to perform, premiere their videos and make special announcements to fans. They brought it back for a one-time special in 2014 to showcase Ariana Grande, but this time it's going to be permanent.

Wow, congratulations to Carson Kressley. Hosting a daily show on MTV is a big career step up from occasional RuPaul Drag Race judge.

It's nice to see flamboyant gays succeed in mainstream media gigs.

i hate carson. he's old too.

Migos is the homophobic rapper who is still popular, right? It'll be interesting to see them interact with Carson when they try to promote their latest video.

Migos are gross and disgusting. And I LOVE hip hop.

They are the black version of white trash.

I mean Carson Daley, not Miss Kressley.

Daria will always bel MTV to me. Loved whenever it was on and currently doing a rewatch now (although I miss the music they had in the show when it aired on MTV)

Nope, no one named Carson will be hosting the new TRL.

* Amy Pham, a DJ/actress/TV host who has served as a creative ambassador for the likes of CoverGirl, Maybelline, Forever 21 and Macy’s.

* D.C. Young Fly, a musician and social-media star. You may have seen him on MTV’s Nick Cannon Presents: Wild ‘N Out, or in BET’s recent New Edition biopic.

* Erik Zachary, an on-air host for iHeartMedia’s 103.5 KISS FM in Chicago. Best known for launching a country-specific iHeart channel, Zachary also has a YouTube channel featuring his celebrity interviews, comedy sketches and more.

* Lawrence Jackson, a seasoned celebrity interviewer with work featured on ESPN and ABC, as well as in Essence magazine.

* Tamara Dhia, a former Complex staffer known for interviewing some of pop culture’s heaviest hitters.

I was surprised to find out that Daria was created in Korea, and each episode took over a year to make.

Only one mention of Remote Control?

And only one mention of "Just Say Julie"!!!! The only two shows I ever watched on MTV.

I loved watching Julie Brown. The show got a little stale near the end, though.

And I thought Ken Ober was funny and somewhat cute. Colin Quinn is funny, too.

I do remember watching "Singled Out" and "TRL". Although by the new century, I was starting to age-out of their ideal demographic.

As far as black artists, I remember Mtv did play some black artists just not mainstream black artists like Joan Armatrading, Garland Jeffries, Grace Jones, the Bus Boys and even Prince, back when he was seen as weird. Like it was stated upthread they wanted to be a rock station. The hypocrisy was they rushed to play "new wave" British groups like Culture Club, Human League, Spandau Ballet and ABC who were all doing they're version of American R&B and Disco, unashamed. But they wouldn't play "Superfreak" by Rick James which was a true funk/rock fusion.

The MTV effect on attention span seems believable. The quick cutting in music became the new normal and then any camera shot on TV or a movie that lasts more than a few seconds seems interminable. Foreign films with the their long boring scenes with no action are unwatchable.

In the earliest days, 81 or so, they only played mostly obscure videos of the more popular starts (Bowie, Benatar, Gary Wright!!) Until video culture caught on and big money was spent on videos of the most popular acts (thinking of Duran Duran). Of course my 13 year old self watched every minute of it, and it really was quite a revolution in music entertainment to witness.

It will never happen again, but MTV was actually ahead of radio, and songs became hits with videos before receiving much airplay.

Eddy Grant's Electric Avenue was played constantly.

Yes because Electric Avenue is a rock song.

Yes! When I think of the early MTV, Electric Avenue is what I am hearing,

I really wasn't into MTV until it went totally mainstream: Madonna - Cyndi Lauper - Culture Club - David Bowie.

1982-1984.

1st day at MTV:

"You Better You Bet" by The Who at 4:25 receiving the first of many, many replays.

Weird now to think of sixties bands like The Who being big on MTV, which I associate entirely with the eighties, which was the only time I ever watched it.

And I didn't realize that Ken Ober died in 2009. Wow.

MTV was absolutely revolutionary. I doubt that it will happen again, but everything old is new again at some stage. They 100% dictated who was a star, who was a major artist, who was bankable and who was not. Social media changed that to a large degree. We shall see what comes in the future. That said, about 500 plus music stars owe their stardom to MTV.

R177, even more The Stones than the Who. Wasn't "Start Me Up" the biggest hit of their career? Hell, it subsequently became the soundtrack of a famous Microsoft commercial.

I would sit in front of my TV and watch MTV for hours and hours during the '80s. It was a cultural phenomenon and every teen was obsessed. The way kids today are obsessed with their cell phones is how we felt about MTV.

I liked VH1 when Don Imus hosted, he hated all the artists and videos and make snarky comments about them.

Pat Benatar was terrible in her performance videos, she had no stage presence at all. I saw her in concert because my girlfriend wanted to go and it was the same. Her husband and the drummer had all the stage presence.

The kids who didn't get MTV at home would always sit quietly and watch mesmerised whenever they had a chance to see it at someone else's house.

R183 - I was one of those kids. My neighborhood did not get the channel with our cable package until years after my friends and I was literally addicted when at my buddy's houses or staying at hotels. Some parents literally used the channel as a form of babysitting.

Not only did MTV make or break an artist in the 80s but turned people like Julien Temple into movie directors.

[quote] Weird now to think of sixties bands like The Who being big on MTV

Even the Moody Blues. Personally I liked both their song and video, but they weren't quite photogenic enough to pull off the transition.

Nights in white spandex might have been interesting though.

It's amazing to me how fast MTV changed the face of music. I was a senior in high school when it started. You'd stay home on a night that a world premier of a video was played. Band geared everything towards the video more than the music itself. Now my kids never watch the videos that go with a song. It's like the old days in some ways.

It's funny in the book mentioned earlier in the thread that everyone at MTV agreed that Billy Squier killed his image and career the moment the video for "Rock Me Tonight was released, and he goofily danced around in white sneakers, shredded jeans and a Flashdance top that he tears off himself.

The line, "video killed the radio star" may be true to a degree, but what video truly did kill was the giant arena tours which were so lucrative for LOTS of bands and performers in the seventies. Concerts were the only way a fan could really see their favorite acts, and then MTV came along and kids could see their favorites all day everyday. After MTV only the mega-star bands and singers could still fill arenas, whereas in the seventies acts such as all the southern bands(Skynyrd, Allmans, Marshall Tucker and 38 Special) did arena shows. After MTV it was Van Halen, Motley Crue, Journey and U2 etc who were filling arenas.

R189, that is a very accurate and fascinating perspective. MTV certainly ushered in a style quotient as well. If you did not sing along with either being novel, unique or beautiful in some way - your stocks plummeted. Many of those arena bands of the seventies would never make the cut. Those that did reinvented themselves in an MTV fashion later on ( Heart, Aerosmith, Rod Stewart, Elton John, etc.). The hugest groups were never in any worry (think the Rolling Stones and the like), but most of those 70's bands were over. Perhaps this would have happened anyway - hard to say. That said, MTV changed the face of music as we know it and most of them looked hot, spent a fortune on stages and special effects and had some defining style doing it. The days of looking homely and just standing there performing great music for huge crowds were over forever..

"The days of looking homely and just standing there performing great music for huge crowds were over forever.."

Ed Sheeran fans may disagree with you.

r191 You can argue the minimization in importance of the video has helped people like Ed Sheeran

R192 hit it on the nail, and you are completely correct R191. I think that the MTV days are long, long over now. However, social media is a whole other bag of worms. I sure did love my MTV though!

ZZ Top is an example of a band that wasn't photogenic at all, but used them.to advance their career and had some of the slickest, best videos ever.

Some of the earliest videos I remember seeing were by the Stray Cats, Jackson Browne, Huey Lewis and the News, the Motels, Cyndi Lauper and the Eurythmics.

Yes, because ZZ Top loaded their clever videos with eye candy for boys with raging hormones.

Photogenic helped greatly, but as I said - they had to have an edge or at least be novel in some way. ZZ Top was plenty novel - the beards alone were a spectacle and far more impressive than their music for that matter.

Not one mention yet of Adam Curry's ridiculous hair, condescending interviews, and cougar wife?

He did have quite the head of hair, but wasn't he on VH1?

I had thought that the first season of the Real World in New York in 1992 was better than the trashy seasons that followed. But the DVD release and syndicated reruns replace the 90s music and without it, the show is flat, corny and dated.

r200 Yea when you rewatch these old shows they are never as good as you remember them.

R199 No it was MTV, and he was the first host of Headbangers Ball and he put on a leather jacket for authenticity, LOL

Starting off the first season with the obviously gorgeous for the time, Eric Nies - the RW was primarily about displaying delicious flesh being filmed 24 hours a day. They certainly were the genesis of what we now know as reality TV though. Yes, there were other forerunners such as "An American Family" and others decades before - but they never broke into mainstream. MTV created the style and format of reality television that launched a thousand ships for the current TV medium that is perhaps over-utilized now. Those shows are likely are a bore to watch these days, but back then they were cutting edge. And the RW gave us plenty of eye candy over the years...

I would watch a replay of TRW LA tomorrow if they would run it. For some reason all the drama and odd characters on that season seemed quite authentic, as opposed to the later seasons in which the drama was manufactured and spurred on by the producers.

Best Literal Video of all time.

Mmmmm...Eric Nies!!

You know....now that I think about it, I can't remember the last time I actually watched a music video.

Remember when Eric got all teary and admitted to Julie that he felt trapped by the steroids that were propping up his life? Boner killer.

While everyone salivated over Eric Niles from Season 1 of the RW, it was the guy one (Norman Korpi, whose ass is to the camera in the attached pic) who did it for me.

He also had a wicked sense of humor. I remember the episode when Julie's mother was visiting from Georgia: as the two were on their way to go sightseeing, Norman reminded them to bring condoms with them, much to Julie's mother's horror.

MTV gave music a visual approach and access. Before MTV all people had were radio, concerts where the artists sang live, and those TV shows where artists performed their latest single in front of an audience. MTV added a new visual dimension with those promo videos. It's almost cruel in a way that MTV which provided this new dimension took it away and nothing came to build on that particular visual dimension.

It's been said that Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" broke the color barrier on MTV and that's when they started playing videos by black artists, but I seem to recall that Donna Summer's "She Works Hard For the Money" was the first video by a black artist that got heavy rotation on MTV. Am I not remembering things correctly?

Even Ed Sheeren was reduced to doing a tango to one of his songs in a music video so it's not completely over yet. But I do wonder why anyone bothers; where do they show these things anymore? (And please tell me MTV doesn't still give out Moonmen awards for videos they never play).

It was never a "race barrIer," it was a format barrier. "She Works Hard" is a rock/pop song so it was played on MTV. Michael Jackson made RnB and Disco music so his music wasn't played on MTV until the network was pressured to ditch its limited format. It's really that simple and innocent.

Remember when the great Tracey Ullman was one of the first fill-in VJs? She was there for weeks, as I recall, and cracked me up.

Fleetwood Mac's "Gypsy" and Duran Duran's "Hungry Like the Wolf" we're two of my early favorites. I can still enjoy watching both.

JJ Jackson made an appearance signing autographs and giving away pins and T-shirts at the local mall record store, around 1982. There was a big crowd and he was cool and obviously thrilled at the fame.

This book is great, by the way, a big thick collection of interviews and anecdotes, a lot of fun to read. And you can find it cheap online.

(Hardcover from $2.00 on amazon, fyi).

"All music, all the time. In stereo."

Back then, stereo sound on televisions was a high-end thing, and even so, not all cable systems were even sending signals in stereo. But it sounded cool, and lots of us hooked our cable boxes or televisions into our sound systems to play MTV through our speakers. Good times at house parties in the mid to late 1980's.

The live, day-long international broadcast of Live Aid was a big deal, too. From RFK Stadium in Philly and Wembley in London, right?

VH1 Classic replayed all of the Real World seasons from beginning to end last year. All of the original music had been removed and replaced with bad sound alike songs. Without the music of the time that season took place, it all seemed like boring dramatizations of some stranger's home movies.

Nina, Mark, Martha and Alan

That MTV book tells how Martha was devastated when she was let go from the network. She just assumed she would be there forever, a part of history. Oops.

Mark Goodman is a mess. I read the book but I can't remember specifics.

Lene Lovich

Nina Hagen

It really is amazing how much power this simple idea of "music videos on television, 24 hours a day" turned out to have.

Something that was almost laughed at became so influential.

The most profitable two decades of the music business: 1980-2000.

And it was brilliant because it was pure profit. Those videos didn't cost the network a cent. Even the record companies would deduct their costs from the artist's royalties.

This and the early days when home video VHS tapes were sold for 80 bucks a pop, especially the porn. Why so many got rich in the '80s and honestly so too.

R224, I agree with your statements. What is interesting though is that according to many documentaries that I have watched (most importantly one about Tower Records - "All Things Must Pass"), the groups that really made a killing money-wise were the big arena bands of the late seventies and early eighties. If you account for inflation, they were schooling the Hell out of anything (outside of one or two obvious ones) from 1990 to 2000. To repeat previous poster's points - MTV likely accounted for fewer concert ticket sales as they made artists more accessible and therefore I suppose not as "in demand" when it came to selling tickets. And yes, special effects were expected in concert to keep pace with the high dollar videos that the artists were producing for MTV. Fans now expected these things and the profit margins certainly must have decreased for the artists.

Exactly, r168. It is discussed in the book mentioned upthread. David Bowie tears an interviewer a new one about them not playing black artists. The interviewers mentions rock music and Joan Armatrading, then say that hicks from small towns would find Rick James confronting.

Bowie was not impressed.

So some good points are made about the "hypocrisy"of going with (mostly white, and by the way, not all too American) new wave in addition to rock and rock/pop, but let's agree that it is fiction that Michael Jackson broke a race barrier on MTV. He broke a format barrier, if anything. Keep in mind that what they used to call "easy listening" was also not part of the mix. Anne Murray, Lionel Ritchie and The Manhattan Transfer were not in the mix, either.

If Jimi Hendrix had been still alive and recording in the early 80s, and his record company put out videos, he would have been right up there on MTV with the Stones and the Moody Blues and The Who and Fleetwood Mac as legacy rock acts with new releases.

The first 200+ videos aired last on the network

Nice, r229. I haven't heard Elvis Costello's "Oliver's Army" or Nick Lowe's "Cruel to be Kind" in years, but I remember liking both when they were in rotation on MTV.

Friends with satellite radio in their cars tell me they hear more from that era than I do, and maybe I need to break down and subscribe.

Madonna is the most played artist ever on MTV

With a bit of searching, one can find the playlists of his dreams on Spotify. It's cheaper than satellite and much more portable.

Martha Quinn was kind of preppy and kind of punk, and I loved her shift everyday when I was a teenager.

In high school ('82) I set up a tour, by phone, of the MTV studios as part of our Honor society trip to NYC. It was all set, and we were all excited, and then about a week before the trip I got a call at school asking for me, from the PR people at MTV, saying that for undisclosed reasons the studios would be "no guests, no visitors" or whatever (essentially locked down) during the window of time we had on that day. I practically begged to make our visit happen--I think it would have been when Martha was on live.

We didn't get to tour MTV. Mick Jagger and maybe more of the Stones were in studio that day, either live or taping interviews. No visitors, especially not a group of high school kids.

You can always see Martha in the "Centerfold" video from J. Geils. She looks VERY out of place among those hotties and seems to know it. Or maybe she's the one who fucked the band to stand out from the others.

r149- I saw an 80's night concert early this year with a lot of the artists mentioned, and Tony Hadley from Spandau Ballet performed- holy cow that lead singer is still belting out songs and performing his ass off.

The concert is TOTALLY fun BTW.

With very few exceptions, you could say that every TV station around the world was racist in the 80s.

Martha, Mark, Nina, and Allen were so cool back then. VJ's were the epitome of cool. I never could have imagined the channel would be destroyed so quickly but during the 80's it was awesome. I'll always remember it. I never quite understood why the channel was basterdized into oblivion. The opening with the space shuttle launching is a great memory. The Police, Culture Club, David Bowie, Billy Idol, Michael Jackson...the one hit wonders....a great era in music. I want my MTV back

Dan Cortese is still hot at 50:

I remember there was one year that they played Talk Talk's "It's My Life" incessantly. Which made me hate No Doubt's all the more.

Dammit, you have to click on the link to see Dan, not that Schlomo.

It's not the Space Shuttle

You're right, r240: it was a moon landing astronaut as I recall. And that promo with the "bump, ba dump, ba dump" music was the signature. And when they launched the MTV awards years later, the trophy was a moon man.

They also had a very cool logo where the big "M" could be any color, or striped, or zebra, or tiger, or multi-colored, or holiday-themed , or whatever... not just on-air but on giveaway buttons and t-shirts and posters.

And they asked people to call their cable companies and say "I want my MTV" ( meaning I want it in stereo, I guess) a line that made it into "Money for Nothing" by Dire Straits, with Sting singing the crucial words.

Different times.

Is MTV still on, what happened to change it, how did they ruin it?

Mark Goodman grew into a hot silver Daddy. Gay, or just Gay-ish?

Looking through this thread again reminded me of someone I hadn't thought about in years . . .

Adam Ant

thank you for that r205, I somehow had never seen those!

They don't do contests like this anymore

R244, stand and deliver!

The VH contest winner tells his story

R234, despite the resemblance, the woman in the Centerfold video was not Martha Quinn.

However, Martha did appear in the short-lived Brady Bunch late 80s reboot, "The Bradys." It was a failed attempt to turn the Bradys into a Thirtysomething-type format.

Martha Quinn was in those Noxeema commercials.

MTV VJ Tabitha Soren is in the Fight for Your Right to Party video.

My step-daughter never had to work again after kissing my ass.

--Jane Bryant Quinn, financial guru and longtime Newsweek columnist

MTV singlehandedly revived the Monkees' careers with its "Pleasant Valley Sunday" marathon in 1986.

The MTV Video Music Awards was HUGE. It was such an event every year, people stopped what they were doing, they didn't go out or do anything the night it was on.

So many memorable moments. Probably the most famous was Madonna performing "Like A Virgin" for the first time. She was front-page news all over the country the next day.

Ads ran on the network promoting the world premiere of a Pepsi commercial.

MTV did bring the Monkees back, and for the next few years there was a bigger 1960s revival/ nostalgia thing. Looking back, it was less than 20 years on, but at the time it seemed like opening a time capsule.

In the 80s, the 60s seemed like SO long ago. I was a kid back then, and 60s shows like Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, Dragnet etc. were still commonly run in syndication, and they looked ancient to me.

I wonder if kids today look at shows from the 90s and feel the same way.

Me (gay boy) and my little friends (straight girls) were ALL OVER that Monkees revival, LOL. We were in junior high.

We used to love to hate Martha Quinn! To us she was this runty little dork-girl desperately trying to be "cool." Whenever her shifted started, we would look at each other and growl, "MAAARRRRRTHA!" and bust up laughing.

A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You, r257

Who were the VJs that replaced the original 5? I remember Kurt Loder came on board, there was Tabitha Soren amd another girl with long brown hair that looked a little like Eddie Brickell. Who else?

Martha Quinn looks great for pushing 60. She's kept her weight down and any work she's had done is subtle.

Nina Blackwood, on the other hand, seems to have morphed into Laurie Cabot.

Downtown Julie Brown was execrable, couldn't stand her.

Speaking of execrable...

Kevin Seal, anyone remember him, OMG I couldn't stand him!!!

Kevin Seal now

Was Adam Curry part of the second generation? The Edie Brickell one was Carolyne Heldman.

I saw it come on the air. I was babysitting for my sister who lived in Bayonne and she told me a new channel for rock music was going to start that weekend. I had ordered a calzone and it was really really good. lol Then I switched on the cable box and watched.

Martha Quinn isn't in the Centerfold video. It's a woman with a similar hairstyle.

So true, R255. The Pleasant Valley Sunday marathon took place the weekend of my 18th birthday. I had watched the Monkees as a young child, but they hadn't shown the reruns (at least in my area) in years. I was "totally psyched" to see them on again, and of course went to see the Monkees in concert the summer of that year. The crowd at the concert was an interesting mix of very young Gen Xers and Boomers pushing 40.

Now in internet age, of course, it's virtually impossible for any group to disappear as completely as the Monkees did before the 86 revival. It just felt very special when they came back.

I was not a fan of the 90s MTV on-air talent--particularly "journalists" Kurt Loder and Tabitha Soren. They had zero on air presence and were just dull.

Soren always struck me as one of those people who must have gotten her job by being related to some MTV executive. She was just wooden on air. And according to this blog: "She also committed a gaffe of sorts when she asked, after overhearing Bill Clinton profess a fondness for Thelonious Monk, 'Who is The Loneliest Monk?'"

She's supposedly a successful photographer now, so at least she's found her niche.

Adam Curry looks like an old lesbian now.

Kurt Loder

Who was that homeless guy turned VJ they tried to aggressively push on us in the 90s?

R273, Kurt Loder is in his 70s, so he's aged okay.

But Adam Curry, at R272, is only 53....wow....

R274 that was Jesse Camp.... the private school educated rich kid who "passed" as homeless.

Remember the time MTV ran dozens of variations of this video...one after the other?

Another thing was that MTV had all of the pop stars of the day in-studio, hanging out with the VJs. Billy Idol, Madonna, Boy George, Sting etc. could be seen all afternoon just shooting the shit with Nina, Martha and Alan. MTV was really the only place you could see them like that, because Johnny Carson and David Letterman didn't really book pop acts on their shows. Johnny Carson was busy with Lola Falana and Barbara Mandrell, for example.

Pop stars still dropped by the MTV studio in the 90s for TRL

they never played r222 or r223 on mtv.

R279 those were corporate-created Mousketeers turned pop stars,

Bob Ritchie, AKA Kid Rock, may have been inspired by Jesse Camp. He certainly seems to have followed his, "UMC kid pretending to be low brow trash" model all the way to mega-stardom (and a political future?) It always cracks me up when the eldergays here call him typical white trash.

I thought Jesse Camp was so damn cute. But then I saw him in NYC one day and his butt was so small, two bones basically, that I'm not even sure how he sat down. Great hair though.

The Week in Rock was one of the first shows I set to record every week on my VCR. I liked Kurt Loder's stoner delivery, but didn't like Tabitha Soren at all. Back in the pre-internet days, it wasn't is easy to find out news about bands and musicians other than magazines.

You can still reminisce by watching any Tarantino film. Pop up videos!

I am pretty sure Martha was in it too, R269, a prettier version of the girl with the short dark hair. I seem to remember her talking about it when she was a VJ. Will see if I can find a photo of her (or the girl I am thinking is her) because I am really curious now.

never mind, one google search and I have my answer. It was always a rumor.

ABC's "Poison Arrow" video gave 80s kids their first glimpse at Lisa Vanderpump

I've never watched one minute of that Real Housewives garbage.

I believe Adam Curry is currently an alt-right conservatard douchebag and Kurt Loder is a Libertarian douchebag.

It was cool to see how some musicians could create little movies with their videos, and still pull off decent acting. David Bowie, Annie Lennox, and Billy Idol all were able to deliver drama and movie-star good looks.

Some of these are super creative and innovative

I remember Papa Don't Preach being an obsession. I still think ITT is an interestingly edited bit of filmmaking.

The first video I remember seeing on MTV was "Stop Draggjng My Heart Around" by Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty. I remember asking my friend how come they keep playing these songs? She said it's an entire channel of just music videos. I was stunned, we didn't have cable and wouldn't get it until around 1986. I had to go to friends houses go watch it.

I remember the Lene Lovitch vid, and can't think where else I would have seen it than MTV.

They did play some weird stuff, maybe not in heavy rotation and maybe not during prime time.

Men Without Hats "Safety Dance." It still brings people of a certain age to the dance floor at receptions.

I loved the "Al TV" takeovers they'd air occasionally.

I loved Julie Brown and Just Say Julie. I was just a kid at the time, and it was one of my first exposures to a campy, "gay" sensibility. I couldn't explain why I liked her so much at the time, but of course it was obvious when I got a little older.

Just Say Julie was ridiculous fun. I don't know why I liked her either because now it seems juvenile, but back then I tuned in as much as I could.

Madonna, Queen, Bowie, Journey, Duran Duran, Foreigner, Benatar, Stevie Nicks, Survivor, ToTo, Hall and Oates, Wham...I used to watch MTV for hours on end.

Later -- Real World - Pedro Zamora :(

MTV used to do "Spring Break" events in March. I remember the 1987 Daytona Beach spring break--my school was one of the ones featured. They had a bunch of concerts and silly contests, some with pretty hot guys.

I hated how JJ Jckson would always crinkle his nose like a toddler.

Nina's twitch was mesmerizing.

Downtown Julie Brown was tolerable in small doses, in comparison to Kennedy.

Adam Curry thought he had rocker hair, but looked like an 80s frau- too polished and eerily similar to his wife's.

Kurt and Tabitha both bored me to tears.

I was one of the few who liked Kevin Seal.

I think the advent of Kennedy was the beginnjng of the end of MTV as we knew it from its early days. She was just too foul and horrible.

ToTo??

Downtown Julie Brown was not tolerable in any doses!

I know someone that got a blowjob from Downtown Julie Brown in the bathroom at a dive bar.

Classy gal.

R302, actually, I saw Downtown Julie Brown as MTV's Jump the Shark moment. She was a clueless TV executive's idea of "hip."

Wubba wubba wubba!

I remember DJB making fun of Jody Watley, who was red hot at the time and had several videos in rotation. It didn't make sense, they looked almost identical!

Here's the 1993 MTV Inaugural Ball.

Check out Dennis Miller's remarks about Bill Clinton's victory at 02:13:

"Finally, one of our guys is driving the car."

24 years later, Miller is a staunch conservative.

On the bright side, Tabitha Soren is no longer a "journalist."

The golden age of MTV -- when they would play a weird assortment of music, including a lot of new wave and British acts -- only lasted a few years. Then, Bon Jovi had a huge hit with "Livin' on a Prayer" in 1986/87 and suddenly, MTV was mostly hair metal -- Poison, Winger, Whitesnake, White Lion, Cinderella, Ratt, etc.

"...in 1986/87 and suddenly, MTV was mostly hair metal..."

That's because VH1 started in 1985 and the "older folks" were supposed to watch IT instead of MTV.

I loved Dan Cortese. I still love Dan cortese.. he is now divorced. living i malibu i think i will stalk him

I can attest to the odd marketing and rollout of early MTV. My brother and I both first watched it in August '81 at my cousins' in suburban Indianapolis when we visited at summer break. We were all mesmerized and watched as many hours as we could until our aunt made us shut the tv off. We didn't get the channel at our own home in suburban Boston until mid-83 however, because we had to wait for the weekends for Friday Night Videos (network show) to watch any vids until that spring/summer.

That was the summer of Synchronicity by the Police and everyone at my jr high school was wild for it, it was bolstered by the new availability of MTV in the region. Cable was different then and the way they rolled out new channels was odd.

Early MTV was great, fresh and new and the VJs not rehearsed. I remember seeing the 1st Flock of Seagulls video as well as Men at Work in '81 and thinking 'weird and awesome', of course they had huge hit singles from those with huge radio airplay. It really made a lot of acts mostly from Europe or the UK: Thompson Twins, Duran Duran, Culture Club, Nena (99 Luft Balloons), etc.

Almost everything is good when it's new, fresh, and original.

MTV changed the way we heard the music. It was fun for us who grew up in the seventies because we finally go to visualize what we were hearing. It made it more interesting and entertaining.

Plus, it was easier to sit and listen/watch for hours, like radio, without having to change records or tapes every 30 minutes or so.

People like to see things, not just hear them. Why is YouTube so popular? There ya go...

Dan Cortese was on after the channel became a joke.

R315. "after channel became a joke" does not affect my thoughts about Dan in any way.

Dan Cortese is most known for sticking it to Kirstie Alley's addled cult member fat ass.

did dan actually plow that cow? that messed up sow ? i hope not.

She's actually the one who brings it up.

Dan Aykroyd (sp?) and Bette Midler co-hosting the first MTV Video Music Awards, before it became known as "VMAs," is a fun memory.

There was that Madonna intro from both of them and then the famous Like A Virgin performance.

This one was fun to dance to, 35 years ago.

Rod's YOUNG TURKS received a lot of play.

MTV played black artists. Tina Turner, who was both older and black, was in regular rotation during her Private Dancer era.

I could never listen to "Young Turks" the same way again after this. See 1:54 mark. The brilliant Catherine O'Hara.

Sheddup R44, some of us dweebs here present actually miss Headbanger’s Ball.

R202 Adam Curry was a smug poseur but he seemed positively earnest compared to his successor, the infamous Riki Rachtman. Adam also wasn’t completely hideous and had a nice full perm as well as a sonorous voice, so we can’t deride him totally.

I still remember his correspondence from the jet on the way to the Moscow Peace Festival (really). He seemed to be hitting on a drunken Vince Neil. It was insane.

[quote]The days of looking homely and just standing there performing great music for huge crowds were over forever..

R190. You’ve never seen the Eagles perform, have you? Oh dear.

We got it in Ireland from an Irish DJ who lived there-his name was Vincent Hanley. At the time , most of Ireland only had 2 TV channels, and MTV was on Sunday afternoon and was not to be missed. AN Irish producer used to fly to NYC on Friday, and film Vincent, then fly back to Dublin, and the film had to be sent to London for processing, and then sent to Dublin early Sunday for the afternoon show. Vincent's appearance began to deteriorate and it was clear that something was amiss. He came back home and died of AIDS. At the time, the shots of NYC were fodder for the dreams of so many of us who wanted to get away from Ireland. Also, the Irish were usually the first this side of the pond to hear new singles from US based artists.

I fell in love the first time I heard this song and saw the fun video. That's my earliest memory of MTV. I was just a child!

mmmmmm. eric nies

^ third pic

During our New Year's Eve Parties, from 1981 to 1990, we'd have MTV on as our 'Guest of Honor.'

Also, whenever we hosted 'Pre-Funct' parties before all the shows we'd attend during that time (Duran Duran, Culture Club, Spandau Ballet, Thomas Dolby, Jesus Jones, ABC, The Bongos, The Police, Gary Numan, Simple Minds, Madonna, U2, Prince), we'd have MTV on to provide the background music to get us started.

U2's first world tour kicked off in Seattle in 1981 with its release of "Boy." They'd played "Astor Park," a small club in downtown Seattle, a club with a capacity of maybe 250. Once they'd finished their show, it was encore time. Because they had not written/recorded any other songs, U2 immediately went into performing all songs from "Boy" again.

R328 We all see you Belinda hiding with your head down in the driver's seat during Jane's solo at 1:40

The Monkees (minus Nez, but Peter, Davy and Micky were carrying the torch) and Martha Quinn, Alan Hunter, Downtown Julie Brown and the MTV crew and staff wish you a Merry Christmas 1986!

God, I loved that Go Gos video. I had just arrived in L.A. and it felt iconic, especially everytime I drove past that fountain on Wilshire.

I have told this story before but I once saw Belinda Carlisle going up an escalator at the Beverly Center as I was going down and I was so shocked, not by seeing her but by the fact that she was shopping with Mindy Cohn. Of all people. So shocked I think I actually said out loud, "Belinda, what are you doing with Mindy Cohn?" It seemed so fucking random.

lmao you didn’t get an answer R334?

I loved how the late, great J J Jackson had nicknames for favorite artists ("The Burner, Tina Turner") and how he unabashedly gushed about the greatness of the Fleetwood Mac "Gypsy" video.

And how Mark Goodman continually tried to make a case for seeing local bands live in your town, even though it was exactly opposite of what MTV was about, in some ways.

There will never be anything like the early days of MTV.

Every day was event television.

It was often very homoerotic.

First saw the Go-Go's Vacation video there and fell in love.

Locally, the only way to get it in stereo sound was for the cable company to attach the cable to your stereo receiver. You tuned to a certain unused radio frequency and voila, stereo MTV.

From New Years Eve 1982, parts of the Rock N Roll Ball (year 2) with all the original VJs

R335, no answer but just a glance from her direction (at least not a glare). On the escalator, she was going down, I was going up so we were two ships passing. Three if you count Fucking MINDY COHN! So uncool. You'd think if she were going to lower herself to shop with someone from "Facts of Life", it'd be Nancy McKeon but no...

When it first aired, it consisted of a lot of straightforward performance videos from a handful of artists, with a concept video here and there. There were the VJs, news, some interviews and the Saturday night concert. It took a year or two for the music industry to catch up to the video as a way to market music. Then Duran Duran arrived and we never looked back.

"... in the pages of a Blueboy magazine..."

I was in my early 30's and I was mesmerized. All we had before that were the musicians gyrating on stage. I thought the artistry in them was fabulous. I would watch for hours. Sometimes I'd turn it on just for the music but it would draw me in and I'd sit and watch until they started repeating them.

You can watch lots of early MTV on YouTube.

It’s strange today to see how much the network featured the VJs. For long stretches, Mark Goodman would yammer on and on about the latest Genesis record and Alan Hunter would banter with the unseen camera guy, etc, it’s so obvious that they’re doing whatever they can to kill time between ad breaks.

That’s EG Daily in the “Young Turks” video at R322.

I loved the mini-dramas in filmed clips, especially all the nerdy gay-ish British guys like Thomas Dolby.

[quote]I remember Loverboy had some MTV contest and the winner would be in their new video. The winner was some great big fat girl, and she was in the video for maybe 1 second. She sat at a computer console and pushed a button. My friends and I thought the whole episode was hilarious for some reason.

HA! I remember that too. They hyped the contest bigly and I was like, "This fat bitch thinks she's hot snot."

Nothing culturally beat the colorful change that The New British Invasion coupled with the double whammy of Thriller being unleashed caused....

It was seismic...like Dorothy opening the door...

I loved all that New Romantic/androgynous/sexually ambiguous stuff. Remember when Boy George claimed to be bisexual?

Beavis and Butt-head was the dividing line for me. Before = awesome; after = shit.

Instead of Madonna, Cyndi, etc., I lived for The Motels, Missing Persons, Rachel Sweet, The Waitresses, The Flirts, The Slits, Nina Hagen, Romeo Void, Mari Wilson . . .

What else did Rachel Sweet do besides the theme song to the original [italic]Hairspray[/italic]?

She did a cover of "Shadows of the Night" before Pat Benatar.

Somehow I missed that video for "Hairspray" all these years. And it is one of my favorite films of all time too (the original, not the bastard musical later). Thanks!

Tracey Ullman, another Brit import, was among the first fill-in VJs, for weeks one year (in my memory, it was summer, maybe so the regulars got some vacation). She was hilarious, and I've been a fan ever since.

Her cover of "They Don't Know" and its charming vid were out at the time.

Like the Sundance channel, MTV has become nothing like it was originally intended.

The highpoints of MTV was Julie.

I've heard Mindy Cohn is really fun and normal.

I loved Martha Quinn.

I was forced to attend a Loverboy concert at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, TN last weekend. They're all old and fat now.

Olivia - Physical

1983-1989 I would watch it for hours. Friends would come over and we would have it on in the background. The Real World was the beginning of the end.

The first Real World was great.

Early MTV also played lots of videos by the Pretenders and Pat Benatar as well.

Bump.

Downtown Julie Brown brought it all to a crashing halt.

I remember the first video I saw on MTV was by Carly Simon. I instantly loved it.

I remember I could watch videos for hours.

Then I would feel hungover afterwards.

It was cheaper than booze which I couldn't buy legally.

The thing with back then and cable systems is there wasn’t that much capacity for channels. The cable system we had in 1980-82 had 12 channels all spoken for. It took a while for systems to expand so some got a channel like MTV much later than others. We moved in 82 and our new system had twenty-some channels and did have MTV.

The Pretenders - Tattooed Love Boys

Bump.

Loved the early days of MTV. Go West was my favorite. Peter Cox definitely got my mussy wet, and still does.

Peter Cox has aged very well. He's a HOT rock elder statesman now. Still rocking the sexy.

There's so much potential for a music video channel nowadays. All of those rarely played videos and music documentaries are probably in video cassette storage rooms in New York.

My friends and I were in the supermarket buying beer shortly after MTV first aired. I was a sophomore in HS. An older gentleman asked if we watched MTV and it was such a random question but we were like "Of course, all the time!" Turns out it was Martha Quinn's dad, pleased as punch to have his own little focus group right there at the Grand Union. We were definitely the target demo and we were definitely watching.

For the next three years MTV was the backdrop of my life. It was just always on in my house and at my friends' houses. My siblings and I could agree to watch this one channel. When I left for college in '84 I basically had to leave it behind because there was no cable in college.

I remember first seeing U2 knowing they were going to be a big hit. I still love early 80s U2.

My family didn’t have cable so I looked forward to watching it at the neighbors’ house.

I remember being angry—actually angry—that MTV played Losing My Religion seemingly every five minutes. Play something else! LOL

Canadas’ version was MuchMusic. I taped hours of it on VHS, and it may still be in a box in storage. All my favourite videos, any time I wanted seemed important at the time.

Years later, I watched MTV in a motel room on a visit to the U.S.. One that amused me no end was a funny song about shoplifting. I don’t remember what the (all guys) bands’ name was, or the song but I wish I did for old times sake.

funny song about shoplifting:

I had SelecTV just before cable made it's appearance at 3rd & Occidental; I couldn't get enough MTV; it was usually on most of the time unless it was HBO or the Weather Channel . . . and it was in stereo! Loved the first VJ's & rotation; now not so much . . .

They could have pulled the plug in 1985

I miss my friend Quinn

"I had SelecTV just before cable made it's appearance "

I had SelecTV just before cable made it is appearance ?

NO. R379, just NO.

I remember Wham! White shorts two cute guys, Boy George and Michael Jackson constantly playing.

Loverboy "Working for the Weekend"

I was also in Michigan and first got MTV sometime in my sophomore year in high school, 81-82. So, it was within the first several months of launch. I loved it because it was flooded in the early days with British New Music band videos which I was very drawn to but which did not get a lot of mainstream radio air play —particularly in my working class area that favored Guns N Roses and Ozzy Osbourne. My mother used to lose her patience as she would call me to dinner and I would regularly say “Just a couple minutes...as soon as this video is over.” Spandau Ballet, Haircut 100, ABC, Duran Duran, The Cure, Big Country, Altered Images.

I preferred Martha Quinn, followed by Alan. Nina was okay. Mark was too cocky. And JJ seemed too old and uncool.

My smaller town in New England didn't get it until 1985. My brother and I watched it constantly after we got it. But friends of mine had it from 1982 on. I feel cheated that I didn't get it in the days of the Second British Invasion. By the time we got it, Motley Crue and other pop-metal bands were on too much. Before MTV, we had to content ourselves with Friday Night Videos. Every Saturday, there was also a syndicated show that counted down the Top 10 singles of the week, and they'd show some videos. Other than that, we lived in a video wasteland.

My cousins lived in Manhattan Beach, California and even they would record hours of MTV on VHS tapes when they would visit Michigan during summer vacations because they didn't get it until the second or third wave.

[quote]I preferred Martha Quinn, followed by Alan. Nina was okay.

When I hear Nina on Sirius XM Eighties on 8, my ears start to bleed.

I stayed up to watch The Young Ones every Sunday night. I was ten in 1984.

I need the early days of MTV back in my life

I remember positivity!!!!

I grew up in a rural area where we couldn’t get cable until the late 1980s. So, I didn’t get MTV until about 1988. I watched it nonstop. It was pretty much the only channel I watched from 1988 to 1998. I loved 120 Minutes and Alternative Nation. I remember sitting around for hours just to watch the video I wanted to see! Those were the days.

There's a great book called I Want My MTV that's all interview bites from people who were involved in bringing MTV on the air. VJs and rock stars are also interviewed. It covers 1981-1992. I highly recommend. Some very funny stories. A whole chapter is dedicated to Billy Squier's Rock Me Tonite video.

I miss JJ Jackson and Martha Quinn

R1, holy shit, I just looked them up and they're in their 60's now. Time flies. Mark Goodman is pushing 70.

First two hours of MTV broadcasting in 1981