MTV

 The great humorist Mark Twain was once asked, "what is your opinion of labor unions?"  Twain, ever quick with a word, wasted no time with his response.  He said, "poor execution of a good idea."  There are many who say that assessment is still valid today.  But that is another blog for another day.

But I think his assessment of labor unions would be accurate to describe another part of Americana.  That being MTV.

It was on August 1, 1981, when a cable channel named MTV began broadcasting.  The first few minutes were a montage of pictures from Apollo 11, showing everything from blast-off to Neil Armstrong on the moon.  The montage of pictures, which was used with NASA's blessing, ended with Armstrong facing the American flag.  But suddenly there was an explosion of color on the flag, different colors and patterns, that went on for a minute or so, or so it seemed.  One thing did not change, the big block "M" in the middle and the "TV" which looked like it had been spray-painted across the right leg of the "M."  Thus was born the first truly media influencer.

In a bit of irony, the first video played by MTV was by the English group The Buggles and their hit, "Video Killed the Radio Star."   The world was not quite ready for MTV.  They had never seen anything like it.  For that matter, I'm not sure there has been anything like it since.  24 hours of non-stop music videos.  All music, all the time.

I was 24 in the summer of '81, living in St. Louis.  Baseball was on strike, so with no Cardinal games to listen to on KMOX, I became hooked, dare I say addicted to MTV.  It was just like radio, except you could see the group, It was phenomenal. Good-bey KSHE, goodbye KADI, there was a new sheriff in town and it was named MTV.   Music videos suddenly became the rage.  Vintage videos of groups from the 1960's suddenly surfaced, the top bands like the Eagles and Rolling Stones and Bob Seger were suddenly doing videos.  We were also introduced to a whole bevy of new stars who were buoyed by being in the MTV rotation.

MTV had dj's, five to be exact.  Except they were not called dj's, they were now VJ's.  Video disc jockeys.  Can you name the original five?  Three men and two women.  Alan Hunter, Mark Goodman, J. J. Jackson, Nina Blackwood and Martha Quinn.   They were the face of the franchise.  They introduced videos, did interviews, introduced concerts, they were more popular than Walter Cronkite.

Watching the videos was enthralling.  Some of the videos were nothing more than concert or studio footage, while as MTV got older, there were more creative concept videos.  If you have never seen the group a-ha's video "Take on Me", or any video from Michael Jackson's "Thriller" album, do yourself a favor and go to YouTube and watch them.  They are really, really good.  The video "Thriller" is over 10 minutes long and was nominated for an Oscar.  the video by the Norwegian group a-ha was so groundbreaking it has garnered over two billion views on YouTube.  I know I am probably responsible for 100 of those.

Along with a-ha, MTV gave life to groups most of us had never heard of.  The Police, The Thompson Twins, Eurythmics, Duran Duran, INXS, R.E.M., Flock of Seagulls, Culture Club, Power Station. The list goes on and on.  If you still have never heard of them, check them out, they are all there living on YouTube.

I'm ashamed to admit this but back in the early days of MTV, I would spend hours watching it.  Way past my bedtime. It was new, and it was entertaining.  But somewhere along the line, before the end of the decade, the interest started fading, at least I think it did.  The people who ran MTV tried to become all things to all people.  They started adding reality shows, competition sprang up from NBC and Turner Cable.  The numbers were down, and suddenly so was the music.  Today, I honestly don't even know if you can watch a video on MTV anymore.  Maybe in the wee hours, I don't know.

Maybe things could have been done differently by the higher ups.  I don't know they didn't ask me.  But like a shooting star, it was the brightest light in the sky for several years, and then suddenly, what I though made them great, was gone, replaced by shows like Beavis and Butthead and MTV Spring Break.  Music no longer paid the bills, so bring on the sex and sophomoric humor.

Was it poor execution of a good idea?  I don't know for sure, maybe I just outgrew it as I was no longer in the target audience.  But I do know there are still times when "I want my MTV."