This week, there's a lot of talk about the 25th anniversary of Music Television, more commonly known as
MTV. Yes, 25 years ago today, the premier of the aptly titled music video "Video Killed the Radio Star" by the Buggles (and wow, did they go on to an impressive career) launched a television channel and, many would argue, a generation.
But by my approximation, we are also approaching another, sadder anniversary. For you see, it's been about 10 years since Music Television more or less stopped playing music.
Am I imagining this? I seem to remember music videos being in constant rotation on MTV back when I was 13 or 14 years old. Even the original programming, such as the classic
"Beavis and Butthead", featured interludes where the two idiotic teenagers watched music videos and cracked jokes. They were kind of like us in that respect (and hopefully only in that respect). Because whenever we needed a little escape, we turned to our MTV, which provided us with music on television, sometimes the popular overplayed stuff, occasionally the more obscure stuff you couldn't find on the radio. Remember when MTV's heavy rotation of a little song the radio wouldn't touch called
Man in the Box launched the career of a band you may have heard of called Alice in Chains?
Somewhere along the line all that went away. Though it's hard to pinpoint exactly the day the music died, you can't deny that MTV has replaced a lot of the music with dating shows, celebrity reality shows, and other drivel. Even what little music is shown seems to reflect what's on the radio rather than anticipate it. And even then it's not the kind of radio I listen to.
Oh well. I guess I'm just getting old.
Song lyric of the day (how could I choose anything else?):
"Look at them yo-yos
That's the way to do it
You play the guitar on the MTV
Naw, that ain't working
That's the way you do it
Get your money for nothing and your chicks for free"
- Dire Straits,
Money for Nothing
