Ah, the good old days when MTV still played music videos 24/7 & there wasn't a reality show in sight.

Bathia_Mapes: Ah, the good old days when MTV still played music videos 24/7 & there wasn't a reality show in sight.

haha, oh the fools we were to believe such things would last... oh wait, I wasn't born yet. Oh well.

/I weep for my generation.

How long did it take to go from kickass rock to total crap? Three years or so? I still remember the first video I saw on MTV, Whip It by Devo.

/Nobody cares
//My lawn....You knopw what to do

If Video Killed the Radio Star, what killed the video star?

kaminariko: If Video Killed the Radio Star, what killed the video star?

MTV

Bathia_Mapes: music videos

Whatever the hell those are...

:-/

Wow, only 3 commercials in that break.

One of MTV's founders has publicly apologized... he said he had no idea how much evil they were really spawning.

lajimi: Three years or so?

no, lot longer than that. I remember in college they still played lots of videos and that was 92/93 and then.

One of the most awesome things MTV ever did, Liquid Television, didn't involve videos.

can't get enough cow bell

I actually watched it at the time because I was a sucker for current cultural events (checks greenlit submissions, ha, guess that hasn't changed). I used to wear MTV buttons to 7th-grade class. I had a wicked awesome tiger-stripe one that was super rad that I strategically chose to wear right above my alligator logo.

Man, I was cool.

Wait, I'm confused. So there used to be another channel called M-TV back in the '80s, and it showed music videos? That sounds kinda cool. So what happened? Did it go belly-up? And did the folks running today's MTV channel have to buy the copyrights or name rights or whatever?

VH1 Classic is essentially classic MTV. It's great. I think MTV should change their name to STD, because most of the stupid, skanky people on it now probably have one.

/heh

I officially declare that MTVs last day of less than 50% suck to be....(flips thru rolodex)..uh-huh, went too far...(unrolls rolodex a bit, consults Wiki)...Ah, there we go: August 6, 1988.

Yo!MTV cRaps 'premiered' on that date, and the suckage began to overwhelm the non-suckage. The final nail in the coffin was when they cancelled Headbangers Ball a few years later and then let that Jesse freak be a DJ.

/Mtv is dead to me now
//I still lust after Martha Quinn

I think my TV froze on that station for the next decade.

ah, the good old days, when MTV refused to play videos by black artists. those were the days, huh guys?

/aren't music videos already commercials?

suicide: ah, the good old days, when MTV refused to play videos by black artists.

What are you on about? Michael Jackson was black. At least he was, way back then.

suicide: ah, the good old days, when MTV refused to play videos by black artists. those were the days, huh guys?

/aren't music videos already commercials?

I was more offended when they started airing videos by women.

WhyteRaven74: lajimi: Three years or so?

no, lot longer than that. I remember in college they still played lots of videos and that was 92/93 and then.

One of the most awesome things MTV ever did, Liquid Television, didn't involve videos.

Liquid Television rocked w/ Aeon Flux and the original Beavus and Butthead! Also terribly miss Amped and Headbangers Ball :(

I loved me some Headbanger's Ball. I stayed up until like 3am to see the "World Premier" of Metallica's One. Worth every sleepless minute.

kaminariko: If Video Killed the Radio Star, what killed the video star?


We didn't get it in Lawrence, KS for a few weeks. Our first video was Kids in America by Kim Wild.

So, has anyone mentioned the fact that MTV doesn't play music videos anymore?

I'll never forget it! I was 8 months old and not a care in the world.

I remember when my parents first got cable in '82. I don't think I watched anything else but MTV. It was totally tubular.

Fark you subby, I did not need reminding of how farking old I am.

/Watched it live. Was older than 10.
//so old, I don't even care about the lawn anymore

we didn't have mtv until way later, but we did get hbo's "video jukebox." first vid i ever saw: "turning japanese" by the vapors!

Of the 35 cable channels we had back in the day, MTV was the most watched in our house.

Not only that, but the cable box had a dial! You had to get up and change the channel manually. If you held it just right, you could get the Playboy channel.

viccellini: VH1 Classic is essentially classic MTV. It's great. I think MTV should change their name to STD, because most of the stupid, skanky people on it now probably have one.

/heh

The down side of VH1 Classic is that now they're falling into the "100 Greatest Songs of..." and showing documentaries spiral. We need an MTV Classic that show nothing produced or shown by MTV after the debut of Real World.

Want my Bevis and my Remote Control

I was at the launch party. I don't recall it being after midnight.

Even the non-video shows were awesome - all the ones already mentioned and... The Young Ones were on there for a while. Sunday nights at 11:30?

Well, there's always MTV2 if you want to watch videos.

Oh...they stopped playing videos too?

Well, there will always be VH-1 and I'm sure you can find a...

Hmm...no videos there, either, huh?

Remind me again why I shouldn't fire all of your asses.

I no longer want my MTV.


Money for nothing and chicks for free are both still quite acceptable, however.

Where did the videos go?

MTV has several sister channels - MTV2, MTV Tr3́s, MTV Hits, MTV Jams, mtvU, and MHD (plus a few VH1 and CMT channels) - that are available on better-than-basic cable systems. I get all of these and have spent a little time watching them, and here's what I've concluded:

It doesn't matter that MTV doesn't air music videos anymore. You wouldn't watch it because most of the popular artists that make videos today suck.

I'm not a fair judge of hip hop, but the young metal bands are nu-metal rejects that literally all sound the same (low-tuned guitars and gruff vocals), and all the alt-bands that were popular in the 90s are old and making boring music. The only interesting music that comes out now comes from pop bands, but many of them are quite forgettable.

MTV not only killed the video star - they killed popular music. But I don't think that's a bad thing at all: pop music has, for quite some time, sucked a big one, and now that the internet has made it so anyone - including all those who are musically talented but not hip enough for MTV - can get their music heard. iTunes is the new MTV, and it's really easy^ for independent artists to get their music distributed there, no matter how obscure it might be.

MTV is dead. Good riddance.

suicide: ah, the good old days, when MTV refused to play videos by black artists. those were the days, huh guys?

/aren't music videos already commercials?

Que? Michael Jackson and Herbie Hancock were like every other farking video, not to mention I Ain't Afraid of no Ghosts, and I always Feel Like Somebody's Watching Me

I was six when MTV came out, only one guy on my block had cable (rich motherfarker!), me and the other kids on the street would all go to his house to watch MTV, it was amazing. I was also still rocking the Atari 2600 with about 10 games, the kid with MTV only had some sort of console with 4 built in games, all of which were variations of pong.

PYROY: I was six when MTV came out, only one guy on my block had cable (rich motherfarker!), me and the other kids on the street would all go to his house to watch MTV, it was amazing. I was also still rocking the Atari 2600 with about 10 games, the kid with MTV only had some sort of console with 4 built in games, all of which were variations of pong.
Sounds like he prob had the Telstar Console.

Tennis
Hockey
Handball

kaminariko: If Video Killed the Radio Star, what killed the video star?

The Real World.

Caught on to MTV around spring of '82. Help me remember some of the videos they had in rotation back then:

Rush doing Tom Sawyer live
"Stone Cold," Rainbow
"She's Tight," Cheap Trick
"Heat of the Moment," Asia
Horrible Loverboy videos you can't unsee...
"Say Goodbye," Triumph (on the giant Flying V stage zooming through stars)
That Aldo Nova one...
"Play the Game Tonight," Kansas

Tons more that escape me now... help!

I remember coming home drunk around 2am and found MTV on some cable channel and was like WOW this is kool.........told some friends next day they did not believe me....lmao

I wonder if they played the Dire Straits videos for
"Tunnel of Love", "Romeo and Juliet" and "Skateaway".
They were made in 1980. Almost kind of like a short music film in a way, each video connected to each other.... they even had credits at the end LOL.

WhyteRaven74:

One of the most awesome things MTV ever did, Liquid Television, didn't involve videos.

I wasn't quite 10 when i stayed up late to watch liquid television.

i believe it warped my fragile widdle mind

I didn't live in the US but knew an expat girl whose family had some relatives (?) send them video tapes of MTV and I saw a few videos on there, but I've not really seen many music videos at all, maybe enough to count on one hand.

So it's strange finding the old ones on YouTube when I'm looking to hear the songs, because I have different memories for those songs, I don't always WANT to see the video.

I definitely remember "Thriller" though. That one got popular enough to be shown on regular TV complete with subtitles, I do have a videotape of that lying around somewhere. That and "Billy Jean," if I remember right Michael Jackson (yes, black at the time, and actually mainstream popular!) is walking around on some disco floor where squares light up under his feet.

Seeing this intro though, wow, the period clothes!!

Anyone remember watching "Remote Control"? it must have been one of the first if not THEE first game show on MTV...

First video I ever saw on MTV was Dokken's "Alone Again" in 1988. MTV was actually decent with a good balance of music and non-music programming until around 1997. Then Hanson and the Spice Girls hit and nothing was ever the same.

/Don't be dissing Yo! MTV Raps son. That was when Hip Hop was quality.
//VH1 Classic blow goats. Same videos over and over again or same music based movies or same documentarys and "Top whatever" lists.
///The Maxx ruled all!

batsforsteadman: Anyone remember watching "Remote Control"? it must have been one of the first if not THEE first game show on MTV...

It's time for Sing along with Colin! Remote control was and probably still is my all time favorite game show! The Wheel of Fate was one of the best schticks! The final round was so full of win!
I remember the first vid I saw ws "Rockit", my first introduction to the great Herbie Hancock. Of course, the next video shown was "Tha Warriors" by the Bangles (?)...my pre-pubescent mind was like WTF?

/this makes me feel my age
//lawn...get of----fark it! I don't care
///too old to give a crap

KingKauff: Tha Warriors" by the Bangles (?)

Scandal featuring Patti Smythe.

suicide: ah, the good old days, when MTV refused to play videos by black artists. those were the days, huh guys?

/aren't music videos already commercials?

What about Rick James, biatch?

what about 120 minutes..had to record it on my vcr because i didn't want to stay up that late on sunday night.

I want my MHD. It's not all music videos, mostly concerts and "Storytellers", and the only commercials they show are for MHD and Bose radios. Since the breaks don't last very long, once a particular show ends, they play music videos by that artist until the next hour break.

I love it.