Memories of MTV

Memories of MTV
by Martell

I remember moving out from Nebraska in the summer of 1982. I ended up in probably the worst possible situation—Mission Viejo, CA, starting junior high school.

I was about the biggest outcast imaginable: I was this scrawny pale Midwesterner who didn't wear topsiders, had no idea what KROQ was, and was still into the WWF. Oh, and my family wasn't rich (we were living with my uncle), so I didn't wear nice clothes or get dropped off at school in a Mercedes. Fortunately for me, seventh-graders are notorious for their kindness and compassion...

But I did have one thing that they didn't have in Mission Viejo: MTV. You see, we already had MTV in Nebraska when I left, but it didn't catch on out here until early 1983 (by my recollection; these could easily be false memories that I created as a coping mechanism, but I'm believing them anyway). When I got here in the summer of 1982, kids were still going crazy over a weekly music video show called MV3, which was hosted by So Cal DJ Richard Blade.

I told them about this channel I had seen that played music videos 24-hours a day. It was called MTV. And they kindly pointed out that I was an idiot. "Duh, you're talking about MV3. We've had that show for, like, so long already." Of course, I wasn't an idiot; MTV showed up a few months later. And to this day I believe that, if we hadn't moved to San Clemente the next year, I would have been one of the most popular kids at Los Alisos Junior High. Never again would I hear, "Hey, there's that nerd from Nebraska! Let's go beat him up." Instead, they'd be saying, "Hey, there's the first kid that saw MTV! Let's go beat him up." It would have been great.

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Lots of people know the first video ever played on MTV. It was "Video Killed the Radio Star" by the otherwise forgettable band called The Buggles. Yes, it was very apropos, but I've always suspected that the song was really commissioned by Viacom, despite accounts that it was a #1 hit in the U.K. a couple of years earlier. Oh yeah? Prove it! I didn't live in England back then, so as far as I'm concerned, it didn't happen. Plus, conspiracies are more fun than the truth anyway.

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Some bands were turned into stars because of their videos—Duran Duran immediately comes to mind—and some were undoubtedly hurt by them. But I can only think of one band that was both helped and hurt by the same video: Devo.

The video for "Whip It" is legendary, and it clearly put the band on the map, but I can't help but believe that they would have been much more popular if the world didn't know they were a bunch of nerds in ridiculous hats. Their music is very creative, most of it's quite good, and their sound fit perfectly with the New Wave trend of the early 80s. If they had only been limited to the radio—or, if they had only had the good sense not to dress like idiots in public—I think they could have been one of the biggest bands of the 80s.

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I remember back in 1986, MTV ran a contest for Madonna's song "True Blue." People were asked to make a video for the song, and the best one would become the actual MTV video. It was a pretty cool idea. What they were going to do was select the Top Ten entries, play them all in a row, and then let the viewers vote on which one was the best. This all seems pretty commonplace now, but back then, it was cutting edge.

A girl from my high school thought she had a good idea for the video so she decided she was going to enter the contest. The next thing we know, she's made it to the Top Ten and her video's going to air that Friday. The school went bonkers. So the day comes where MTV is going to have the vote, and we all go home from school to watch. Considering that she was in high school, her video was pretty darn good. It was clean and very well produced. Of course, considering that this was the 80s, her video was also complete crap. All ten of them were.

My schoolmate didn't win—I think she came in third—but all I can remember is that, by the time I had seen the fifth video, I was completely sick of hearing "True Blue," and I'm pretty sure everyone else was too. "True love, you're the one I'm dreaming of, you're heart fits me like a glove..." Over and over and over. What a bad idea that turned out to be.

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Remember back in the day when people would watch MTV for hours and hours, just to see that one video that everyone was talking about? I remember one Sunday I was at my cousin's house (I think she was a senior in high school at the time) and we watched MTV for something like 10 hours straight, waiting for the video for "Rock This Town" by The Stray Cats. I'm not sure that it ever came on. About seven hours or so into our marathon, they played a video for the second time that day, and we were all freaking out. "They can't play that again—they haven't played the Stray Cats yet!" Can you imagine saying that today?

In my mind, that's when MTV lost it. When they decided to shorten the playlist in an effort to continuously play what was most popular, they stopped being special. They had a good thing going before—people like my cousin and I would watch for hours on end. Since every piece of programming was just a few minutes long, it was really easy to get sucked in. "Let's just see what song is next. Oh! Dexy's Midnight Runners! I love this song!" Four minutes later: Wash, rinse, repeat.

Somehow they forgot what made them popular, what it was that made the channel so addictive. It's why kids rushed home every day after school to see if the video for "Home Sweet Home" was still #1—that was the only time they knew they could see it. I think it ended up being #1 for over a year. But no, they wanted to be a "real" channel. They started airing game shows, then cartoons, then reality TV, and pretty soon there was only a couple hours a day left for videos. Their core programming had nearly been eliminated from the station.

Is MTV2 the answer, or is it too late? Will they be able to recapture the passion of today's youth? Unfortunately, I don't think so. People today have been given instant gratification, in the form of a short playlist, and I don't think there's any going back.

Martell can be reached at martell@babblog.com.