I was in my early twenties when MTV came on the scene 30 years ago today. At that age, I was precisely the targeted demographic this revolutionary new channel had in it’s cross-hairs, and it worked. They played music-videos 24/7, and I couldn’t get enough of them.
Before MTV, I was forced to use my imagination to visualize what my favorite artists looked like when they sang, and what the lyrics of their songs actually meant. This was an era when I’d hear a song I liked on the radio and would have to travel to the record store to buy the abum. Because most albums only had one or two photos of the band, I’d lay on my back on the shag carpet in my living room , put my feet up on the bean bag chair, and listen to each word as a zillion pictures and possible scenarios raced through my head.
But on August 1, 1980, I no longer needed to imagine what REO Speedwagon, Pat Benetar, or Rod Stewart was saying in those songs or what they looked like when they sang them. MTV had come on the air to do all my imagining for me. Suddenly, pop music’s audio element took a back seat to it’s visual accompaniment. Banarama had three hot chicks in tight spandex pants, so I didn’t care that they couldn’t carry a tune. And as much as I hated the original version of Call Me Angel of the Morning, Juice Newton‘s video remake ‘juiced’ it up, so I listened. (I’m embarrassed to say, I even bought the album.)
MTV used the medium of music video to make it’s way into the hearts and minds of those on the cusp of the baby boomer-Gen X line, and we gave it wings. When it launched 30 years ago, MTV was all about the music video; a genre that replaced our need to imagine with computer-generated messaging which was then pumped out in living color into our respective living rooms.
Today, sadly, the network rarely plays a music video. It has emerged into more of a trashy tabloid, reality show-based channel for impressionable young minds. (If you’re a parent, a teacher, or someone who works closely with youth, you ought to see what’s being inserted into your kid’s brain on that network. But that’s another post.)
I guess I’m feeling nostalgic. I miss the old MTV, almost as much as I miss the days when all the music videos were created in my own mind.
