Music TV

December 15, 2006 8:18 AM

I want my MTV. MTV is now mostly reality, titillation TV, rarely showing music videos anymore. YouTube fills the void somewhat, but sometimes you want to just sit back and let someone else take care of the programming. MusicPlusTV is sort of like the old MTV, but they stream to your computer instead of to your TV.
posted by caddis (23 comments total)

TV on the internet.

Great!

Just what I never really ever wanted.
posted by Freen at 8:25 AM on December 15, 2006

If they play something other than hip-hop, sludge-metal, and pasteurized-homogenized-emo, I'll check 'em out later.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 8:27 AM on December 15, 2006

I thought the music videos were the 'titillation TV.'

You know what the problem with music videos is....
posted by jonmc at 8:43 AM on December 15, 2006

Not enough mediocre punk, too much pitbull hiphop.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 8:53 AM on December 15, 2006

In Britain - at least if you subscribe to Sky TV - we have 25+ all-music video channels - surfing up and down from #340 to #370 you can choose what you watch. I never understood why MTV shows all those boring shows rather than cool, free videos.
posted by tombola at 8:57 AM on December 15, 2006

Your Favourite Internet TV Station's Favourite Band Sucks.
posted by tehloki at 9:02 AM on December 15, 2006

Hm, lots of pimps and hoes and unlimited mellisma.
posted by jouke at 9:07 AM on December 15, 2006

I prefer to buy my videos for $2 from Apple, because I'm an idiot.
posted by smackfu at 9:14 AM on December 15, 2006 [4 favorites]

MTV Hits is all music videos and MTV Jams appears to be all hip-hop videos (but I'm not positive as I hardly watch it anymore). If you have digital cable, you probably get these.

But like MTV 2, it's possible that non-music programs will gradually invade and dominate these channels too.
posted by mullacc at 9:15 AM on December 15, 2006

I turned it on and I got bad rap. Wow! This is really different from MTV!
posted by dhartung at 10:13 AM on December 15, 2006

VH1 Classic used to be all music videos, all the time, but commercials have crept in and now they run "Behind the [Inevitably Shitty] Music" and even lousy made-for-TV movies. MTV Hits now spends time re-running episodes of TRL, and has a few commercials. I don't get MTV Jams through Cablevision, but I do have access to VH1 Soul, which occasionally surprises me. (Mostly it's bland, MOR stuff.) And we recently added something called "The Tube" which is an intermittently amusing mix of mainstream videos.

It upsets me that I've got like a half-dozen variants on The Discovery Channel but no place at all to tune in a decent performance by Goldfrapp or even The Raconteurs. (You know, something beyond what they're allowed to do in a typical Letterman or Leno appearance.) Accordingly, I get the vast majority of my music-related programming on Usenet, where accommodating Brits record and encode the interesting stuff for consumption by the rest of the world. It's decent quality, too -- at least as good as the crappy digital-cable channels I have to watch here in the states. (The network and premium channel feeds are passable, though riddled with artifacts especially in dark scenes, but MTV2 is just godawful.)
posted by Joey Bagels at 11:02 AM on December 15, 2006

"You know what the problem with music videos is..."

They would be great without the fuckin' customers?

This site would be great if today's music didn't suck. And if it could get the damn kids offa my lawn.
posted by Eideteker at 11:51 AM on December 15, 2006

Who hates MTV? I LOVE these reality shows. Right now, I'm watching The Real World- 7 stupid drunks fighting about nothing and hooking up. That's REAL, y'all. REAL.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 12:21 PM on December 15, 2006 [1 favorite]

stupid drunks fighting about nothing and hooking up. That's REAL, y'all. REAL.

No, thats MeFi.

(sorry. it was just TOO easy)
posted by jonmc at 1:10 PM on December 15, 2006

I like music videos

Though I get them from Youtube.
posted by drezdn at 1:17 PM on December 15, 2006

I get the vast majority of my music-related programming on Usenet

WHERE on Usenet, Joey Bagels, WHERE?
posted by ZenMasterThis at 1:32 PM on December 15, 2006

Joey Bagels writes "VH1 Classic used to be all music videos, all the time, but commercials have crept in and now they run 'Behind the [Inevitably Shitty] Music' and even lousy made-for-TV movies."

They managed to screw up VH1 Classic? I mean, it's the people behind VH1, but I still find it hard to believe that they could make that mistake.
posted by concrete at 1:37 PM on December 15, 2006

I turned it on and I got bad rap. Wow! This is really different from MTV!

Hey, I didn't say it would be good.

MTV Hits now spends time re-running episodes of TRL, and has a few commercials

I thought they stopped doing that? It was only once or twice a day and the episodes were truncated anyway.

MTV Hits does have the annoying habit of furiously promoting an artist for a few days at a time. I was on the verge of throwing my TV out the window during the all-J.Lo weekend.
posted by mullacc at 1:48 PM on December 15, 2006

And then you either found the remote or decided to get up off the couch and change the station/turn it off manually, thus sparing your TV once more?
posted by Eideteker at 2:58 PM on December 15, 2006

"Hey, I didn't say it would be good"

... the slogan of the average metafilter post nowadays.
posted by tehloki at 3:27 PM on December 15, 2006

Eideteker: You think I lack fortitude? I watched every single J.Lo video.
posted by mullacc at 5:33 PM on December 15, 2006

Ever since I discovered Democracy Player not too long ago, I've been occasionally watching music videos from Telemusicvision. They don't have a lot of mainstream stuff (well, they don't have a lot of stuff at all yet), but there are some great videos from some of the tamer indie groups. This Mogwai video is one of my favorites.

Er, on preview it seems like the link to the vid is currently not working. They say on their blog they're in the middle of transferring some videos to a new server, so hopefully it'll be back soon.
posted by Spike at 12:33 AM on December 16, 2006

VH1 Classic was awesome, but there are too many movies and Behind the Music and shows like that creeping in. I'm hoping those don't take over the channel, but then again, it is VH1 so it wouldn't surprise me.

Remember how the big selling point for MTV2 was that it would be a place to see all the actual music videos? Now it's pretty much indistinguishable from regular MTV. I do like MTV Hits so I can actually see current videos. (I love how MTV still gives awards for videos when they don't actually play them too much!) I like the Tube a lot too.
posted by SisterHavana at 10:32 AM on December 16, 2006