Video killed the radio star
August 4, 2021 9:47 AM   Subscribe

 
And the programming schedule from the day of their 40th anniversary :(
(Spoiler: Ridiculousness, all meanings intended)
posted by jozxyqk at 10:02 AM on August 4, 2021 [8 favorites]


Mind blowing the YouTube poster has only had two C&Ds so far.
posted by Mitheral at 10:09 AM on August 4, 2021 [2 favorites]


Thank goodness for youtube-dl
posted by deadaluspark at 10:33 AM on August 4, 2021 [1 favorite]


Wow. Not at all the playlist most people would expect, but I guess they had to use what they could get and it was the very existence of MTV that created the demand for music videos. Still, though, who would have thought you'd get Rod Stewart four times within the first two hours, plus double helpings of Styx, Pat Benetar, REO Speedwagon and The Pretenders -- not to mention such pop icons as Shoes, Rupert Hine, Lee Ritenour and Ph.D?
posted by slkinsey at 10:36 AM on August 4, 2021 [6 favorites]


They sure had a lot of hair back then. Also everyone was white? I only skimmed through this and looked at preview thumbnails, maybe I missed a Latinx person somewhere. Pretty sure there's no Black people at all. For two whole hours of American music?!

Bonus link: In the Air drums.
posted by Nelson at 10:37 AM on August 4, 2021 [2 favorites]


Pretty sure there's no Black people at all. For two whole hours of American music?!

This was a very, very big complaint against MTV in the early days. There's a rumor that they wouldn't even play the video for Michael Jackson's song "Billie Jean" until his label threatened to pull all of their other artists' videos from the channel.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:42 AM on August 4, 2021 [25 favorites]


We can't rewind
We've gone too far
posted by MonkeyToes at 10:42 AM on August 4, 2021 [15 favorites]




Also everyone was white?

According to this list, The Specials were the first act on MTV to feature both black and white artists. They were the 62nd video. The Selector were second in the 72nd position and then The Specials again at 74. It's interesting to me to see so much 2 Tone on the first day, but I don't think I can identify any black- or latin-majority acts in the first day of programming.
posted by slkinsey at 10:46 AM on August 4, 2021 [4 favorites]


I thought the first two hours were all Little River Band….
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:49 AM on August 4, 2021 [1 favorite]


Not at all the playlist most people would expect, but I guess they had to use what they could get and it was the very existence of MTV that created the demand for music videos.
slkinsey

IIRC one of the reasons for the "Second British Invasion" of the early-mid 80s was that at the time of MTV's launch, while music videos were relative novelties in the US they were fairly established on British TV, so MTV almost had no choice but to play a large number of music videos from British new wave acts to fill their airtime.
posted by star gentle uterus at 10:50 AM on August 4, 2021 [23 favorites]


I can't be sure but I think I saw the VH1 Classic logo watermark on some of those clips. Still, this was excellent stuff. I grabbed a few screencaps for my xanalogtv screensaver collection, which is exclusively stuff that is old or creepy.
posted by jquinby at 10:57 AM on August 4, 2021


Yeah, it's kind of amazing to see that there are basically very few music videos-qua-videos and there's a lot of concert footage. The music video barely existed.

Also, I had forgotten the Bugles filmed the "Video Killed The Radio Star" in Weimar Germany.
posted by GuyZero at 10:59 AM on August 4, 2021


Not at all the playlist most people would expect, but I guess they had to use what they could get and it was the very existence of MTV that created the demand for music videos.

And, yet, despite being very early music video makers, there's zero DEVO on the list slkinsey linked to.
posted by Thorzdad at 11:02 AM on August 4, 2021 [1 favorite]


...I don't think I can identify any black- or latin-majority acts in the first day of programming.

Which is funny considering what was charting the month MTV premiered. I see Commodores, Diana Ross/Lionel Richie, The Pointer Sisters, and Stanley Clarke/George Duke in the top 20.
posted by jquinby at 11:07 AM on August 4, 2021 [6 favorites]


maybe I missed a Latinx person somewhere

As has been mentioned, MTV was pretty flat-out racist in deciding what videos to play. Yo! MTV Raps wouldn't start until '88, 7 years after MTV launched. They just flat-out didn't play black artists.

That said, the US latinx population in '81 was about 6.5% of the population, at a time when the country was still 20+% rural. But the latinx/hispanic population was growing at 50+% annually! It is really amazing how much the US has changed in 40 years with regards to latinx/hispanic populations across the country. (The #2 TV show in 1981 was The Dukes of Hazzard, so, you know, calibrate your assessment of 1981 America's unquestioned racism accordingly)

Regardless, MTV was never about promoting anyone even the slightest bit marginalized to the mainstream. It was about commercial cultural hegemony from day one.
posted by GuyZero at 11:29 AM on August 4, 2021 [8 favorites]


There's a rumor that they wouldn't even play the video for Michael Jackson's song "Billie Jean"

Hey, they played Michael Johnson, they figured they had their MJ's covered.
posted by The_Vegetables at 11:33 AM on August 4, 2021


MTV at 40: Did Video Kill the Radio Star?


solid overview of the racism angle.

I remember when MTV launched, but the summer it stuck with me was the one with "Dancing in the Dark"
posted by chavenet at 11:38 AM on August 4, 2021


Almost 38 years after it first debuted on MTV, “Michael Jackson’s Thriller” (to use its full name) video is still breathtaking.

Yeah, but lots of other videos were mini-epics, this was more a popular artist made a cool video, whereas before most videos from popular artists were pretty cheap.

Check the #3 video Brass in Pocket by The Pretenders, the Robyn Lane and the Chartbusters #6 doesn't have any lipsynching, and Ultravox's Vienna tells a mini-story, has a ton of extras, exotic scenery, is well shot and artistically lit, a story, a climax, and a guy who drinks a martini with a hook! Thriller raised the game for the A-listers to the B-lister's artistic level.
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:06 PM on August 4, 2021 [4 favorites]


It was a couple years after MTV's launch, but I have a distinct memory of my family getting cable, and being pretty psyched for the "radio antenna" setup that would let the cable service pump a radio signal into our stereo's receiver. It actually worked pretty well for us as I recall.
posted by microscone at 12:15 PM on August 4, 2021 [2 favorites]


stuff that is old or creepy.

Or, in the case of Pete Townshend at 02:05:50, both.
posted by Paul Slade at 12:16 PM on August 4, 2021 [2 favorites]


Is this a good place to point that I've always thought "Kilowatt Raids, the video star", would be the perfect name for an early Judge Dredd villain?
posted by Paul Slade at 12:18 PM on August 4, 2021 [3 favorites]


>stuff that is old or creepy.

Or, in the case of Pete Townshend at 02:05:50, both.


Pete was 34 when that concert was recorded. Let's not lean to hard on 'old' here.
posted by hanov3r at 12:24 PM on August 4, 2021 [3 favorites]


*weeps
posted by clavdivs at 12:25 PM on August 4, 2021


Are you part of my Monday Night Trivia? This was used by our gamemaster in trivia last week
posted by Nanukthedog at 12:45 PM on August 4, 2021


3 years later MuchMusic launched and their first video was a clip from 1922 that was the very first film ever synced to music. And then they played, yes, you guessed it, Rush.
posted by GuyZero at 12:45 PM on August 4, 2021 [7 favorites]


And then they played, yes, you guessed it, Rush.

Huh. I would have guessed they'd go with the obviously more-popular Triumph.
posted by hanov3r at 1:10 PM on August 4, 2021 [2 favorites]


Pete was 34 when that concert was recorded. Let's not lean to hard on 'old' here.

Yeah, life was tough in the 80's. In season 1 of Cheers, premiering Sept 1982, Norm was 32. Most people look at those old episodes now and peg him as in his 40's, at best.
posted by GuyZero at 1:32 PM on August 4, 2021 [1 favorite]


And then they played, yes, you guessed it, Rush.

Huh. I would have guessed they'd go with the obviously more-popular Triumph.


It may have been close at that time between Never Surrender and Moving Pictures, but by Rik Emmett's own admission Rush was always a bigger band than Triumph.
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 1:36 PM on August 4, 2021


Hey guys, we're MTV and we're in stereo and we're going to change everything. Did I mention we're in stereo?
posted by hydrophonic at 1:45 PM on August 4, 2021 [1 favorite]


"Back on the Chain Gang" by The Pretenders was definitely the first video I saw on MTV. I confess I didn't like it at the time. I was eleven and silly.

Also, I am 97% sure the first African American act I saw on MTV was The Busboys.
posted by Caxton1476 at 1:53 PM on August 4, 2021


Did I mention we're in stereo?
You can get a sticker!
posted by Karmakaze at 1:54 PM on August 4, 2021


Did I mention we're in stereo?

I wonder how many TVs in the 80's even had stereo speakers. This was the 1981 version of Dolby Atmos - everyone is amazed by it, but practically no one has it.

Looking it up, multichannel sound over NTSC wasn't approved until 1984 - I wonder if early MTV was purely mono?
posted by GuyZero at 1:55 PM on August 4, 2021


Also wild, now that I'm looking it up... this day 1 of the future of music was shown to... cable subscribers in New Jersey.

It was nothing like today's product launches which try to go as big as possible and then go bigger. Only one state got to see the launch of MTV.
posted by GuyZero at 1:59 PM on August 4, 2021 [1 favorite]


I'm 3/4 of the way through and I finally understood that you could have your cable box transmit to your receiver, which is what the stickers are for. I didn't first see MTV until a couple of years later. I don't remember them ever mentioning stereo. How long did it take them to figure out that their audience didn't care?

Also, this Rupert Hine video around 1:40 is...something.
posted by hydrophonic at 2:05 PM on August 4, 2021


Also,
The Wrong Trousers - Video Killed the Radio Star
posted by hydrophonic at 2:23 PM on August 4, 2021 [4 favorites]


Martha Quinn is now 62. *crumbles to dust*
posted by praemunire at 2:25 PM on August 4, 2021 [6 favorites]


Never mind stereo on TVs; most people that I knew didn't even have cable in their homes then, even fewer than had VCRs. So, going to college and getting access to a TV with even basic cable was something else. I was actually visiting high school friends at another college and was camped out in their dorm lounge when I saw this video; one guess as to what compelled me to stay up most of the night to see if it came back in rotation.
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:35 PM on August 4, 2021 [2 favorites]


Also wild, now that I'm looking it up... this day 1 of the future of music was shown to... cable subscribers in New Jersey.

I was one of them! They came online at 10 PM and I watched the first video and then went to bed.

I had school the next morning, starting with band, and I didn't see the huge appeal then. I later had a huge crush on Cathy Dennis (who sang with D-Mob and then had a couple of singles on her own). And I was a Debbie partisan in the Debbie Gibson vs. Tiffany wars.
posted by mephron at 2:46 PM on August 4, 2021 [4 favorites]


Back then in Chicago, we didn't even get cable TV until the late '80s... there was a big political/money controversy as to which providers would get which markets/neighborhoods, etc. So I was 11 in '82 and didn't get to see MTV until I was in late high school—except for little clips here and there and a few minutes at a relative's house in the suburbs.

We lived for MV3 (with Richard Blade) and Friday Night Videos. We were deprived of some of that early zeitgeist. "Call your cable company and say I want my MTV"? We didn't even have a cable company.
posted by SoberHighland at 2:52 PM on August 4, 2021 [1 favorite]


wild to think of how (many of us) really did live through the birth and death of the music video

I remember being a kid and the family rented a cottage near a Butlins in Bognor Regis (returning from overseas to Canada).. we had lived over 3 years in a place where there was no TV, and here we are in a little cottage and a coin-operated television and I wonder what it was like for my dad, trying to ration the (whatever coinage required) as we tried to soak up as much of 1984 Top of the Pops rotation as we could manage. It was intense, I will say that.
posted by elkevelvet at 2:58 PM on August 4, 2021 [2 favorites]


(Spoiler: Ridiculousness, all meanings intended)

I imagine that somebody high up was writing a check to Snooki one day, and they said, "That's it, we have finally hit rock fucking bottom. We may as well just air one cheap-ass show in a loop forever, until they take us off the air. How about... Rob Dyrdek showing Youtube clips?"
posted by Ursula Hitler at 3:08 PM on August 4, 2021 [1 favorite]


Martha Quinn is now 62.

Relatedly, I recently saw Original MTV VJs React to the Biggest ’80s Music Videos -- produced by AARP

Not sure which is worse: that I'm now in a demographic AARP panders to, or that they're doing it so well.
(They're also offering Atari arcade games, playable online.)
Maybe I'm just not used to marketers targeting Gen X so directly.
posted by cheshyre at 3:20 PM on August 4, 2021 [13 favorites]


Take a moment to remember MTV’s dead competitors. Ted Turner went on the attack with Cable Music Channel in October 1984… and sold it to MTV in November 1984. Scroll to turn bottom for the story.

The clip you see above is of an ad that ran on Turner networks during the 1984 Thanksgiving weekend. The channel had days to live, and as you can see it was a rather desperate plea. Alas, the star power and cool factor of Randy Newman and Menudo mattered little. Ted surrendered by the end of November (the channel started at the end of October) and sold CMC to MTV for one million dollars. The following day, CMC abrubtly cut off forever with "That's all from Atlanta. Karen, do you----" *black screen*

On January 1, 1985 MTV relaunched a new channel in CMC's old space....VH1.


And then there was Bohemia Visual Music , a digital subchannel that ran the same loop of programming day after day. It may also, in fact, be Videodrome. Seriously, this one has to be seen to be believed.
posted by Servo5678 at 3:47 PM on August 4, 2021 [5 favorites]


Back then in Chicago, we didn't even get cable TV until the late '80s...We lived for MV3 (with Richard Blade)

Was MV3 local? I remember lots of MV-50 and then JBTV in the 90s.
posted by JoeZydeco at 4:32 PM on August 4, 2021


the Debbie Gibson vs. Tiffany wars

ok, that gave me a LOL, if only for the mental image!
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:49 PM on August 4, 2021


Not sure which is worse: that I'm now in a demographic AARP panders to, or that they're doing it so well.

MTV is much better than the colonoscopy, though.
posted by clew at 4:50 PM on August 4, 2021 [7 favorites]


This is fascinating. I'm intrigued both by the amount of time they spend talking about themselves - which I guess is borrowed from radio - and the fact that they managed to get commercial sponsors for the first day of programming. Who does Dolby think their audience will be? Is the first day of ads free?

As I recall, I transitioned from being too young to appreciate MTV to being too old to appreciate MTV during roughly one week in the early '90s. Panning through, I'm still not sure I really understand it. But, I recognize it was important.

One thing I still don't understand (and haven't spent much time looking into, as someone roughly as old as MTV) is why there exist so many music videos from before MTV. You can find not only music videos from earlier decades, but also parodies of music videos. Where did anybody ever see them? One-off screenings in variety shows? Fills for missing commercials on local channels? Was there a music video hour on television in the early '70s?

(Also, I now know what the show that was playing continuously in the first bar I've been to in 18 months is called. Thanks! I suppose it's more interesting than football.)
posted by eotvos at 5:09 PM on August 4, 2021 [1 favorite]


MTV is much better than the colonoscopy, though.

As an experience, I'd put MTV about even with mailing some folks of a box of my poop. Which was fine!

But I'd be remiss if I didn't note that MTV has at most very weak diagnostic capacity for any form of cancer.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 5:12 PM on August 4, 2021 [3 favorites]


As someone who was never a fan of pop music, I think it gave me cancer of the ears.
posted by Greg_Ace at 5:27 PM on August 4, 2021


Huh! I was just explaining the other day what the 2nd knob marked UHF on an old TV was for. It was, of course, for tuning in non-network local small broadcast stuff like the NYC metro area's own non-cable music video station (for a couple years anyway).
Channel U68 promo reel, 1985
posted by bartleby at 5:27 PM on August 4, 2021 [2 favorites]


Who does Dolby think their audience will be?

Perhaps they intended to blind everyone - with Science!
/80's joke
posted by Greg_Ace at 5:28 PM on August 4, 2021 [6 favorites]


One thing I still don't understand (and haven't spent much time looking into, as someone roughly as old as MTV) is why there exist so many music videos from before MTV.

Before MTV was showing music videos 24/7, there were plenty of music shows which could show music videos.

An Australian example from my youth was the long-running Countdown, which was usually an hour, and had a mix of music news, lip-synched studio performances by local and visiting acts, and a couple of video clips. The show would end with a suspense filled countdown of the Australian top 10 selling singles, with about 10 seconds of each single's video along with a voiceover describing movements on the list or general gossip, before the video for the national Number 1 would be shown in much-anticipated full.

So a good video could drive sales and record companies invested in them.

I would love to see Countdown return - just to get a 60 minute curated weekly summary (as best as possible) of the key/best things happening in the music scene. I'm too short of time to get anything other than a random smattering of it otherwise.
posted by jjderooy at 5:32 PM on August 4, 2021 [4 favorites]


why there exist so many music videos from before MTV

Top of the Pops had been running in the UK since 1964 and according to Wikipedia, the video for Bohemian Rhapsody was made so that Queen wouldn't have to perform live on-set in 1975. As one of the MTV history articles states, they ran a lot of videos by UK bands to the point that they basically caused a second British Invasion of new wave bands that had already made music videos for UK television.

There were also existing shows that showed music videos on existing broadcast stations, like like The Now Explosion and Pop Clips - this article goes into a ton of detail.

Like ESPN, MTV took what was a perfectly reasonable one or two hour block of TV programming and made it available 24 hours a day. From a TV station's perspective, music videos were free content, which is a pretty good deal versus paying for a drama. From the record label's perspective, music videos were free advertising. It was a win-win situation. And at the time TV viewers loved it. These were highly rated shows with desirable audience demographics.
posted by GuyZero at 5:44 PM on August 4, 2021 [4 favorites]


Boston had V66, featuring '60s DJ Arnie "Woo Woo" Ginsburg, '70s DJ John Garabedian and a bunch of new kids.
posted by adamg at 5:52 PM on August 4, 2021 [3 favorites]


the Debbie Gibson vs. Tiffany wars

As chronicled in the oral history by Mojo Nixon.

Hey! Lay off Rick Astley! He's cool now!
posted by Naberius at 6:16 PM on August 4, 2021 [2 favorites]


Halloween Jack, thanks for reminding me of a story I forgot to tell in some earlier thread about how sitting around drinking and smoking and watching music videos together was something we did back in the late 20th century.
1) a back to back airing of Joan Jett's 'Do You Wanna Touch' and 'Crimson and Clover' was the first time I saw someone (a friend's older sister) leave the room in a literal "I'll be in my bunk" moment.
2) almost a decade later, after two of us had been shoved together on the couch by a mutual friend, and both had a...vividly enthusiastic response to an early 90's act's new video, then retired to the balcony for a conversation that was at first whispers, then donkey-laughs, we confronted Clueless Dave together:
"Hey, uh, Dave, were you by any chance, trying to set the two of us up on a date or something?"
Dave, busted and blushing 'Well, I just thought you two might get along?'
Us: "Well, the good news is, we do have something in common."
Dave, smiling: 'See, I told you. What could be the bad news?'
Us: "The two of us appear to have similar tastes..in women."
Dave, slowly getting it: 'Wuh? Oh. OHH! Oops.'
posted by bartleby at 6:23 PM on August 4, 2021 [3 favorites]


So, here's a fun thing... The Buggles, Yes, Art Of Noise, Frankie Goes To Hollywood... All united by one man - Trevor Horn.
posted by hippybear at 6:39 PM on August 4, 2021 [4 favorites]


SELF ADDRESSED STAMPED ENVELOPES HOLY MOSES
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 7:03 PM on August 4, 2021 [6 favorites]


Posited for consideration, as an 'for want of a nail' scenario:
Without the video doing big numbers in the US, there's no green light for the television show. Without the show being part of a weekend lineup that was used by fledgling Fox trying to make itself into a ha-ha, '4th national broadcast network (it'll never happen)', there's no call sent out for comedy animations to put in between sketches. Therefore, without 'They Don't Know 'bout Us', there is no Simpsons.
posted by bartleby at 7:12 PM on August 4, 2021 [5 favorites]


If you had told me that before season 9+, I would have been much sadder.
posted by Greg_Ace at 7:24 PM on August 4, 2021 [1 favorite]




David Bowie on the subject.

You gotta fucking love Bowie. I think my favorite moment is at the end, where the interviewer is clearly trying to extricate himself from the deep deep hole that he now realizes he's dug.

Interviewer : "Does that make sense, is that a valid point?"
David : (looks down) (laughs) "... I understand your point of view."

We didn't deserve David Bowie.
posted by panama joe at 8:24 PM on August 4, 2021


This is all fine but Night Flight on USA had a fiiiine intro

Not to mention muuuucccchhh better programming. (The Cure in Orange, Another State of Mind (with actually better sound than the later home releases), videos from the likes of Danielle Dax and Front 242, etc. etc.). They're now online with vintage episodes, though I admittedly haven't signed up for it yet.

Also, a shout out to Night Tracks (WTBS's weekend video show) and to vintage California Music Channel, esp. when Steve Masters was hosting (don't think you'd see Echo & the Bunnymen's "Seven Seas" or the Cure's "The Walk" on too many other video programs back then). CMC also provided what was probably the only exposure that most Yanks had to Bucks Fizz (for better or for worse).
posted by gtrwolf at 8:43 PM on August 4, 2021


One thing I still don't understand (and haven't spent much time looking into, as someone roughly as old as MTV) is why there exist so many music videos from before MTV. You can find not only music videos from earlier decades, but also parodies of music videos. Where did anybody ever see them? One-off screenings in variety shows? Fills for missing commercials on local channels? Was there a music video hour on television in the early '70s?

Besides the venues already mentioned, there were all sorts of random places on TV where they might want that sort of thing; Chicago's PBS station, WTTW, had a sort of public access video show (maybe still does?) that would show videos by the likes of Wazmo Nariz, and I'm also pretty sure that that's where I saw "Fish Heads" (starring and directed by Bill Paxton). The Monkees' TV show often seemed to be a lot of faffing about to set up the episodes' musical numbers, which were really kind of the point. I'm not sure where this version of "Song to the Siren" by Tim Buckley fit into the particular episode that it was in, and I don't really care, since it stands by itself (and is quite lovely).
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:43 PM on August 4, 2021 [3 favorites]


Music videos go back to at least the early 60s with the Scopitone machine, sort of a jukebox that played 16mm film loops (nsfw for scantily-clad dancers).
posted by hydrophonic at 9:03 PM on August 4, 2021 [5 favorites]


Not at all the playlist most people would expect,

I’ll say. Robin Lane and the Chartbusters? I just watched the first hour and between Rod Stewart and Kenney Jones in The Who (“You Better You Bet”), I had no idea that MTV’s inaugural sixty minutes was so heavy on former members of The Faces.

Also, I have known for at least 35 years that “Video Killed the Radio Star” was the very first video they played, somehow I did not see it until... this evening.

And good lord, 1981 was a long time ago. The launch of MTV is closer to Pearl Harbor than it is to today.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:16 PM on August 4, 2021


The Beatles did several music videos after they stopped touring. They've been being done for a very long time.

The weird cultural feedback mechanism that was MTV+Music Industry was peculiar, and really changed how things were for much of the planet in various ways. Music video shows, if not channels, became very much a part of media everywhere, whether with local or global artists.

wild to think of how (many of us) really did live through the birth and death of the music video

The music video is entirely far from dead, and its influence really has never been bigger on a global scale.
posted by hippybear at 9:19 PM on August 4, 2021 [1 favorite]


I'm surprised they found room for even such a short item on The Ramones. I thought the band's audience was still limited to New York and a few other coastal big cities at that point?
posted by Paul Slade at 12:02 AM on August 5, 2021


I'm surprised they found room for even such a short item on The Ramones. I thought the band's audience was still limited to New York and a few other coastal big cities at that point?

The Ramones had been the central plot point of a feature film three years prior, so they definitely had a national profile at that point.
posted by jeremias at 3:18 AM on August 5, 2021 [2 favorites]


Along with the other MTV forebears mentioned above TV station WATL in Atlanta experimented with all-music video weekend programming in 1970, called "The Now Explosion".
posted by TedW at 4:33 AM on August 5, 2021


Besides the venues already mentioned, there were all sorts of random places on TV where they might want that sort of thing;

If you were a Gen X kid near Toronto, you may well have seen your first video on The All-Night Show on Channel 47 (which, ironically, had been branded MTV — for ‘Multilingual Television’ — until 1981). It was broadcast live, six nights a week, in an era where just about every other station signed off at 1:00 AM or so, so its competition was mostly test patterns.

Actor Chas Lawther appeared in uniform as “Chuck the Security Guard” with the conceit that after hours the station security guard was illicitly commandeering the equipment overnight to indulge his own tastes and play music videos, old Twilight Zone episodes and the like, and to run contests like scavenger hunts. He would also do stunts like calling a random payphone somewhere in the city and whoever picked up would win the prize, which were often things like 250 LPs. I am certain that any given night in 1981 a bunch of college students piled into their cars and drove all over Toronto listening for ringing phones, or trying to collect twenty hard-boiled eggs, a photo of a platypus, and three purple socks for the scavenger hunt.

Anyway, I suspect 80% of the videos I saw prior to 1983 or so were introduced at 1:45 AM by a genial guy in a polyester uniform.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 4:57 AM on August 5, 2021 [9 favorites]


So much mediocre music. The Pretenders still sound pretty great though. At 13, the brute sexuality of the lyric hit me only glancingly - then recently saw "Lost in Translation" (which is 20! plus years old) and when the Charlotte character sings it in the karaoke I got it (which was a bit squicky, too, because Johanson was 17 during filming and you can see it, that she's much younger then the character she's supposed to be playing) - I had forgotten about the song entirely and hearing it again brought it to a new, fuller light. "Radio killed... etc" evoked no feelings whatsoever then or now.

My own kids have never seen MTV, it exists (if at all) entirely outside of their universe - which, is as impressive as its ever having been in the first place. I tried to tell them once that I was in the original apartment, on Prince St., during the taping of ... And I helped build the set for... such blank stares. I might as well have been talking about walking uphill in the snow to get to school! In both directions! Even in the summer! WITHOUT shoes!

I dunno if MTV is analogous to the 8-track but it's not far off.
posted by From Bklyn at 5:20 AM on August 5, 2021 [4 favorites]


I was in the original apartment, on Prince St., during the taping of ... And I helped build the set for...

It sounds like it's story time.
posted by donpardo at 5:39 AM on August 5, 2021 [3 favorites]


The Monkees' TV show often seemed to be a lot of faffing about to set up the episodes' musical numbers, which were really kind of the point.

Michael Nesmith went on to create a music video show called PopClips for Nickelodeon which Warner purchased and expanded into MTV.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:52 AM on August 5, 2021 [6 favorites]


talking about walking uphill in the snow to get to school! In both directions! Even in the summer! WITHOUT shoes!

I think it's great that a penniless kid from a glacier village made it big in the world!
posted by hippybear at 6:29 AM on August 5, 2021 [3 favorites]


3 years later MuchMusic launched yt and their first video

Incidentally, looking back from decades later, Americans might enjoy seeing the opening presented by shaggy-haired veejay and host J.D. Roberts, who these days (as John Roberts) is the co-anchor of America Reports on Fox News.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:55 AM on August 5, 2021 [1 favorite]


In a not-so-distant, alternate reality,

...shaggy-haired veejay and host J.D. Roberts, who these days (as John Roberts) is the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court...

*shivers*
posted by From Bklyn at 7:32 AM on August 5, 2021


Even after MTV, music videos were a pretty big thing for a long time on lots of channels. NiteFlight was awesome, after Saturday morning cartoons they had the video countdown, DanceParty USA was awesome- it was a daily tv show of people dancing to the latest dance hits.

There were also various late night video shows -that showed more independent videos as by 1990, MTV focused on a relatively narrow band of hit songs instead of casting a net so wide as they did when they first launched.

USA Up all Nite also showed even more independent music videos between cheesy B-movies. like this, but also slightly more mainstream SubPop Records, Matador Records, TVT, Megaforce, Alias etc record label videos.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:46 AM on August 5, 2021




I'm conflicted.

I mean, I grew up with MTV on in the background somewhere and without shows like 120 Minutes I never would have heard about a lot of alternative or college rock bands that I hold dear to this day. But I also listened to a good amount of punk (MTV Get Off the Air!) and that stuff was never on MTV beyond a curiosity play. And then shit just got annoying when they discovered reality TV.

But just the other day I found a video of Squeeze playing a non-single track at MTV Spring Break 1988 and think "yeah, sometimes they were okay".
posted by JoeZydeco at 10:55 AM on August 5, 2021 [2 favorites]


I tried to tell them once that I was in the original apartment, on Prince St., during the taping of ... And I helped build the set for... such blank stares.

go on...
posted by panama joe at 11:40 AM on August 5, 2021


go on...


(I'm sorry but there's no there, there. In the one case, a friend (who was getting totally jerked around by a 'producer' who was producing the heavy metal show) needed help in his welding shop. In the other case, had a friend who was friends with the guy with the dog... it says more about NYC in the late 80's than anything - lots of cross-pollinating. I suspect the office politicking there was vicious - none of the producer types I met were anything but masters at that shit.)
posted by From Bklyn at 1:05 PM on August 5, 2021


The first 10 music videos MTV played according to Wikipedia does not exactly match the YouTube video. # 6 and #9 are not on the YouTube video. Although it seems #9 was an actual error on the day of broadcast.

1 "Video Killed the Radio Star" The Buggles
2 "You Better Run" Pat Benatar
3 "She Won't Dance With Me" Rod Stewart
4 "You Better You Bet" The Who
5 "Little Suzi's on the Up" Ph.D.
6* "We Don't Talk Anymore" Cliff Richard [This is not on the YouTube video]
7 "Brass in Pocket" The Pretenders
8 "Time Heals" Todd Rundgren
9* "Take It on the Run" REO Speedwagon [Error - only shows blank screen]
10 "Rockin' the Paradise" Styx
11 "When Things Go Wrong" Robin Lane and the Chartbusters
12 "History Never Repeats" Split Enz
posted by Rashomon at 1:25 PM on August 5, 2021 [2 favorites]


From the YouTube description:
EDIT: Video was taken down again because Cliff Richard suddenly decided that I was ripping him off and shut down the video...I wrote back trying to get him to change his mind but no deal, had to chop Cliff out of the video for it to be posted again
posted by hanov3r at 1:31 PM on August 5, 2021


I'm sorry but there's no there, there.
Darn. I was hoping for the opportunity to breathlessly enquire about the previously unexplored "So what was Ken Ober really like?"
posted by bartleby at 1:33 PM on August 5, 2021 [1 favorite]


I used to get a lot of my music video fix by going to my second family's house and watching HBO--they filled out their schedule with music videos for a number of years before MTV started. We came in to those first hours of broadcast a little late--at the end of the Buggles' song. I was thrilled when they played Split Enz and we turned it off and went over to something else.

Music videos popped up in the weirdest places, not always just on those wonderful shows mentioned above by people. I discovered one of my favorite obscure albums because of a video that played as a short before one of the Seattle Film Festival premieres.
posted by kitten kaboodle at 1:41 PM on August 5, 2021


I wonder if early MTV was purely mono?

According to a thread on the Steve Hoffman music forums, early MTV was stereo for people with satellite dishes and people whose cable companies provided a stereo FM signal.
posted by box at 1:59 PM on August 5, 2021


According to a thread on the Steve Hoffman music forums, early MTV was stereo for people with satellite dishes and people whose cable companies provided a stereo FM signal.

From that thread: "I was supposed to get stereo over FM from the beginning, but the cable company had no idea that they were not transmitting stereo sound. I had to educate them, which was kind of surprising, but it also got me access to their headend and the ability to dial things to my liking."

That is some old-school nerd shit, going down to your local cable company to rearrange their wiring and turn on FM simulcast because you want to watch Sheena Easton in stereo on MTV.
posted by GuyZero at 2:38 PM on August 5, 2021 [6 favorites]


Re: stereo MTV
There were a couple of methods, depending on how your cable system worked. TV sets at the time didn't have stereo speakers, but your TV was probably placed next to your Hi-Fi stereo gear with the FM tuner and the turntable, in a new form of furniture called an 'entertainment center'. Or on those plastic milk crates.
Things could be as complicated as an RF modulator built into the cable signal descrambler box; or as basic as plugging the headphone output from your TV into the AUX input on your stereo equipment (with a special double ended adapter you bought at Radio Shack).
For a while, it was kind of a cool dude thing to have, a 'Let's go back to my bachelor pad, do some cocaine, and watch the Top 20 Video Countdown. In Stereo! I just got some choice JVC speakers and a 20 inch Sony Trinitron TV'.
Stereo stuff on your TV didn't get mass adoption until VCRs got cheap, where you could build the audio video signal processing into that box, which you just added to the stack of components between your mono TV and your stereo speakers. Just watching the news? Use the TV's one built in speaker. Time to rock out with the Headbanger's Ball? Fire up the stereo, crank the knobs and make heavy metal horns.
These kids today, with their single HDMI cables.
There used to be a whole jungle of black A/V cord spaghetti back there, with color coded ends and weird adapter boxes with their own separate remotes, and things only worked if you remembered to set the VCR to channel 3 and turn the volume on the actual TV all the way down, because it was slightly out of sync.
/geezer
posted by bartleby at 3:06 PM on August 5, 2021 [3 favorites]


Thanks, everyone who answered my naive question about pre-MTV music video distribution! The number of programs I've never even heard mentioned is really interesting. Slowly working through the examples.
posted by eotvos at 3:59 PM on August 5, 2021


Music videos popped up in the weirdest places,

You're not wrong. I recall tuning in a few minutes early to watch some sitcom or other in 1982 (Taxi? WKRP?) and where we'd now see more commercials, Christine McVie was enjoining me Hold Me.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 4:14 PM on August 5, 2021


Growing up in Chile in the '80s, we didn't have cable, and not a lot music in general. We'd heard about MTV but hadn't ever seen it. A friend wen to the U.S. and taped a few hours and made me a copy when he got back home. I must have played it a few hundred times, especially the two or so hours of Headbangers' Ball.
posted by signal at 4:40 PM on August 5, 2021 [2 favorites]


but your TV was probably placed next to your Hi-Fi stereo gear with the FM tuner and the turntable

Right. Hence the offer to send in a self-addressed, stamped envelope (!!) and get a free sticker to put on your stereo (!!) to mark the right frequency to listen to the music.
posted by Naberius at 5:56 PM on August 5, 2021 [2 favorites]


I was this many years old when I discovered that Little Suzi by Tesla was a cover.
posted by Billy Rubin at 7:35 PM on August 5, 2021 [1 favorite]


I would like to know more about good places to watch music videos these days.

I miss them. I loved watching the ones that tried to tell any kind of story (concert vids=eh) no matter how ridiculous.

The first time I saw one was on SCTV and it was Talking Heads, Once in a Lifetime. I thought it was a comedy bit, kept waiting for the funny part. Instead it was just haunting and confusing and compelling.

I think I first saw MTV at a friend's house, and I distinctly remember Human League's Don't You Want Me and Eurythmics' Sweet Dreams. I was hooked and soon found Night Flight and any other video show I could. MTV now just makes me sad.
posted by emjaybee at 11:37 PM on August 5, 2021 [1 favorite]


The Little Space Hobo is a dancer, and before COVID shut them all down there was a thriving competitive dance festival circuit on this island.

At one, a child's Character dance was announced as "The Buggle Fairy". Character has a lot of room for novel musical and dance style choices, so I was prepared for something modern based on the music video. Instead it was a sort of standard forest pastoral.

When the adjudicator stood up, she turned to the announcer and noted dryly "I think you'll find that was the Bugle fairy."
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 2:38 AM on August 6, 2021


EDIT: Video was taken down again because Cliff Richard suddenly decided that I was ripping him off and shut down the video...I wrote back trying to get him to change his mind but no deal, had to chop Cliff out of the video for it to be posted again

Look out! CLIFF!

(The Young Ones was the first non-music content I remember on MTV, but unlike everything that followed it was worth watching.)
posted by TedW at 4:16 AM on August 6, 2021 [2 favorites]


MetaFilter: it was just haunting and confusing and compelling.
posted by hippybear at 7:20 PM on August 6, 2021 [1 favorite]


Ah, those heady teen years when I moved from "place cassette recorder next to radio clock speaker to tape songs" to "place cassette recorder next to tv speaker to tape songs".
My copy of "Yo Little Brother" ended with the ident for ABC's Friday late night video program.
And I think my copy of "Got a Hold on Me" came from U68.
(dives down Wiki rabbit hole for a minute)
UHF 68 was part of Wometco Home Theater's start? And became part of the Home Shopping Network?

"In the fall of 1977, Wometco launched a national over-the-air subscription television service called Wometco Home Theater, and opted to use WTVG as its flagship station. On July 16, 1979, the station's calls were changed to WWHT to match the program service (the WTVG call letters are now used by the ABC affiliate and one-time network O&O in Toledo, Ohio). Viewers who subscribed to WHT were given set-top converter boxes which descrambled the channel 68 signal. ..."

"By 1985 WHT folded, due to huge losses as a result of the expansion of cable television; as a result, the station switched to music videos as U68, programmed by Steve Leeds (later at MTV). ... However, during Autumn 1986, WWHT and WSNL were sold to the Home Shopping Network becoming WHSE and WHSI, respectively, and aired HSN programming full-time for the next sixteen years. "

Station ident and scrambled broadcast. The 'Smithtown' mentioned for the simulcast channel is on Long Island, NY.
posted by Mutant Lobsters from Riverhead at 5:11 AM on August 7, 2021 [1 favorite]


One thing I still don't understand (and haven't spent much time looking into, as someone roughly as old as MTV) is why there exist so many music videos from before MTV.

Video Jukeboxes. They were going to be the biggest thing ever, (well, until the Segway). Morrison and The Doors had a video for one, "The Unknown Soldier", and ... if there was a second one, I never saw it. The next time I went into the bar, Space Wars and Pong had replaced the vid jukebox. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
posted by Chitownfats at 7:43 PM on August 7, 2021 [1 favorite]


Video dances where they played music videos instead of just music were huge at middle/high schools and predated [barely] Much Music. I don't recall if you could get MTV here in Canada at that time though I think not.
posted by Mitheral at 8:34 PM on August 7, 2021


If you have time for it, Craig Marks' book I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution is an excellent read on the early days of the network.
It's written in an oral-history format, roughly chronological but chapters are also somewhat thematic.

To sum it up: the cliche'd excesses of both the music business and the 1980s nouveau riche were sex & drugs.
MTV combined them.
posted by cheshyre at 3:42 PM on August 8, 2021


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