ShyGuyInChicago
July 31st, 2011, 01:44 PM
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2011/07/31/2011-07-31_mtvs_notsohappy_30th_birthday.html
MTV’s not-so-happy 30th birthday: It’s a long fall from 'Thriller' to SnookiBY GREG PRATO
Sunday, July 31st 2011, 4:00 AM
MTV
Snooki and her Jersey Shore crew may not be what MTV execs hoped for 30 years ago.
When MTV launched on Aug. 1, 1981, the music industry was suffering from a bad case of the blahs. Rock radio had become increasingly stale, and playlists were so rigid that it was darn near impossible for new bands to nudge their way in between the Led Zeppelins and Bruce Springsteens for airplay.
And then MTV crashed the scene. As a youngster living in the Long Island suburbs, I didn't get to see the channel until a year later (although it had been airing in various locales across the country). But it instantly changed how I regarded music. In the pre-Internet world, unless you were either a music executive or lived in a big city, you couldn't possibly see and hear the variety of bands that MTV played at the time.
Thanks to MTV, I was introduced to Men at Work, A Flock of Seagulls, Duran Duran, Def Leppard, Bryan Adams, Iron Maiden and Madonna. Suddenly, folks who didn't live in New York City or Los Angeles saw cutting edge fashion on their TVs. MTV both captured the budding youth culture of the 1980s - and, soon enough, was dictating it, so that no discussion of American society, with all its highlights and lowlights, in the last three decades could avoid mentioning those three letters.
But not the whole culture: Few (if any) black artists were played on the channel early on, since MTV was focused almost exclusively on rock and roll. Thus, the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Wonder and James Brown - all of whom had enormous influence on rock - got no airtime. Nor did up-and-coming acts like the black punk band Bad Brains.
In other words, MTV projected an edgy image from the outset but was, in reality, as outré as Wonder Bread. That changed, at least somewhat, when MTV began playing Michael Jackson videos in 1983, though some believe it was forced into doing so by a record exec who threatened to embargo his artists unless MTV featured the young "Thriller" star.
MTV's record on women isn't much better. With the emergence of macho hair metal, videos routinely featured women who were portrayed as little more than strippers. As the renowned music journalist Dave Marsh told me for my book "MTV Ruled the World: The Early Years of Music Video," "People talk moralistically about hip hop and metal in terms of their exploitation of women. Well, who encouraged them more than anybody else to do it? Not radio. Not really the record companies. The encouraging factor was MTV, and they never get put on the hook for that. Or at least not very often." All you have to do is watch a Motley Crue video full of writhing blonds to believe it.
By the late 90s, MTV's playlists were becoming just as stale as the radio programs it supplanted. Plus, the emergence of the iPod in 2001 weaned Gen Y off the music video fix.
And so MTV, which had first embraced rock, and then learned to love hip hop and grunge, reinvented itself yet again. The first "Real World" had aired in 1992 as a sort of ancillary program to complement music videos. But it would open up the floodgates for all those untalented, brainless goofballs who flaunt their bad manners and stereotypes on reality shows, the most flagrant of which is MTV's own "Jersey Shore."
Now, we're left with an MTV that no longer has "Music Television" as part of its logo, and for good reason - it hardly plays any music. But whether it's introducing Snooki to the world or having Aerosmith rock with Run-DMC, when it comes to capturing our messy, self-promoting culture, MTV is, for many, the once and future king.
Prato is a journalist who contributes to Rolling Stone and All Music Guide, and is the author of books including "MTV Ruled the World: The Early Years of Music Video" and "Grunge is Dead: The Oral History of Seattle Rock Music."
MTV’s not-so-happy 30th birthday: It’s a long fall from 'Thriller' to SnookiBY GREG PRATO
Sunday, July 31st 2011, 4:00 AM
MTV
Snooki and her Jersey Shore crew may not be what MTV execs hoped for 30 years ago.
When MTV launched on Aug. 1, 1981, the music industry was suffering from a bad case of the blahs. Rock radio had become increasingly stale, and playlists were so rigid that it was darn near impossible for new bands to nudge their way in between the Led Zeppelins and Bruce Springsteens for airplay.
And then MTV crashed the scene. As a youngster living in the Long Island suburbs, I didn't get to see the channel until a year later (although it had been airing in various locales across the country). But it instantly changed how I regarded music. In the pre-Internet world, unless you were either a music executive or lived in a big city, you couldn't possibly see and hear the variety of bands that MTV played at the time.
Thanks to MTV, I was introduced to Men at Work, A Flock of Seagulls, Duran Duran, Def Leppard, Bryan Adams, Iron Maiden and Madonna. Suddenly, folks who didn't live in New York City or Los Angeles saw cutting edge fashion on their TVs. MTV both captured the budding youth culture of the 1980s - and, soon enough, was dictating it, so that no discussion of American society, with all its highlights and lowlights, in the last three decades could avoid mentioning those three letters.
But not the whole culture: Few (if any) black artists were played on the channel early on, since MTV was focused almost exclusively on rock and roll. Thus, the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Wonder and James Brown - all of whom had enormous influence on rock - got no airtime. Nor did up-and-coming acts like the black punk band Bad Brains.
In other words, MTV projected an edgy image from the outset but was, in reality, as outré as Wonder Bread. That changed, at least somewhat, when MTV began playing Michael Jackson videos in 1983, though some believe it was forced into doing so by a record exec who threatened to embargo his artists unless MTV featured the young "Thriller" star.
MTV's record on women isn't much better. With the emergence of macho hair metal, videos routinely featured women who were portrayed as little more than strippers. As the renowned music journalist Dave Marsh told me for my book "MTV Ruled the World: The Early Years of Music Video," "People talk moralistically about hip hop and metal in terms of their exploitation of women. Well, who encouraged them more than anybody else to do it? Not radio. Not really the record companies. The encouraging factor was MTV, and they never get put on the hook for that. Or at least not very often." All you have to do is watch a Motley Crue video full of writhing blonds to believe it.
By the late 90s, MTV's playlists were becoming just as stale as the radio programs it supplanted. Plus, the emergence of the iPod in 2001 weaned Gen Y off the music video fix.
And so MTV, which had first embraced rock, and then learned to love hip hop and grunge, reinvented itself yet again. The first "Real World" had aired in 1992 as a sort of ancillary program to complement music videos. But it would open up the floodgates for all those untalented, brainless goofballs who flaunt their bad manners and stereotypes on reality shows, the most flagrant of which is MTV's own "Jersey Shore."
Now, we're left with an MTV that no longer has "Music Television" as part of its logo, and for good reason - it hardly plays any music. But whether it's introducing Snooki to the world or having Aerosmith rock with Run-DMC, when it comes to capturing our messy, self-promoting culture, MTV is, for many, the once and future king.
Prato is a journalist who contributes to Rolling Stone and All Music Guide, and is the author of books including "MTV Ruled the World: The Early Years of Music Video" and "Grunge is Dead: The Oral History of Seattle Rock Music."