...that MTV launched, corrupting children for generations to come. In case you missed it, they were running a 30th anniversary marathon of classic MTV moments all weekend....on VH1 Classic. No, that wasn't a typo: so far as I could tell, the formerly-named "Music Television" (MTV dropped the moniker years ago) made no move to acknowledge the day, choosing instead to run a Jersey Shore marathon while leaving all the hard work of actually noting the occasion to the only network that still plays videos all dang day. Sad state of affairs, I think. Best I can figure is that MTV doesn't want the teeny-boppers who tune in to watch their current slate of non-musical programming to know that they're 30 years old. Because for those teeny-boppers, 30 is dust-fartingly ancient! How can something that's been around for 30 years be relevant? Well, in MTV's case, they really aren't, at least not to me. You won't show videos anymore, old or new, then I have very little need to watch your channel. I'll tune in when Beavis and Butthead return to the airwaves...wait, I forgot, that's going to be on MTV2. Okay, I definitely have no need to watch MTV at the moment, then.
As I type this, VH1 Classic is showing MTV's first hour of programming, commercials and all, which just makes it even trippier (I just saw an ad for Superman II, now in theatres!). Figure by now everybody knows what the first video shown was (if you don't, go look it up, it's the only thing the band's famous for these days anyhow), but do you know what the second video was? Why, it was this little ditty right here:
Gawd, this was the best we could do in 1981? I know we had better music than this! Problem is, the concept of marketing a band by making videos was still rather new at the time, or at least not used with great effectiveness, so there probably wasn't a ton of variety in the beginning. Give it a few years, though, and the entire music industry would be leaning on MTV like a crutch. Matter of fact, thinking on this, I'd say that MTV's phasing out of videos is the real reason that the music industry is losing bucketloads of money these days. It's not file-sharing, it's not changing tastes, it's MTV knocking away that dang crutch by discontinuing the very reason they were created. The RIAA needs to sue MTV for loss of revenue! Yeah! Then MTV will be so broke, they'll have to go back to showing videos because they won't have the dough to produce crappy reality shows about sluts and goombahs in New Jersey!
Yeah, I'm really digging on this idea now! Who's with me on this? Huh? Say it loud, say it proud...I WANT MY MTV!!!
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