The Aretha Franklin Thread

[Faulkner]

Yes, that was a mess last night. Typical Madonna self-indulgence. They probably felt pressure to honor her in some way because she was one of the most important icons in popular music, but like most of last night, it wasn’t thought through. 

 

Then again, most of the tributes to lost icons in recent years (I’m thinking about Gaga’s frantic, Vegas-style nod to Bowie on the Grammys) have fallen flat. Oddly, the BET Awards have done the best ones, and they are on MTV’s Viacom sister network.

[DramatistDreamer]

MTV systematically ignored Black artists for the first few years of its existence as a network.

 

There is a, by now, (in)famous interview with David Bowie where he questions VJ Adam Goodman on why MTV is ignoring Black artists and Goodman replies with some bullsh*t response about the possibilityof kids in middle America being scared off.

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The reaction of David Bowie as he guffaws and shakes his head is priceless.

 

The Grammys has their own history with Black musicians that I won't get into but yeah, MTV definitely has a history too.

Edited August 21, 2018 by DramatistDreamer

[BetterForgotten]

Aretha did few music videos, ultimately, her impact wasn't in that genre, and she wasn't a big presence on the network. Donna Summer and Tina Turner did receive significant MTV airplay during the infancy of the network. However, it wasn't until Whitney Houston and Janet Jackson did MTV start playing black female artists in heavy rotation - and both were marketed to appeal to pop audiences. 

 

Also, unless you were Prince or your last name was Jackson, the record labels were infamous for not producing or funding much videos for black artists. 

[Khan]

 

I've said the same about MTV's attitude toward rap and hip-hop in general.  The network did not want to acknowledge those burgeoning musical genres until it had to; and even when it did, it did so in the most sanitized, "user-friendly" way possible with crap like "Yo! MTV Raps!".

[DramatistDreamer]

 

Yeah, that's why I referenced that interview that Bowie did with MTV.  Everyone knew that MTV systematically devalued Black music until that system was losing them money.

 

I do think that Fab5 Freddy did a very different show than Ed Lover & Dre.  Freddy didn't want to be in a studio every day like other VJs at MTV, so he turned them down when they suggested a daily 'in studio' show. 

He felt it was best to go out and talk to people, which is why you saw him on location with his interviews. 

Ed Lover & Dre were not music or art connoiseurs like Freddy, they were comedians-- they had a totally different approach that dealt more in shallow comedy and silliness, which seemed to suit MTV's purposes just fine.

[BetterForgotten]

A this point though, you're lucky if MTV even acknowledges it was once a music network...

[DramatistDreamer]

Speaking of Video Soul, I just took a peek at Donnie Simpson's social media and his posted this tweet from Maxwell about Aretha Franklin.  This is too cute!

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[Faulkner]

MTV is in crisis, even though it’s had ratings growth recently. They’ve had some success with the revival of Jersey Shore, and they announced a revival of The Hills last night. But it’s 10-15 years since MTV meant anything at all. This year’s ceremony is the earliest they’ve ever done the VMAs, and it’s because nothing else is on right now. It’s just not that relevant in today’s world.

 

I just wonder how the Grammys will handle Aretha.

[Khan]

 

Yep.  That disregard was practically built into the network's conception.  Cable TV was on the rise, so MTV set out from the start to cater to viewers who were younger, less affluent, and most decidedly midwestern and white.  Their attitude was that those youths weren't living in places that had a plethora of ways with which to occupy their time (like teens living in major cities such as NYC, L.A., and even Chicago did), so they were the perfect, captive audience for an all-music video channel.  Why else would they eventually do Spring Break and summer remotes from places like Daytona and Ft. Lauderdale?  To the average MTV viewer of the day, that was closest they were ever getting to the beach.

 

MTV never wanted to acknowledge any African-American-influenced genre, because, in their minds, their target audience (again, white kids from "flyover country") weren't interested.  Therefore, I don't think it was just a coincidence that MTV ceased being a music network once rap, "gangsta rap," hip-hop, and all the affiliated sub-genres became mainstream.  They didn't understand it, didn't know what to do with it, and frankly, didn't care for it at all.

 

Frankly, it'll be hard for any awards show (or other show) to do an Aretha tribute, because she was so inimitable.  

Edited August 21, 2018 by Khan

[BetterForgotten]

Even BET ended up mostly walking away from music (which comprised a huge part of its schedule until the mid-00's). It used to be an alternative option for black artists, but it no longer serves that purpose. Was it Viacom ownership, or was it that music programming was no longer financially beneficial? 

 

The rise and fall of music television is interesting. No one can deny the impact it had in the 80's through early 00's, but since then....? I guess we can blame it on the internet, but still...

 

 

Edited August 21, 2018 by BetterForgotten

[DramatistDreamer]

 

Clive Davis holds some sway and if he has anything to do with it (which I can't see him not being involved), it's going to be a sure sight better than anything MTV can think of. 

 

I only saw clips of last night's VMA this morning.  I lost interest in MTV a very long time ago.  When I was a child in the 80s, I ranked MTV and BET about even.  For awhile, BET had more diverse programming, in the fact that they didn't just do videos, they also had cooking shows and game shows and so I probably watch BET more than MTV earlier on.  MTV was known for playing the same small number of music videos in heavy rotation early on. 

It was known that if you watched for 90 minutes, you saw pretty much what they had to offer for the rest of the day. 

When the Thriller album videos started airing, around '84 (MTV was late), MTV actually started to become appointment viewing TV. 

Still, if you wanted to see groups that did less known musical genres like freestyle, that was very popular in the NYC metro area, you couldn't get that on MTV, you were more like to see that on a local show like Video Music Box or even BET, if it was a black artist like Shannon.  There was just so much in music that MTV didn't cover that you had to supplement by watching other channels, networks.  That was just the way it was.

 

[Faulkner]

They also have the benefit of time (almost six months to get ducks in a row) and a broader target audience than the VMAs, so if they mess it up, that’s on them. Not that they won’t mess it up...

[DramatistDreamer]

 

Music video is still very much alive on the Internet through the likes of Vevo, Noisey, Vimeo, BBC, WorldStar and those are just the mainstream sites.

[Faulkner]

Yeah, why wait to see the music videos you want on some TV network when you can just cue them up on demand on YouTube? Music videos on TV haven’t made a ton of sense in a long, long time.

[DramatistDreamer]

The music video goes by an altogether different model than it once did which is probably healthier and a bit more democratic than what it had become under MTV.  I suspect that MTV was likely finding it more difficult to monetize music as easily as they once did.

It happened sooner rather than later, when I suspect a 'Napster for music videos' type service was likely to show itself and eat from MTV's bowl.  It was inevitable.