MTV turned 25 years old yesterday

[Bree]

Okay, this is REALLY long, but I hope you can get through it and maybe share your favorite memories about MTV.

August 1, 1981, MTV premiered on cable, and the world was introduced to a channel that played nothing but music videos from bands and singers that probably wouldn't get any exposure on radio. While music videos had been around since the late 60s, they were usually performance footage edited from concerts and TV shows, or a video filmed for a TV show.

New wave bands and up-and-coming artists were the first to take advantage of MTV. Duran Duran, INXS, Culture Club, The Talking Heads, Blondie, Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, Prince, Michael Jackson, and the like embraced this new medium. When the older bands saw what MTV did for a newcomers' career, they rushed to make videos. Bands such as Aerosmith, The Rolling Stones, Heart, Fleetwood Mac, and Journey found success with younger music fans thanks to MTV. Elton John, popular in the 70s, stayed strong in the 80s and 90s thanks to MTV. Peter Gabriel used MTV to bring us his imaginitive videos. Sinead O'Connor, before she tore up the Pope's picture and pissed off the world, captured our attention for a while with her unforgettable video for "Nothing Compares 2U" and proved that you didn't need flashy visuals, short skirts, and boobies to make us watch.

Also, thanks to MTV, we had singers team up for unlikely duets. If MTV weren't around, could you imagine 60s soul singer Aretha Franklin making hit songs with George Michael and synth pop/rockers like The Eurythmics? Or spunky pop singer Sheena Easton singing a love song with country staple Kenny Rogers?

As the 80s went on, music changed. New wave and punk were out, replaced by glam pop metal bands like Poison, rappers like Run-DMC, LL Cool J, Salt-N-Pepa, and The Beastie Boys. The old rockers were still kicking, and pop, especially teen singers like Debbie Gibson, Tiffany, and New Kids on the Block got instant fame and tons of fans.

It was at this time that MTV added original programming along with their videos, but it was still music-flavored. Headbanger's Ball catered to hard rock and metal fans. Yo! MTV Raps showcased rap and hip-hop and introduced white kids to the music they would be listening to for the next 20 years. Remote Control, a pop-culture game show, brought us future celebrities like Adam Sandler, and Kari Wuhrer. For those that wanted something less mainstream, MTV aired 120 Minutes, which showcased the "alternative 80s"---Depeche Mode, Morrissey, REM, The Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshies, The B-52s, etc. And if you were like me and couldn't face a day without club and dance music, Downtown Julie Brown and her Club MTV dancers boogied to the latest grooves and showed the latest in neon spandex dancewear.

The 90s started something entirely new. Once Nirvana and their fellow grunge/alternative bands hit MTV, the frivolous glam metal and pop were pushed to the wayside. Many people started wearing plaid shirts, ripped jeans, got rid of the hairspray, and stopped bathing. Songs about getting laid were replaced with more introspective, darker lyrics. Metal music got heavier and faster, or turned industrial, thanks to Nine Inch Nails. Some pop did manage to breakthrough and made stars out of Mariah Carey, Milli Vanilli (before the lip-synching scandal) Celine Dion, and Michael Bolton. For those that couldn't stomach grunge and alternative, rap was going strong, and R&B acts such as Boys II Men were there to entertain and make people groove. Club and dance music, which had been around since the 70s but was mostly kept underground in discos and gay clubs, started going mainstream. A new generation of females got empowered and angry thanks to Alanis Morrisette's blistering "Jagged Little Pill." Club MTV morphed into The Grind.

In the mid-90s, MTV created a show which would bring forth one of the most loved, and by others, the most hated form of TV: reality. The Real World took seven strangers from all walks of life, where they lived together and cameras were there to capture the fun and the drama. Thanks to TRW's success, more young people became instant celebrities. The shows got wilder, the people got wilder, and it seemed all the networks were ready to copy the success of reality TV. We also had cartoons like Beavis and Butthead and Daria, which entertained teens and the young-at-heart everywhere.

By the late 90s, grunge and alternative were gone. Like the pop metal before them, and with the milennium coming, people were tired of smelling like teen spirit. They were ready to party again. Fun, catchy songs weren't so lame anymore. A new crop of boy bands and pop princesses took the stage. While the boy bands stuck to being clean-cut and romantic, the girls got dirty and sexy---and caught heat for it. Britney Spears' video for "Hit Me Baby, One More Time" featured her in a naughty private schoolgirl outfit, with her belly button exposed. She took her sexy image even further. The pants got tighter, the boobs heaved, and the belly buttons were out in full force. More talented vocalists like Christina Aguleira and Jessica Simpson also used their looks to get noticed, but you couldn't deny their powerful pipes. Rap had evolved too. It got extreme. Instead of bragging about Adidas and gold chains, it was bragging about Bentleys, cash, hos, and killing, either from their end, or someone else trying to kill them. Some rappers also brought stories of project life and racism into their music. For those that were still holding on to the dark stuff, Marilyn Manson made sure to shock, disgust, and also enchant. A little show called TRL let you vote for your favorite video, and see who was hot in the world of music, movies, and TV.

It was at this time that MTV began to back away from what made them hot. Less music videos were shown, replaced by more and more reality shows. The focus began to shift from singers and bands and rappers to gorgeous young middle-upper class teens and twenty-somethings who cared more about partying and sex than their future. People watched though, despite the backlash the channel got for it.

As the 00's began, rap was hotter than ever. Singer/songwriters that played their own instruments and were an alternative to the glittery pop singers, like Avril Lavgine, John Mayer, Michelle Branch, and Liz Phair, found fans. Punk and hard rock returned, but with a pop influence. Thanks to the RUN-DMC/Aerosmith remake of "Walk this Way," Faith No More, and Blondie, rockers either started rapping or using scratching in their music. We also saw a mini-return of retro-like rock, thanks to The Strokes, The Vines, and The Killers.

Then September, 2001 hit and for a quick moment, it seemed musical taste had changed. Many people were tired of gangsta rap and hard rock and wanted something less violent, to take their minds off the terrorist attacks. Irish singer Enya, known for her beautiful, soft new-agey music, scored the biggest hit of her career with "Only Time." Country music, with its songs of patriotic pride, God, family, and reminiscing about the good old days, got hotter than ever, despite being ignored by MTV. John Lennon's "Imagine" was played just about every hour on the radio. After 9/11 wasn't so fresh anymore, we got back to rockin' and rappin', and haven't looked back.

So, what's going on twenty-five years after MTV aired its first video? Well for starters, music is all over the place. There's something for everyone. Instead of MTV, the Internet has been the place to learn about new music by new artists, and new music by veteran artists. Instead of going to MTV to catch videos, we go to You Tube. MTV really is not the place anymore to catch the latest trends in music and pop culture. Technology has made music available whenever and wherever you want it. It's also interesting that many people my age and younger are instead choosing to listen to music that their parents loved, or listening to music that was popular when they were little.

Will MTV live to see another 25 years? Time will tell.

[Cheap21]

I grew up on MTV from the early 90s with Idalis, Kennedy, Bill Belamy, Daisy Fuentes and Simon Rex. I loved this group of VJs. Those were the days when MTV was actually about music. Now it seems to mostly be reality shows on the network

[R!ck]

^ Me too Cheap

120 minutes with Matt Pinfield, and Alternative Nation with Kennedy were my two fave shows evah!

I haven't liked MTV since around 2000 when it went to hell. I think the only time they play videos is from 4am8am

[Bright Eyes]

Bree that was an awesome recap of the first 25 of MTV. thanks for the history lesson. and i want to apologize for liking shows like laguna and the hills , its not my fault their addicting lol