Happy Birthday MTV

[Macfan4life]

41 years ago today MTV debuted on cable television. I am old enough to remember when MTV played music. I dont even know what channel it is today since I would never watch that reality TV trash like Jersey punks.

Unfortunately I was deprived because we did not get MTV till about 1986 and the golden era was already over. Madonna and these other performers who used the platform to create their career took over. I remember my friend's grandmother had it and we would have his mother drop us off at her house to watch it. We were amazed. I think we may have had a sleep over once just to stay up and watch MTV all night. The live VJ's and music updates, live shows, and videos was just too much for a teen to handle.

I wish I had been around in those early days because it was a daily does of all music. By the mid 80s they divided up their audience having the metal half hour after school 3:30 to 4. Yo MTV raps and it was not variety but playing the pop charts or creating the pop charts. In the early 80s you could tune in and see metal, rock, pop, etc all lumped together. MTV was accused of actually being racist because they were not showing black artists. This was before the rap scene exploded.

Us deprived children had to go to other venues to watch videos. Remember TBS's Night Tracks and Friday Night Videos? It just was not the same. They were stale versions of the real thing. The early 80s had good bands forced to making videos. Then it because ****ty bands creating clever videos to get famous.

I remember the commercials and we wanted MTV so bad but no matter how many times we called our cable company, we did not get it

Fleetwood Mac had that giant Mirage getaway as a promo which led to Stevie's famous "I want my MTV" clip. When I saw that on TV, I wanted it even more. But as we saw on youtube, it was sort of scary how many takes it took Stevie to say those simple lines

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGZSWdh17l0

Original broadcast 08/01/1981
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBf0yJVMSzI

One fascinating aspect was how famous the VJs were. They were plastered all over TV yet were paid peanuts by MTV. When MTV started having their big Music Video Awards they pushed their VJ's to the background and brought in celebrities to host the show. Alan Hunter actually had to be a bartender to make ends meet. He was the most famous person on TV yet had to take another job. Just interesting stuff. Stevie was very close with Mark Goodman and they would do coke together before interviews. There is that famous US Festival clip with Stevie swaying back and forth. Mark is high too.