I am not sure where to post this. I've been watching MTV today, showcasing Michael Jackson's videos. Not only is it a great way to honor Michael Jackson, whose videos were very innovative at their time, it also reminds me of when music videos actually mattered. Like in the 90s.

I must have forgotten, but it's nice to remember that MTV was cool once.

Completely agree. All they show now are dumb reality shows and they never play music anymore. The closest thing they have to music on there now is when the have that best dance crew show.

What happened? The change was so gradual it feels one day I woke up and there were 200 reality shows on TV. I watched MTV to watch creative music videos...not a bunch of random people with personality disorders compete for fleeting fame at any price.

go look at VH1 it's worse.

Actually, music video was huge in the 80s. The start of MTV's transition into getting away from music video was the start of "The Real World." If you want to put blame on anything, that's it right there. VH1 showed more music video during the 90s than MTV, but eventually VH1 followed suit since they are both part of Viacom. MTV2 was suppose to bring back the videos. That lasted a short while. VH1 Classic was suppose to bring back the videos. That lasted a short while. VH1C had much more promise a few years ago, but that a-hole Sherman drove it right back into the ground and now we get a large amount of repetition in the morning and nothing but movies, reality shows, and countdowns the rest of the day. I was fortunate enough to get many videos from the 80s during our run from 2003-2005 that nobody has seen since.

I started developing my taste in music in the 90s mostly through watching videos on MTV. I was naive when it came to song interpretation.

IE Amazing by Aerosmith was not a song about turning things around when things go bad, it was that other video with Alicia Silverstone where she makes out with some dude on a motorcycle.

Music videos were such a great way to promote the song, the album, and the artist. Today reminded me of how much fun videos were to watch.

Like a posted in another thread, it's sad that it took Michael Jackson dying for them to actually revert to what made the channel cool. The only time MTV shows videos now are at 4am between two infomercials.

They need to remember that it is MTV (Music Television) not RSTV (Reality Show Television).

there are some classic MTV channels on Youtube that I like to
watch from the 80s/90s. They say that is what MTV was like in the begining.
It even has the original VJs inbetween the songs,
and some of the award shows and "new artist" interviews, with INXS, and Duran Duran, Robert Plant, Blondie, and Madonna etc. one advert for example says "tune in this Saturday for new artist Boy George and "do you really want to hurt me".
LOL!!! I've never seen MTV like that before. It's quite fun to watch and listen to!
I'd like to fill up a new hard drive with just those channels.

The only time I even see music videos is on VH1 nowadays. They're better about it than MTV, but they still don't show them enough. Even the music videos that they do show, they suck!

It's all our faults ...

Reality TV became so popular that producers realized they could draw an audience (and make advertising $$$) by producing cheap reality shows instead of paying royalties to artists for showing videos. If we stopped watching reality tv, networks would have to revert to showing stuff they used to.

Sadly TRL was the last savior of videos on MTV. Now you can only see videos on CMT and BET, none of which carry pop music like Fergie, Britney, etc.

6am-9am during the week (Monday-Friday when everyone is getting ready to go to work or school) is the only stretch when actual music videos are played that I can recall on MTV. Other than that, the channel is filled with a bunch of fluff geared toward today's generation of teenyboppers and fanboys. So, if it's music videos that you're looking for... your best bet is to check out MTV Hits, MTV2, MTV Jams, VH1 Classic, VH1 Soul, and Fuse if you are lucky enough to have any of them available.

In the past two days I've watched more MTV than I had in the previous 15 years. It's been amazing. But it's also been very bittersweet considering what it took for them to do it.

for me mtv was a great network to watch up until 2005 there was some good shows and some great music back in those days now it just sucks and unfortunately most networks sold out just like mtv

I don't know I should be happy about it or not, but where I'm from, which is Hungary, Europe there are some mucic channels such as MTV and VIVA and all the others. But whether it's MTV or others, they play reality and all those ridiculous shows. Isn't it ridiculous? I gave up on watching them. I rather download the clips from Ituns or something.

Valid. Reality TV was also innovative once andit has its purpose. I watched the Real World: San Francisco and some seasons afterward. They got tired for me pretty easily.

There are so many now. The only ones I can enjoy are Survivor and The Amazing Race.

Every idea has it's heydey, especially when it is connected with a new form of expression. MTV brought us the pop-video. But once you've seen a handful you've seen them all. The earlier videos are the most interesting, because they defined the elements of the style: the fast, discontinous editing, the ability to rapidly tell a story and the ability to create a scene or visual impression which is often as famous as the song itself.

TBH whenever I watched MTV I always did so with the niggling knowledge that doing so is a total waste of time, and that you'd be far better off doing something else. What I particularly object to is the way that, because the number of songs will always vastly outnumber the number of videos, the entire concept of MTV further limits the amount of variety within popular music, and allows the the broadcasting industry to further control what people listen to.

In my experience MTV itself hasn't show actual music videos for years. 99% of the time it just runs a schedule of shows and delegates the task of actual showing random videos to sister channels. Some of the shows aren't bad I guess.

Remember when MTV used to play music videos?

If you get HD cable (satellite too?) you should check out Palladia. I just watched Soundstage with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and now I'm watching "The Last Waltz," a recording of the Band's last concert directed by Martin Scorsese.

I stopped watching MTV around 1999 or 2000 when it became far too much reality TV and when they showed Music Videos they constantly got interupted by carson daly who wouldnt shut up in the middle of the video talking to callers.

I never even bother to look at whats on MTV because its all the same reality crud.
Music TeleVision ? They should call it RTV Reality TeleVision.

I don't think there's ever been a good reality TV show. The concept is either too lame, or the final cut so heavily edited that it becomes completely fake.

People like to go on about The Real World as if it was some kind of classic but I thought that was terrible too. And apparently it's still being made.

MTV isnt about music anymore, its about boring scripted poor excuses for what they refer to as reality tv, VH1 is the only channel where ive seen hints and glimmers of the old MTV days when it first started it was good, whenever i went to the local pub when i was in the airforce it had MTV on in the background on monitors..so we could listen to the music and glance at it if it was interesting, but it was new.fresh..mistakes were made, it was fun..it also had variety..now, as with everything..big corporations have ruined it..its not about fun, or music anymore..its about mind numbing control what people see and hear while they empty your wallets tv

MTV rocked back in the day in the early 90's to '99 when they were about music videos

stupid reality tv what was MTV even thinking on that stupid decision? any who good thing for the internet and youtube for music video fixes that stupid MTV won't bother to show anymore

MTV was cool up until 2006, there were many great shows running. daria, celebrity death match, wild boys, wonder showzen, the osbournes, aeon flux, just to name a few. in 2006 MTV came out with a show called the hills, since then they tried to do spin-offs of the show which lead MTV into crap. even there awards show ain't worthy of watching.

VH1 also sold out only a year after MTV did. in summer of 2006 VH1 aired(i will never forget it) the history of rock, top 100 rock songs,and something that dealt with the history of the 60ds age. but sadly in 2007 after the success of flavor of love they decided to air reality shows like, i love money,i love new york, new york gets a job,etc.

MTV has sucked since the early 90's. For most of the 90's, the reason it sucked is because the music of that decade tended to suck. After that it has just sucked because it has become a place where any reality TV show, no matter how asinine the concept, WILL be put on the air.

Now now. Give them some credit. They don't let on just any old reality show. It has to be THE MOST ASININE show to make it onto MTV or VH1.

I guess they had to adapt to a world where people get the videos from internet. Reality shows are cheap to make and get some viewership.

Yes, MTV was cool once. ONCE.

When did they let Martha Quinn go?

Music videos
Beavis & Butthead

I don't think i've seen a music video on mtv1 in about 5 years

Does anyone remember a young Kelly Brook on MTV UK

I don't but i did fall in love with Cat Deeley for a while when she did the European Top 20(?)

The '90s?

I was there on the ground floor. My dad worked for the local cable company and we had all the channels the cable system was testing out before regular subscribers did. One day in 1981 he came home and said "We're adding a new station. It's called Music TV - it's all music, all day." He turned the cable box over to the newly minted channel 24 (yes, there were fewer than 25 channels in those days, but that's not my point).

BOOM!

I was intrigued, bewildered, bemused, but ultimately HOOKED from the get-go. I couldn't stop watching it. Some of it was pure crap. Some was genius. Even though they only had maybe a five hour rotation of videos at that time I would watch them over and over again. I had my friends over. They got hooked.

We were the first group of human beings to learn to watch TV/film that was edited at such a rapid pace. And it had to be learned. Later generations haven't known any other way. A dozen one-second shots in succession is nothing today but back then it was headache-inducing.

MTV was the backdrop of every teenager's life in the 80s. Wall-to-wall music videos, 24/7. Maybe an occasional 5-minute interview but the rest of the time it was nothing but music. To me, the beginning of the end came with their Spring Break specials, standing around sticking a mic in the face of random idiots on the beach between songs. The hair metal bands took over in the late '80s. And they all sucked. Sucked hard. I stopped watching around 1990. Missed out on all the reality crap. (Yay!)

I think MTV was better when they showed music videos (saw more of 90s than 80s, personally), but they know it hurts the artist as much as helps them now. (If U like a song, you only have to buy that song, & it does nothing to get U 2 buy the album.)

"Real World" is still OK, the "Challenge" spinoffs (I call them) are decent, & MTV & VH1 are showing far from the worst reality TV.

What's the best is to watch when someone from "The Hills", etc. is on Carson's talk show; He acts like he wasn't at all to blame in helping to kill the music-video "heyday". ("TRL" was barely watchable when he was on it.)

On the subject of video countdowns, I've noticed that during the hour following VH1's "Top 20 Countdown", all the videos they show (also much of the other time) are videos that are on the countdown. (How do they expect you to like/get behind others if they don't show them?)

well after MTV, we have MTV hits which used show music videos 24/7 but the last few years they turned it into MTV hits with celeb playlist which suck like if i care what rappers are listening to ugh, and now they also give shows on it not as much music video's =[

I remember when the shows that MTV hadthat weren't music videos were at least entertaining, and they had different segments of video blocks to appeal to everyone from metal fans to bubblegum pop. Now the whole network is just simply pathetic.

I watched MTV off and on, at various times in my childhood...but my regular viewing only lasted about 2 years or so, and then I got sick of all the crap. Raunchy shows, useless "reality" garbage, so many acts emphasizing style over talent...I barely watch at all now, and that's being generous.

Yeah, but it seems in the days when people can buy/d-l 1 song instead of a whole album, "style" (well, "look") is how they makie most of their fame. (I wrote a piece for a site a few years back on how Britney & her kind would've never been famous without MTV... Kinda "Video Made The Radio Star".)

As for "reality garbage", that's just to see if it's true that people really will watch anything... Apparently so, judging by the fact Knxville & his buddies made several movies out of it after the show.

Gotta say that although Jackass was hardly high-culture I don't think it deserves to be bundled together with the worst reality TV has to offer. Jackass was more in the tradition of slapstick comedy and candid camera shows. IMHO it had something of its own zany comic style and was generally funny. In fact some stunts come to mind that were downright hilarious.

Interestingly it's one of those shows that seems oddly antiquated now that online video-sharing has become ubiquitous, much like the pop video itself. Imitative behavior was one of MTV's main concerns when they first aired the show, but these days kids get up to far worse on Youtube.

Must agree; In my experience, it is deserving to have that title on its own.



It was pre-set-up "stunts" (not like Candid Camera, where people didn't know they were on), & was far below the slapstick that several far better comedians made famous/are synonymous with.



You say "zany", I say "awful".



You have got to be kidding me!!!



Down...below the oft-referred-to "lowest common denominator". If there was someone around who was actually "scum" as some are called, they would be above that show.



It seemes worth watching at the time b/c of what it was up against, to the people who watched it. Nowadays, the vast majority of shows (reality r scripted) are better. (Not that that is saying much.)



Yes, some do, but most kids, adults, & animals "get up to" far better... And I enjoy that in that it means time spent both doing & watching those videos is time spent not doing or watching the "Jackass"-like events.