The Early MTV Years

What the hell happened to MTV in the past 20 years. There was still music on the channel from Richard Marx and Poison to Nirvana and Snopp Dogg but then came the Real World and Laguna Beach. That's when MTV went from Music Television to Messed Up Television. But I'm not here to talk about why the channel became CTV (Crappy Television),I'm here to talk about the early days of MTV from 1981-1985. I remember alot of things happened in the first 3 years (I was born in October 3,1982). There was alot of classic MTV promos from the classic animated Service Station segment to the now famous "I Want My MTV" ad,contests(One Night Stand w/ Men At Work,Private Affair w/ The Cars),concerts (Live Aid,Journey Live At Houston),shows (Liner Notes,Video Music Awards,the VJs (Mark Goodman,Alan Hunter,Nina Blackwood,Martha Quinn,and the late JJ Jackson) and of course,music videos.

One of the coolest VJs of all time,the late JJ Jackson.

This MTV logo was busting the wall back & forth and now,he needs to stop playing today's crap.

We all know the success of Duran Duran,Def Leppard and Madonna but what about all the forgotten artists like Duke Jupiter,The Shoes,Bootcamp,The Silencers,Rupert Hine,Will Powers and Musical Youth. They may have one hit or they never had a big career like their peers but they deserve some credit though.

Prince is the first black artist on MTV. But he can still kick Michael Jackson's ass.

One of the first New Wave bands on MTV,The White Suits.I mean the Talking Heads

You wonder why Nick Rhodes' ears are hurting,because he heard "SexyBack" a bunch of times.

Ever since the original VJs went on different things,MTV went down the hill. Maybe not,but for anyone who can remember The Police screaming "I Want My MTV",Cyndi Lauper singing in tears on "Time After Time" or when JJ Jackson interviewing Grace Slick,that was the end of the early days. Now,it's all about Rap,Teen Pop,Emo,My Super Sweet 16 and The Hills. I want MTV to go back to the very beginning when they played nothing but videos and promos.

Comments

earwax5Posted: 01/04/2007

The Dire Straights are the ones that scream; I WANT MY MTV! Not the police.

Other than that, great article.

godanswer3Posted: 01/13/2007

I had a cousin that worked in the MTV editing room, and sometimes from time to time he would tell me and my sister to watch at a certain date and time and he'd flash the screen green for us, or twist the video from top to bottom for us to say hello. That was hella-cool. But i agree they should play videos on MTV and make an MTV reality network where they show all the crap like real world ( which was fun for like 3 seasons, but is a tad bit boring and played out now ) gauntlet, the pseudo reality fake BS shows like laguna beach and the hills and whatever. Wasn't Michael Jackson the first black person on MTV too btw???? I WANT MY MTV!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh and btw YO! MTV raps owned i miss that show! props to the REAL Dr. Dre

SpencerTPosted: 03/12/2007

To tell you the truth, I never really liked MTV. Maybe it was because I was too young for it, and therefore, didn't have the attention span for a bunch of music videos, but I liked MTV when it had the cartoons like Beavis and Butthead, 3 South, and Daria. If I wanted music that I thought was cool, I'd listen to my mom's stuff from the 1970s and early 1980s (later on, I'd use the Internet).

Oh, and Prince and Michael Jackson were the first few black musicians on MTV (also Lionel Richie, but I'm not sure). I don't know how I know that since I'm not that big a Michael Jackson fan and I didn't start liking Prince until I was in college (read: now). I remember reading it on Wikipedia.

l4nkid22Posted: 09/09/2007

Score Article

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