MTV

20 LIGHT YEARS

 

Conceived by rebellion. Born of rock’n’roll. Raised by creative people. Electrifying and new-developing. But after a while blinded by the deep green colour of dollars.

 

Video killed the Radio Star by the Buggles was the first glimpse of the new audiovisual reality the world could witness. One minute past midnight on the 1st of August 1981 the historical event took place. Radio days were over. The musicvideo had landed. One small step for technology and one giant leap for mankind. Turn on, zap in, drop dead.

 

Image is everything

 

Music television. MTV - three letters. A big red one and two small blue ones. At all time visible in the upper right corner. MTV – for your eyes and ears and with license to conjure. MTV - 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Only the sound of the artists was no longer good enough. But now freshened up by dancing teenage bodies and sunny beaches. Image is everything, obey your eyes.

 

MTV was a opposite soundtrack. Shape and colours to the music. Now people should not only be able to see the artists behind the sensual whispers and high-pitched screams – but also be given insight into the musicians poetic visions.

 

Popular

 

In 1981 some 2 millions could observe the new reality. Two years later ten times as many. In America it was transmitted via cable, while in rest of the world satelite provided people with MTV. It only needed a nano-second of your attention and you were hooked. And the artists, they got their five minutes with fame. Some of them every 30 minute. Videos by Michael Jackson, Prince and Madonna ran on heavy rotation. Whether they sang about voluptuous virgins, preaching papas, dancing zombies or strangely coloured rain.

 

- That’s the way you do it. You play the guitar on the MTV. Money for nothing and chicks for free, Mark Knopfler sang in 1985. Dire Straits expressed it on behalf of the entire music-industry. MTV was the key to success and it required as good as nothing. Only looks, fashionable clothes and a dose of synth-riff.

 

During the 80s the musical industry was exposing external qualities rather than inner longings. Not least because of the channel with the big M. Pink suit, hockey-haircut and emerald-green tie. That was tasteful style! Even if the melody was as worthless as the tape it was recorded on. Breasty blondes had more fun than ever before. Samantha Fox proved that the greatest attributes in life isn’t necessarily located in head or throat…

 

Contact with gods

 

-   Hello this is MTV and I’m your host tonight! With music-television the video-jockey was born and rode high on the fame of rock-artists and pop-kings. J.J. Jackson, Alan Hunter and Martha Quinn were not only the idols’ disciples – but navigators for the viewers wishes and commands. For youth in Stockholm, Antwerpen and Paris they were the direct line of communication to the gods.

 

You sent a postcard and got a most vivid musicvideo-wish through. Jump by Van Halen was all you needed to scribble – and voila! – David Lee Roth in spagat right in front of your face. Jumping, bouncing, singing. For you.

 

Once in a while the poodle-looking-saints could also conjure up one of the deities alive and smiling right into the studio. Such as  the Bananarama-girls or Bono waving while saying ”Hello wherever you are!”

 

New language

 

A new language was created. Youth culture was no longer yeah, yeah, yeah, heavy guitar-riffs or hey babe. Quick cuts, shaking hips and ”dance into the fire” were the new standards. So fine and fantastic semiotics that it echoed throughout the rest of the media world.

 

Miami Vice was a rightful off-spring of the MTV. Crockett and Tubbs were so cool that they wore neon-coloured blazers in their service and swinged on Florida’s hottest discotheques in between the homicide-investigations. Even Hollywood was influenced by jump cuts, ultra-special-angles and stop-motion-technique. Directors such as Oliver Stone, David Fincher and Darren Ardofonsky proved that they had hold an eye on MTV more than once. Natural Born Killers, U-Turn, The Game and Fight Club became modern action-adventures in MTV’s charactestic cinematic language.

 

After some time expansion seemed a reasonable thing to do. MTVEurope was conceived, with bases in London, Germany and France. During the 90s even a MTVScandinavia popped up with Swedish chicks speaking ”inglish” while introducing the videos. MTV was a greater hit than any of its heavy rotations.

 

Inappropriate for MTV

 

-         You can’t beat the feeling, Michael Jackson and Tina Turner whined with porcelain-white smiles in campaings for Pepsi. The frequency of commercials was escalating on MTV. Trendy products offered millions of dollars and got the greatest stars to promote their products, no matter how much they hated it.

 

Censorship also became common procedure. Madonna’s could not show her true love in Justify my Love. The fancy rebellious channel chose to do the same thing as Ed Sullivan Show did with Elvis back in 1957. Bzzzzt. Away with the sexy positures. Same thing happened to Cardigans’ My favourite game. Bzzzzt. The scenes where Nina Persson drove with one hand on the wheel were simply too much and consequently erased. Smack my bitch up by Prodigy was smacked big-time. Here it was bzzzzzzz all the way. MTV was afraid to loose the great contractors and wanted to be a gentle channel that even grandmother could watch without choking on her cup of Lipton tea.

 

 This Note’s For You was a video you never saw on MTV. Neil Young accused many artists for selling their souls to showbiz. His lyrics was sharp, sarcastic and directly adressed to the channel: "Ain´t singing for Pepsi/Ain´t singing for Coke/I don´t sing for nobody/Makes me look like a joke".

 

Sad development

 

 MTV makes me wanna smoke crack, Beck groaned in 1994. MTV had become boring. Predictable. So totally empty that people rather wanted to get high on other drugs than Music Television. Videos became backdrops. Travel-programmes with young dudes and game shows with screaming audiences prevailed. Only the cartoons, with high lights such as Beavis & Butthead and later  South Park, seemed to provide some sort of entertainment.

 

MTV Video Awards was conceived back in 1984 The music industry’s version of the Academy Awards explained to silly viewers who was the artist of the year, who had the best video and the most convincing haircuts. Later the MTV Unplugged-series were unleashed. Kiss, Bryan Adams and others showed how much they could thank the invention of electricity for their success.

 

20 light years from now in a galaxy far, far away there was a time when MTV created instead of copying. Earlier one could discover music that became popular months later. What had for instance hip hop been without MTV? Today you are invited to consume what has been popular for months. Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys and Robin Williams are pumped out on prime time. The other and alternative side of music is visible only at night time.

 

The original idea of playing music that isn’t broadcasted on radio or tv, is as wiped away as Michael Jackson’s negroid features after the operation. Maybe the world needs a channel that can rebel against MTV. Something that can ”…kill the Music Televevision”.