And a choreographer; she did the dance routines for several of Janet’s (and her brothers’) videos, prior to getting her solo record deal.
Yeah, that’s right! She first hired her to help with her own dancing. I forgot that.
That seems like a good way to get into the music industry.
I think that what MTV, and the prevalence of music videos, did was make it easier to become a hit performer or group if you were attractive.
It’s not like we didn’t have attractive young men with modest musical talent who became pop stars before MTV: see the Bay City Rollers, Leif Garrett, Shaun Cassidy, etc. But, MTV certainly created an atmosphere in which looks could more easily sell: Duran Duran, Culture Club, Adam Ant, Madonna, etc. likely would not have been so immediately popular without the benefit of looking sexy or cute in frequently-repeated music videos.
I agree, Tom Petty was not handsome, but he quickly learned how to make entertaining videos which did get heavy MTV airplay (including the two you mention, as well as “You Got Lucky”). The prog-rock band Yes had two of their biggest hits (“Owner of a Lonely Heart” and “Leave It”) thanks to their unusual videos, which MTV loved, despite the fact that four of the five of them were average-looking guys in their late 30s.
As a counter-counter example, we have Christopher Cross, who had five top-20 songs from 1979-83, and by '83, he had five Grammys and a best-song Oscar; after 1983, and MTV going national, he never had another top 40 hit. Part of that is probably that his light rock (which, decades later, would be labeled “yacht rock”) fell out of favor, but it undoubtedly did not help him that he was a pudgy, moon-faced guy, with a receding hairline, who didn’t look good in music videos:
Funny enough, he looks remarkably similar to Jack Black to me.
But Black is more of a comedian than musician AFAIK, and looks matter less in that industry.
I am going to go out on a limb and guess that Cross didn’t have a great stand-up comedy set.
This actually became half of a meme a few years ago:
Too late to edit: I was looking at the wrong column (Canada) in Cross’s discography and chart performance on Wikipedia. In the U.S., he had seven top-20 songs from 1979-83, and never again cracked the top 40 after then.
The University of Wisconsin-Platteville has a large “M”* on a nearby hill. One year a bunch of students wore (IIRC) orange and made a large “MTV” on the hill - it did make the channel.
Brian
* For the Mining school – apparently there are or at least were other Mining school "M"s
When was that? I would have liked to see it.
Platteville was one of the towns that “:just don’t get it” when I went there.
Speaking of Canada…
In Ontario (at least) during the heyday of MTV, we had instead MuchMusic, showing videos 24 hours a day. They were on a six-hour cycle, so if you liked something, you could catch it again in five hours and fifty-five minutes or so. I remember watching the clock so I could do just that—VCR? What, were we rich?! We were not.
We’ve come a long way! Of course I was working over 1200bps dialup from home, too. That’s also gotten a wee bit faster.
In some ways, this feels like my life coming full circle. Younger friends and associates have commented from time to time that I seem a bit old to be such a big fan of 80s music/videos. There’s a good reason. I separated from my first wife just as MTV emerged in 1981 and I moved in with younger friends. After a “difficult” decade with my wife, I was free and feeling good. While teens and 20-somethings were finding early MTV, I was 30+ and enjoying the heck out of it. I’m not trying to say that MTV saved me or anything, but it’s absolutely true that I had my teen years in my 30s.
(Cue me sitting here with fond memories and a tear or two.)
The M is still there- the MTV logo was made in November 1987.
Brian
Did not make the logo but knew folks who did
I want my Miner TV!
What was your personal peak-MTV? …the first “image” that pulls up in your mind when you hear MTV?
For me it’s “Smells like Teen Spirit” … that seemed to run on the most heaviest of rotations…
Really Nirvana and the rise of grunge was the peak for me as well. I was introduced to Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Bush, and so many others just from MTV’s coverage.
This one…
… and at the height of their power, they were extremely influential …
a couple of things that were intimately linked to MTV:
- the whole 1980ies Duet’s craze (George Michael and Aretha, Bryan Adams and Tina Turner, Jagger/Bowie, Queen/Bowie, Jackson/Macca, Cocker/Warnes, Warnes/Bill Meddley ,Ritchie/Ross…
- Hair-Rock/Hair-Metal: instead of black leather, those guys started using more hairspray and lipstick than DJT (also nail-polish) - and had to become “beautiful” (think: David Lee R.) … so hard&heavy became mainstream, possibly peaking in M.Jacksons “dirty diana guitar solo”.
- The whole “unplugged” craze, with world famous guys suddenly putting acoustic segments into their shows and recording unplugged (again, Nirvana, Clapton, Whitesnake and Scorpions!!!…)
so, yeah they did leave quite a footprint in pop and rockmusic
And I think they were not killed by YT or Streaming (that came way later), but ultimately by the Grunge-spirit and the rise of electronic music (house, etc…) that more often than not did not have a band to show and also escaped the “lots of flashy things in 3 minutes” formula. That was already in the 90ies ….
For me, it’s Dire Straits’ “Money For Nothing,” which, of course, pokes at MTV and its effect on the music industry, as well as having a cool video which got constant airplay.
thats another goood one! …
I was finishing college when MTV and VH1 were getting popular.
I saw some of the videos at friend’s homes. Some like Billie Jean were well done.
I was never a regular MTV viewer. I was busy studying and then starting my career.
My musical tastes were changing. My car radio was tuned to classic rock or country. VH1 featured softer rock that interested me.
For me it’s “Sabotage” by the Beastie Boys.
