Impressions of watching Day 1 of MTV on VH-1

Cafe Society
1

Rathe interesting to watch, particularly the first hour of videos. You can tell that there was a lack of content in that format in the early days. Some of my impressions:

  • REO Speedwagon ruled the universe, so much so that I wonder that they didn’t call it REO-TV. I think they had about every song and B-side showed at one point in the day.

  • A lot of the early MTV videos were earlier concert footage cut down. Seems like if you were at the Concert for Kampuchea you were on that first day.

  • I was suprised at what was around in 1981, and what wasn’t. Being a bit young for that time, I think I retcon-ed in my head what music was like in '81. Particularly it seemed that there was quite a bit of new wave out already. Also it seemed that a lot of music was pretty uneven. I’m sure it again was related to there being limited content, but there were more than a few complete unknowns interspersed with The Who and our eternal overlord, master of the loosely rhymable, Kevin Croenin of REO Speedwagon.
    Overall, It was cool, but very uneven. I am in no way a fan of MTV today, but I was impressed to see it how far it had come from those humble beginings in a few thousand households in northern NJ.

Your impressions?

2

  • At one point the host claimed that MTV owned only 85 videos that first day & that 15 of them were by Rod Stewart (!).

  • The best videos shown on the first day (by Pretenders, David Bowie, Talking Heads & a few others) were ones I was very familiar with from watching MTV in 1983. There weren’t many obscure gems in other words. Also it shows that MTV were pretty slow in retiring videos from their basic stock.

  • The incredible whiteness of the whole playlist. I think there was a black singer in the group Selecter & that was about it.

  • Actors in those days were trying out all kinds of goofy moves & gestures, being unsure of what actually looks cool in a video. That was somewhat charming.

  • Lee Ritenour with his jazz-lite, boy did he not belong among the rest of the performers. VH1 at its most “adult” would never have played that stuff.

  • OK, one surprise was Gerry Rafferty’s “Baker Street.” Song & video hold up quite well.

  • Overall impression was as I feared - that the bulk of MTV’s videos, even during its golden age, were dull & humdrum. Same goes for the music therein. Selective memory makes us think that the channel was ruled by colorful characters with dubious hairstyles singing pop exotica.

3

I’m rather pissed at VH1C for deceptive marketing. This wasn’t the first day of MTv, it’s just videos from the playlist of August 1st, 1981. There were no V.J. segments, no interstitials, no original commercials – that’s what I wanted to see!

Beyond that, the biggest thing I noticed was how BORING the day became. Even back then, MTv was playing the same 50 videos over and over and over again. Ok, they didn’t have enough videos to avoid rotation…but after a few hours, even the Pretenders & Talking Heads became annoying, after seeing them for the 5th or 6th time.

Biggest surprise: “Little Susie’s on the Up” by Ph.d. I had no idea that was a cover song!!