Just a couple of slams on MTV in particular, and music videos in general:
1.) Before I’d ever seen an MTV “content byte” (for lack of a better term), I saw an article in Playboy magazine (at least I presume it was an article; all I ever saw of it was the title graphic :)) that implied the acronym stood for Mostly Terrible Videos.
2.) As a man whose wife is visually impaired (oh, the hell with that, she’s totally blind), I had no trouble several years ago grokking a friend of ours (also blind) when he stated “Music isn’t something you watch, it’s something you listen to.”
Just for the record, sly, I was listening to Oingo Boingo well before the movie “Weird Science” came out and the video for “Stay” aired on MTV. So there.
“I love God! He’s so deliciously evil!” - Stewie Griffin, Family Guy
“Musicians” you see on MTV are all about one thing: money. Record execs have tremendous pull on what is show on eMpTV, and their focus is the 13-18 age group. It still continues to amaze me that there is such a lack of talent in platinum-selling “bands” and “singers.”
Gee, I can play 3 chords and howl, maybe I can get a record contract.
I hardly listen to MTV anymore (i’m 20), but I only really will watch one show to the end, Global Groove (they play Dance music - waiting for the barrage of rocks! :)). I like the show because surprisingly, for the type of DJ they have on the show (he’s originally a hip-hop DJ), he picks some pretty good house tunes.
Anyway, MTV does not even scratch the surface of the music genres I listen to (mostly electronic, but I do love good Salsa music, as well as oldies R&B). MTV is geared towards a younger audience. Though I may despise BSB, Nsync, Brittney Spears and the like, I do understand why the teeny-boppers like it.
MTV hasn’t degraded the quality of music. Probably because it seems to me, they barely scratch the surface of most of it. All entertainment focuses on certaing roups, and MTV has picked a group that just does not listen to other genres outside of pop, R&B, hip-hop, alternative, and “punk”.
Actually, I am glad MTV has hardly even touched the house music genre (one of my favorites), as well as many others. Obviously a genre does not need MTV to survive. Salsa, House, and other genres have been doing quite well without MTV’s attention.
‘The beginning calls for courage; the end demands care’
Um, no. We don’t agree it’s about the money. What I’m saying is that you don’t “get” the music young people listen to today because you are not one of them, just as older folks no doubt didn’t “get” the music you loved as a youth.