Then why do they make so many?
They are great advertising, that’s why, they sell the music.
Exactly what people said when MTV played synth music for the Soft Cell generation. It was so much worse than real music, like The Archies and The 1910 Fruitgum Company.
Anyway, I understand the frustration, and, no, YouTube isn’t a true substitute. It isn’t necessarily better, either: It’s great if you know what specific video you want and you want that specific thing as quickly as possible, but if you want something on in the background with a relatively even level of noise and so on, YouTube isn’t the best way to get that. Streaming audio services, like Soma FM, come closer, but they don’t have videos. It is a dilemma.
Still, complaining about how MTV no longer shows music videos makes you sound like a struggling stand-up comedian from 1996 and makes me wonder whether your next rant is going to be over those weird Furby things or the hysteria over Beanie Babies.
Actually, VH1 still plays videos in the morning, or they did fairly recently. And by recently, the first time I saw the video for Shut Up + Dance by Walk the Moon was on VH1.
But yeah, videos have been getting phased out of MTV since the 90s when we used to watch it in college. Even back then, Real World and Road Rules and Spring Break this and Beach House that started gaining more and more airtime, squeezing the videos out.
Listening to music was a much different experience back in the pre- internet days and I think MTV/VH1 was part of that. You didn’t have the ease of access and sharing that you have now. It was more physical. You had to actually buy records, tapes and later CDs. To discover a band, you either had to hear about them by word of mouth, some friend’s tape mix or hear them on the radio (local college or alternative rock station ideally) or on MTV. There was no VEVO or YouTube. If you wanted to see a video, you had to wait for it to come on the air. Or you VCRed 120 Minutes, Headbangers Ball or whatever and hoped it came on.
I think there’s still a lot of good music and music videos out there now. But you have to actually look for it under the constant noise of generic Top 40 corporate network radiostations.
Derleth - Have you tried ZUUS?
I’m old enough to remember when people in their teens, twenties and thirties were actually different audiences!
No, I haven’t. Thank you.
well, like I said, welcome back. If you’re lucky you can surf around the local channels where you are and maybe find a local music channel. we have (had? I dunno, don’t watch much tv) one, plays mostly crappy bottom 40 country music with an occasional top 40 song.
Reading this post I recalled watching a Saturday Morning cartoon about a rock group stuck in another dimension. All I could remember was a character named Ash and that one of the episodes he got back to Earth but his band members were still stuck in the alt. dimension. With the help of Google, I found the name of the cartoon: Kidd Video. Getting misty cuz I read a fansite on how the producers created the show due the popularity of videos on MTV.
Their theme song is up at Youtube if anyone wanted to hear it and get misty. Also didn’t connect the dots that the actor playing Whiz also played Cousin Oliver on Brady Bunch and that he still produces music today!
As the OP said, MTV still plays videos in Asia. I wonder why the market is so different over there?
I also know video music channels still exist in Europe.
part of it is the only genre that still makes videos regulary is rap and r&B but even BET has taken off most of their music shows
we have mtv classic and its all the old shows like beavis and butthead and daria aeon flux …the maxx vh1 was a nostalgia channel until it decided to be WEtv light
but apparently the crowning achievement of the music video was November rain which is still the most expensive video ever made after that sort of became uncool to make videos
the whole digital music/napster fight which almost killed the studios (until apple saved them ) now they’ve sort of made a comeback but on you tube where they can charge advertisers for showing you ads …
But I remember even in the glory days mtv was never all videos after 84 or 5 there was remote control ,the mostly unfunny comedy hour and things like that
Yes. Also, they created MTV2 in the mid-90s to play all their videos instead, since the main channel wasn’t, but they phased out music videos on that channel by the early 2000s as well. Now it’s just shitty reality reruns. I’m pretty sure, though I gave up caring long ago, that they’ve since created an MTV3 and filled that with shitty reality reruns too.
Nobody gave a shit about Ozzy Osbourne’s family 20 years ago and they certainly don’t give a shit now about what they did 20 years ago. But that’s apparently hot property worth creating an entire channel around, while brand new music videos filmed in zero-G “won’t sell”. :rolleyes: