It was 1980..something.. and life was good. It was back when the ‘M’ in MTV actually stood for Music.. instead of Mindless. You could see Bon Jovi sing about being wanted Dead or Alive… Madonna was telling her Papa not to preach.. and Dire Straits had the coolest music video we had ever seen… Money For Nothing. Ah, those were the days. That’s what sparked my love of music. I can hear a song today.. like Van Halen’s ‘Jump’ and still see David Lee Roth with those ridiculous, leave nothing whatsoever to the imagination, tights.. or hear a Whitesnake song and see Tawny dancing on cars. We didn’t have cable at our house.. because we lived on the outskirts of town and we couldn’t get cable. My sister and I spent a lot of time at our Grandmother’s house and the first thing we did when we got there was turn the TV to channel 23. My poor Grandmother HATED it… she thought we were going to be warped by watching that filth… we probably were.. a little. My sister is 8 years older than me, which meant we didn’t agree on a lot of things, including what to watch on television… but this was one thing we agreed on.
Back in the days of playing MASH with friends… hoping you weren’t sentenced to a life of living in a shack, VJ was always on my list of dream jobs. I wanted to be just like Martha Quinn. I thought they had the coolest gig on the planet. Getting paid to hang out with rock stars and listen to music all day… that’s what I’m talking about. I must be old, because I still remember the original lineup of VJs. Wow. It’s hard to believe it’s been that long ago. *sigh*
Then came the late 80’s, early 90’s… the beginning of the end. It started off promising… all innocent… they lured you in with a little, teeny, tiny break from all music/all day… with a game show, Remote Control… which was fun. They were sneaky about it that’s for sure… because, then came The Real World, which I watched the first few and liked. Blocks of music got shorter, and little by little, more reality shows were popping up in the lineup. Before long, our beloved MTV as we knew it was a thing of the past. I do get it, there’s not much need for MTV in today’s world… with music videos at your fingertips just by searching YouTube. It’s not economical.. the reality shows are the network’s bread and butter. The kids of today will never know what it’s like to have to wait for your favorite video to come up in the rotation… or turning it on just in time to see the ending of your favorite song. Videos were how bands and artists made their mark… yeah, of course the music was the biggest way, but the videos were almost just as important. The image. I still get my fix on occasion since VH1 Classic still plays music videos from back in the day. Back in the day… ugh.
Man, I’m old.
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