The MTV Generation (Question 3)

[conradd]

Question 3 reads:
Discuss the impact that MTV has made on rock music. Look at both the positive and the negative impact. How would you relate this to MTV’s impact (positively and negatively) on society?

This is getting closer to something he can personally relate to, but he needs quotes from different people to round out his research and to spark different ideas. Anyone have one? Or two?

Deb
who will be sooo happy when this school year is over

[phoenixx]

MTV had a similar, devastating effect on music to the devastating effect of TV on the run for the Presidency. The use of video, while making the viewer fell more a part of what is going on, also eliminates some real talent simply because they do not handle video well or do not photograph well.

[kurt_messick]

Interesting. I think MTV made some music much more real to me (some kinds I wouldn't have listened to otherwise). Of course, I'm talking about MTV of the big-80s variety; past the early 90s, MTV was terrible (and essentially remains so). They even had to launch a new channel, (M-2?) that was what MTV was.

I do like the Movie Awards, though.

I think it gave popular music a new culture. While I agree that a bad video could kill a good song, it was also the case that a video could help an underappreciated song get to an audience.

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

When MTV first started they had very few videos. Consequently, I got hooked on Blue Oyster Cult since 'I'm Burnin' for You' was one of the few videos they played. and played. and played. Knowing my general radio preferences at the time, I would not have heard of Blue Oyster Cult.

But think about other great musicians that never would have made a go of it in video. James Taylor? Carley Simon? No flash, no cash.

MTV has forged an apparently unbreakable chain between music and visual arts. "The Video" is part of the "Marketing Package" instead of artists just working the radio stations to get some airplay, so it's contributed to the commercialization of the music industry. Look at the boy toys and model bands of the 80's - how successful would WHAM! have been if they weren't cute?

And while video adds to "the total experience," sometimes it alters a person's thinking about the song. One of the things I like about music is how I can project my own individualized scene for the song, my own story line, my own impressions. Once I've seen the video, whatever "story" is told in the video superimposes itself on the song. People lose the chance to make a song truly their own when they accept the imprint of the video on their experience with the music, I think.

[kurt_messick]

To add to my previous answer, I'll take a few particular artists.

Would Madonna be the hit she has been without video? Most likely not. Is her music appreciably better than someone like Taylor Dayne or Taffy (I know, you're saying, Who?) -- which is my point.

Why are the Pet Shop Boys still widely known around the world and still putting out albums and touring, whereas very similar bands like Erasure have faded? The videos were much better for the former, even though the music of its type (synth-pop) was probably more effectively executed by the latter.

Of course, MTV helps make the pop world, but country music remained very strong in America without much by way of MTV kinds of vehicles. Country Music Channels are more recent in origin, and don't seem to have the same influence in the general culture or even the country music culture as MTV had in pop and rock music. That would be an interesting discussion to break into.

[mrisch[$]]

Have you guys seen "Merchants of Cool" on Frontline. It is unbelievable. It shows the real marketing machine:

Sprite wants to be cool. Sprite hosts a hip hop dance party in which it pays kids to come and watch certain singers. MTV has a "dance party" show "sponsored" by Sprite, and pushing those artists. Sprite is now the drink of choice for hip hop.

I think one of the first videos, if not the first, showed by MTV was "Video Killed the Radio Star", and indeed that choice makes sense. Songs are now written with the video in mind. I would call that an impact on music.

[magenta321]

Yes Micheal, that was the first song played on MTV. It's by the Buggles It was one of my trivia questions last night, actually

I am the MTV generation. We got MTV when I was five, and MTV was less than a year old. Before MTV, I listened to the radio. I liked some songs ("our house is a very, very, very fine house" comes to mind), but didn't have a love for music.

Then MTV happened. MTV was so much more exciting. Not only was there music, but also video. You could watch Michael Jackson walk down the street and light up the sidewalk as he told you the story of "Billy Jean". You were inspired to get up on your bed and jump off it, like David Lee Roth jumping off the stage when Jump! came on.

There weren't many videos yet when MTV was in its infancy. Mostly, it was college artsy types of bands, and extremely well-established artists who had videos in the really early days. This made the exposure for both the strange, indie sort of music as well as the well-established stuff.

When MTV proved it wasn't going anywhere, all artists realized the power of video. MTV doesn't really play much music any more, so unless you've sold yourself out completely, or have already become well established on the radio (like that John Mayer guy), you have no chance to be seen on MTV.

I do want my MTV, don't get me wrong. And there are so many songs that I visualize the video for as I listen to the song. It's a part of what I grew up to. MTV is what made me buy the Rocky IV soundtrack, and my first Madonna and Whitney Houston albums. They introduced us to Oingo Boingo and R.E.M. They gave me more Michael Jackson than I could handle (which was a good thing in like 83 and 84).

[brian_igo]

Whoa. In the last question the teech only wanted to know how something played up to the idealism of the sixties, but now he's asking, (insert church lady voice) "is MTV good, or is it the work of...umm...Satan?" I wonder how old he is?

I take a contrarian view that MTV has has a negligable effect on popular music at best. I've heard some say that it has created an emphasis on looks over talent in the music industry. But as I noted earlier, looks have always been important, very important. My old punk rock friends (and old school rap fans) hated MTV because after the first couple of years they only showed Top 40 acts. Well, yeah. But MTV is an extention of the major label system. What the hell do you think they are going to show? (I do, however, fondly remember seeing the one video the Ramones ever made on MTV.)

I was your son's age when MTV came on the air, and for my generation it was a revolution. Unless you lived in New York or LA, all you ever heard was sixties and seventies album rock and pop. The bands we listened to were the bands we had heard since we were small children, the shadow cast by the sixties was so long and so pervasive that nothing else got through.

Then here comes MTV and we get to discover The Police and U2 and Devo-unbeliveable. This was ours in a way no other music had been before. And, while MTV deserved to be beat mercilessly for their long-time refusal to play rap, had they not it is doubtful that hip hop would have grown like it has.

I don't think MTV is worth more than a footnote in the greater history of society or culture. But it did do one thing: It ended the Baby Boomer's reign of dominance in the youth culture and sparked the beginning of what would become Generation X, and that is a whole other story.


Brian

[eplovejoy]

I think I'd put this one in the negative column: If I listen to a song for which I haven't seen the video, my imagination and feelings are engaged in ways that depend on the song and on the circumstances in which I'm hearing it. But if I've seen the video, I can't help but picture it. The video doesn't kill thought or imagination, but it sets some very restrictive boundaries for them.