Happy Birthday, MTV!
I realize I just posted a day ago that I wouldn't be posting for a week or more but I just had to give a quick nod to MTV. Yes, I'm old enough to be one of those people who say, "I remember when MTV actually used to be about music, back when they played videos all day!"
Indeed on this date in 1981, MTV launched just after midnight with The Buggles' "Video Killed the Radio Star," which interestingly is one of my six-year-old daughter's favorite songs. VH1 Classic is playing the first 24 hours of MTV today and will do so again on Saturday, Aug. 5.
I can't recall the very first video I ever saw on MTV but I do know it marked a major milestone in popular culture. Me and my friends would sometimes watch MTV for hours on end, watching one video after another. Coming from a small town in Alabama, MTV is where we learned fashion and learned to dance. And as The Buggles predicted, it did have a major impact on radio. Rarely did I listen to radio at home anymore. Instead, if I wanted music on, I had my television tuned to MTV.
That pattern continued through college when a combination of getting older and MTV playing fewer and fewer videos limited my time with the station that had done so much to shape my high school and college years.
These days, I rarely stop by MTV when channel surfing. Very little on the station interests me anymore. But I still vividly remember the original five veejays: Alan Hunter, Mark Goodman, J.J. Jackson, Martha Quinn and Nina Blackwood. I remember watching videos such as Michael Jackson's "Thriller" over and over again. So on this, the 25th anniversary of MTV's launch, I had to take a couple minutes to say happy birthday to a long lost friend.
Indeed on this date in 1981, MTV launched just after midnight with The Buggles' "Video Killed the Radio Star," which interestingly is one of my six-year-old daughter's favorite songs. VH1 Classic is playing the first 24 hours of MTV today and will do so again on Saturday, Aug. 5.
I can't recall the very first video I ever saw on MTV but I do know it marked a major milestone in popular culture. Me and my friends would sometimes watch MTV for hours on end, watching one video after another. Coming from a small town in Alabama, MTV is where we learned fashion and learned to dance. And as The Buggles predicted, it did have a major impact on radio. Rarely did I listen to radio at home anymore. Instead, if I wanted music on, I had my television tuned to MTV.
That pattern continued through college when a combination of getting older and MTV playing fewer and fewer videos limited my time with the station that had done so much to shape my high school and college years.
These days, I rarely stop by MTV when channel surfing. Very little on the station interests me anymore. But I still vividly remember the original five veejays: Alan Hunter, Mark Goodman, J.J. Jackson, Martha Quinn and Nina Blackwood. I remember watching videos such as Michael Jackson's "Thriller" over and over again. So on this, the 25th anniversary of MTV's launch, I had to take a couple minutes to say happy birthday to a long lost friend.
posted by Tim W. Jackson | 1:04 PM
3 Comments:
If only we had known before we watched several hours that 15 of the 85 songs played that day were Rod Stewart...
Hi guys!
First video I ever saw - Temporary Beauty by Graham Parker. And I have the MTV 1st Birthday poster squirreled away somewhere. (It's all beat up from being on my dorm room wall.) I got it for a dollar in 1982. It came rolled up in a tube through the mail.
:-)
I have same MTV 1st birthday poster too! I have original mailing tube but unfortunately my poster is well used from hanging in my dorm room too!
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