In between the 3 major networks and YouTube via the Internet, was a very popular form of entertainment, that grabbed an entire world by the shorts, yanked em down, and pulled off your socks. MTV was born on this day in 1981, and for it's time .......... it ruled the earth when it came to music, and video; it was the height of rebellion, rock and roll freedom, and a big middle finger to an establishment that thought Lawrence Welk on Public Television was entertainment. An entire generation that made Saturday Night Live popular was in for a treat that comes around once every 2 or 3 decades. New music, older music, concerts, and interviews of the latest and greatest rock and roll acts. 24 hours a day 7 days a week non stop, non commercial, music, music, music. The sole purpose of this TV channel was to play video's of rock bands and have commentaries from VJ's ( Video Jockey's ), gone were the days of waiting for Saturday night to roll around for Larry and his band, this was going to blow the roof off of all of that. Wake up in the morning, hey flip on MTV, come home from work after dinner.... hey whats on MTV ? I can recall the first time I saw it live, it was in a bar In San Diego, sitting down with friends ordering our beer and staying glued to the TV.......... who would of thought that there could be entertainment in that, after all it was old men that went to the bar and watched the game, or a boxing match on television to get away from the kids and the ol' lady, what we had was hip, it was cool, and it was the first of it's kind, young people sitting around on bar stools watching videos of entertainers, dancing, flailing guitars, David Lee Roth strutin his stuff, and making his pouty face, we had David Bowie singing " Let's Dance " while we sat on our couches and ate Doritos.
There were other act's that were popular as well. There was Adam Ant, Eurythmics, Culture Club, The Fixx, maybe for some it was not quite their taste in music, but the videos........ man the videos were so cool. I mean who couldn't sit and watch Annie Lennox on a video, whether you liked the music or not ( I personally always liked Annie ) and be in awe of this hip new medium. Growing up in Detroit we had channel 2, 4, 7, being so close to Canada we could get Channel 9 of the CBC, and then there was 56, 50, and 62 ( channel 62 never seemed to come in very good ) but now that people had cable why you had movies, the weather channel, sports, and MTV ! Lets face it any one under say 27 it was all about the Music Television. It would introduce new acts to us, or new songs, you had Split Enz, and Prince. The list of musicians and the video's could go on for hours, but like all really good things, it began to change. Of course there were some huge mistakes the founders from MTV made by not including more artists in their line up, and to cover a broader spectrum of Music, for crying out loud who wouldn't want to watch Bob Marley and the Whalers ?
In our day and age of YouTube, and Ipods, and laptops with wireless cards, and wi-fi access dedicating a channel to music videos seems kind of foolish, you can stream music from itunes, or watch the first video that comes to mind to you in the morning, or one that pops into your head at work, well then hey just go online to various outlets, usually it is YouTube, and if your really feeling it you post it on Facebook to share with your friends, back in the old days we had to share the videos together in a living room, or in a bar somewhere, what we all do individually now at our leisure. In those days you watched what was put on the television screen for you rather than deciding for yourself what you wanted to watch. Not that I would trade todays standards for 1981, or 1982 however in that time it was such a radical departure from what was the norm, you felt that the world was changing, and you were proud to be a part of it. A new definition of hip, a new standard of cool, a whole new way to watch television, and for those of us who were 19 or 20 years old at the time it was the start of a whole new generation of entertainment,........... so Ladies and Gentelmen........................... Rock and Roll !
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