Seriously, does ANYBODY remember when MTV was actually cool?

[battleknight24]

For that matter, can anyone pinpoint when MTV's coolness went into a serious decline. In my opinion, it kind of all started when the Nirvana and Pearl Jam clones tried to break onto the scene.


What do you guys think?


Peace,

[Dave Reynolds]

1. 1981,

but I'm an old bastid.

[blm]

2. probably 82-84....

.

[Avalux]

3. I remember.

I used to stay up late on Sunday nites to watch 120 minutes and there was a time when they played MUSIC.

[NaturalHigh]

4. Not exactly

I lived out in the country without cable or dish back in the "cool" days. We had four channels available to us, and MTV wasn't one of them. By the time I got to college (1988), I wasn't impressed.

[Eric J in MN]

5. MTV lost its cool when it refused to play a Neil Young

video where he sings, "I don't sing for Pepsi, I don't sing for Coke, don't sing for nobody, make me look like a joke."

[jane_pippin]

6. I remember Adam Curry, Martha Quinn, and Colin Quinn on Remote Control

I also remember the Whitesnake video being on all the time. If that's cool, then yes, yes I do remember.

Nice call on the Nirvana Pearl Jam clones era of decline. I'd also like to add The Real World to that, as it started all this bullshit reality tv and was around the same time.

[Catch22Dem]

When they stopped playing videos

Can't really pinpoint a year, but it's around the time of the first Real World episode.

[Ready4Change]

15. I agree. When they stopped playing music.

It used to be music videos, 24/7. I didn't even mind it when they added a bit of news. I remember I and my friends would gather at one of the few houses in our group with cable, so we could watch it.

We watched the shift in music from ugly musicians to sound processed models. Pop, such as it ever was, never recovered.

At some point it stopped being about the music, and started being about... well... whatever the hell it's about now. I don't honestly know, as it's not worth my time anymore.

[SmokingJacket]

7. It was damn cool in 1985.

My parents wouldn't pay to get it, so my sister and I watched it scrambled, through static and rolling. It was still the coolest thing ever.

[Left Is Write]

8. Yes. I remember. Cool VJs. Cool videos.

No stupid programs. Lots and lots of videos. Music news. More videos.

[LoZoccolo]

9. Oh it was before that.

I think it was the pop metal videos in the late eighties which were too repetitive that made MTV decline. The alternative stuff in the nineties was actually an improvement, in my opinion.

[AlGore-08.com]

10. Yes, I'd say it was cool in 1981-82

Me, my brother, two of our cousins and a couple friends used to watch it while we were playing Joust and Asteroid at the Campus Casino.

Them was the dayz...

[fudge stripe cookays]

11. The minute that SHOWS became more important than music...

Like "Yo MTV Raps", Remote Control, the Real World, etc took over.

I was a 120 Minutes junkie, and still have tons of my old tapes.
FSC

[Pab Sungenis]

12. MTV was cool at the beginning....

...back before they started airing commercials.

Great thing is that all the original VJ lineup now (except, of course, for the late J.J. Jackson) is now working at Sirius Satellite Radio on the Big 80's channel.

[Kat45]

13. I remember it from the early days...

And I remember the Dire Straits song with the excellent video and Sting singing, "I want my MTV." Back then, everyone DID want their MTV.

I also loved it in the late eighties: Headbangers' Ball was great; I would make sure to catch that. And Beavis & Butt-Head -- I really miss those boys. :-)

[sandnsea]

16. Now that IS sad

Yearning for the return of Beavis & Butthead to improve the quality of television. Whoda' thunk it?

[El Fuego]

14. "Video Killed the Radio Star"

And for a brief shining moment there was MTV, then the next thing you know there's Real World and MTV Cribs and VH1 with your top 100 boring moments of everything.

[quisp]

17. Summer of 1982 (or was it '83) and I was visiting my girlfriend..

and her family on the Jersey Shore. We'd stay up all night waiting for Micheal Jackson's Billie Jean to come on. It never took too long since there were maybe 15 music videos in existence at the time.

I remember turning on MTV in 1997 when my baby daughter was born and finding it had become the "Anything BUT MUSIC VIDEOS" channel.

It was way too far too cool back in the day.

[Catch22Dem]

21. We used to wait and wait for the Thriller video to come on

My sister and I would have popcorn ready for when they'd play the whole thing.

[shawmut]

18. Things really started falling apart when Julie Brown came along

wubba wubba wubba


tho 120 minutes was good during those days.

[shawmut]

20. and btw, everyone in Boston knows that V66 kicked MTV's ass

we had our very own MTV here for two years from 1984 to 1986 and it was great!




Bitchin' in Boxboro!

[Kat45]

22. I remember V66.

It was pretty cool to have a local music video station.

[LittleClarkie]

19. You mean, when did it jump the shark?

Hm. I think when videos were new, and they were forced to be an eclectic mix was their cool period. And while I liked the first few years of Real World, when they decided they didn't have to play music, they lost me.

Thank God for digital cable. I can see MTV hits now, and VHI Classics, and Fuse, plus all the music channels are fairly cool

[Rabrrrrrr]

23. It lost its shit around 1984

and became totally irrelevant by 1986.

The first death knell was when it decided to do "programming", the game shows and shit. The non-music non-video stuff. Totally fuckin' dumb idea.

[swag]

24. Since it started, I always wanted to watch it, and was always disappointed

when I saw it.

Okay, no. They had a couple good years in the mid-late eighties, when you could have a serious accident and chance upon a few decent moments of Music Television.

Later, I saw a Mariah Carey titscrunch that impressed me, but the sensation seeing that gave me could have been found from other, allegedly less lofty sources.

[Kenneth ken]

25. from the time that Video Killed the Radio Star

right up until the time that Dire Straits (Sting actually) started singing 'I want my empty vee' - Money for Nothing

[tigereye]

26. some of those early vids

with Peter Gabriel and The Eurythmics were pretty cool. I remember watching some of them and thinking the images were pretty cutting edge. I think they took risks in the beginning. Otherwise it was a big bore.