Yet another reminder that we GenXers are getting older.........

[marmar]

MTV Turns 30
Original VJ Mark Goodman recalls network's first days: 'I think we only had 300 videos'

By Andy Greene
July 28, 2011 4:05 PM ET


For original MTV VJ Mark Goodman, the news that music network is celebrating its 30th anniversary this weekend is hard to fathom. "It's freaking weird," he tells Rolling Stone. "I've lived like three lifetimes since then. It's just so long ago, and yet it also seems like yesterday. It's a weird number – and it's hard to believe that we're still talking about this 30 years down the road."

MTV launched on August 1st, 1981 at 12:01 a.m. The first images broadcast were the launch of the Apollo 11, followed by a video for the Buggles song "Video Killed The Radio Star." The network has gone through countless permutations since then, but this weekend VH1 Classic will commemorate MTV's founding with a three-day marathon of footage from the 1980s, including a re-broadcast of the network's first hour, starting Saturday at 6 a.m.

Mark Goodman was a 28-year-old disc jockey when he auditioned for the new network in 1981. "During one of the auditions I had to interview Robert Morton – who went on to produce David Letterman's show – as he pretended to be Billy Joel," says Goodman. "He was just being a total fucking asshole on purpose to make it the worst possible interview. In another round, I had to talk to the audience about the Eagles, whose photos were pasted up on a poster board on an easel."

In the earliest days, MTV was only available in a limited number of cities. When they launched, the VJs had to travel to New Jersey to watch it because even New York cable companies didn't offer it. "Part of the job was to hang out with cable operators and convince them to pick up MTV," Goodman says. "Within six months we started getting these stories back from small towns in the Midwest and in the South where people were going into record stores and asking for the Buggles, who had been off the shelves for about three years by 1981. I also remember doing an appearance in Cheyenne, Wyoming at a record store where thousands of people showed up. I said, 'What's going on?' They said, 'You.' I was completely blown away, and I said, 'Okay, it's working.'" ..............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/mtv-turns-30-20110728

[Systematic Chaos]

1. MTV was just AWESOME through most of the 80s, and had redeeming qualities for 20 years.

When they got rid of the show 120 Minutes, and that other one which played electronic music vids, it was pretty much over.

[Johonny]

7. +1

I black it out now. It's a waste of time to even flip through. All fake reality TV. "The Real World" mentality killed MTV.

[Bosonic]

2. MTV used to play music videos?

Snooki would be shocked!

[HockeyMom]

3. So what are the ages of Gen X?

My older daughter was born in 1979. End of Gen X? She talks about this all the time, and getting older. However, she identifies more with the late 80s onward. When she talks with her older cousins born in the late 60s and early 70s, they "lose her" on so many of THEIR experiences. Her sister was born in 1984 and is obviously Gen Y. Yet, they more or less identify with each other.

[marmar]

4. Yeah, she's the very tail end of GenX......I was born in '72, right in the middle.

nt

[WCGreen]

13. I was in ninth grade....

I'm the tail end of the Boomers...

[Shandris]

5. I've always thought it was from mid-Vietnam to about 1981 or so. (n/t)

[Systematic Chaos]

9. It depends on if you count Generation Jones inbetween the Boomers and the X-ers.

Generation Jones is counted as those born between 1954 and 1965.

Then, Generation X is considered 1966 until -- depending on the source -- the late 70s and 1982.

That's all per Wikipedia, anyways.

I was born in '69 so I have a distinct blend of interests and hobbies which include Boomer music (British Invasion and forward), Gen X video games and technology, and many cultural phenomena inbetween.

[hfojvt]

14. Generation Jones? I thought the "gap" was 1961-64

Who put those old fahts into my g-g-g-generation? 1956? 1958? And why Jones of all names?

[Systematic Chaos]

16. The explanation makes sense to me, since I'm an early X-er with a lot of Jones/late Boomer influence

From Wikipedia:

The name “Generation Jones” has several connotations, including a large anonymous generation, a “keeping up with the Joneses” competitiveness and the slang word "jones" or “jonesing”, meaning a yearning or craving. It is said that Jonesers were given huge expectations as children in the 1960s, and then confronted with a different reality as they came of age in the 1970s and 1980s, leaving them with a certain unrequited, jonesing quality.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Jones

[Odin2005]

17. Folks born from 1961 to 1981

[TlalocW]

6. We didn't have MTV in our cable package growing up

I had to wait for Fridays and Saturdays to watch Night Tracks on TBS... on a television without a remote. And all we had back then was Atari, Colecovision, or Intellivision... killed a bear with my Trapper Keeper while walking uphill in the snow to my shift at the mill before walking further uphill to school, and then following the same path back home, it was somehow still uphill...

TlalocW

[spooky3]

8. I'm a Boomer, but I loved MTV and 80s music in general. My favorite decade.

Creative, interesting, colorful, fun.

[hfojvt]

11. are you sure you're a boomer?

You sound like you were born in 1963.

[spooky3]

12. hey thanks!

[hfojvt]

10. GenX, hell, 1981 marks the start of GenY

even those little shirts are starting to turn 30.

[Systematic Chaos]

15. Another thought about the march of time -- "Oldies" radio stations 20 years ago compared to now.

I remember when I was in my teens and 20s, the "Oldies" format was almost exclusively 50s and 60s rock and pop tunes, with just the smallest sliver of early 70s tunes like Chicago or James Taylor.

I was checking out Shoutcast Radio just the other night, and found that the "Oldies" format has almost entirely ditched the 50s, plays little of the 60s from before the first British Invasion, and includes a lot of tunes from even the late 70s. Still no New Wave or post-Disco danceable music, though.

As for the early 60s and backwards, that is now relegated to the "Nostalgia" format, which 20 years ago would have been strictly Big Band and Easy Listening.

[Odin2005]

19. Now early 80s stuff, including Michael Jackson, is considered Classic Rock.

[hfojvt]

20. my thing about oldies stations

was that in the 1990s there were many stations that played a "pure 60s" format. Now, or at least ten years ago when I was still listening to radio, there were all these stations playing "the best mix of the 70s, 80s and today", including, in my opinion, way too much "today" in the mix.

I still would prefer 60s music to today, but I kinda got sick of it in the late 1990s when I realized there were almost all love songs.

[Odin2005]

18. 1982 actually, and I prefer the term "Millennial Generation".

So says this 25yo Millennial. :)