The First Two Hours of MTV.

[TurboPablo]

Saw this over at TGP and had to snag it

[GuitarBilly]

This is really fucking cool. I miss that MTV.

[TurboPablo]

It's easy to forget that Pat Benetar was a very serious rocker.

[long standing member]

wow!!!!!!!!!!!
thanks for posting this!!!

[Diddlybo]

That was a fun watch. Thanks!

I remember being in LA with my Dad for 2 months in August of 1981 and stumbling upon this new music channel while surfing thru the cable channels. I had no knowledge that something like MTV even existed. I had never seen anything like it and I watched it for hours at a time. There weren't enough music videos to fill 24/7 programming so much of the content was simply live concert clips, mostly of classic rock bands.

I loved those Pat Benetar vids! So much so that sometimes I would even watch them with my pants on.

[linthat22]

My daughter; who is 7; was dancing her ass off to the first 45 minutes of this last night lol

The commercials were hilarious along with the bragging rights of playing in stereo.

[Ry Manchu]

It's interesting that Mark Goodman compares what they were attempting to do to FM radio. It took rock music on FM radio about 5 years to become mainstream and about 21 years to become diminished by pop, disco, country and hip hop. It took rock music on MTV about 2 years to become mainstream and about 17 years to become sidelined by pop, disco, country and hip hop. You could defend this by saying that viewership continued to go up after MTV made the change, however they had 17 years of increasing viewership year-after-year, yet only 4 years of increasing viewership after the format change (1998), and outside of the the years from 2007-2011 and 2013, viewership has decreased every year since 2002. It looks to me that around 2014, MTV lost all influence on the U.S. Top 40.

Anyways, I really enjoyed the Split Enz videos. And also Ph.D, Iron Maiden and Gerry Rafferty.

[fretless]

I love Pat , she was awesome . She alone influenced all the would be singer chicks of the era . She has an amazing voice .

[Ry Manchu]

Forgot to mention, that's Tony Levin on bass in the Carly Simon video.

[facefirst]

I don’t see anything.

[IndyWS6]

Who watched it live - as it happened?

[fretless]

I was there but a lot of it sucked and there was always crap throughout the day but it was fun and a good source of T&A lol

[Yarbicus]

Who watched it live - as it happened?

Me. We never had cable so I had to go to a friend's house to watch it.

[GuitarBilly]

I didn't move to the US until '85 so I missed the debut, but mid 80's MTV was awesome.

[itchyfingers]

What a bunch of shitty music. Thank god they've transitioned to 24 hour a day reruns of Teen Mom, Jersey Shore, and Ridiculousness.

[long standing member]

I was there but a lot of it sucked and there was always crap throughout the day but it was fun and a good source of T&A lol

[long standing member]

I'd love it if somebody would redo it in 4K!!

[Ry Manchu]

I'd love it if somebody would redo it in 4K!!

Do you need someone to help aiming when you pee?