I never really watched them back then, but I recently jumped down the rabbit hole on YouTube.
Holy crap, did 99.9% of them suck! "Live" performances in front of a studio audience where they played the recording and the performers barely even phoned it in, terribly trite "featurettes" that basically showed pictures to match the lyrics of the song, feeble attempts by what seemed to be high school students trying to be creative.
Makes me glad my dad refused to pay for TV.
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So weird, who would have thought things can get better over time? It's almost as if we practice at something we'll get better at what we're practicing.
Nah. They still suck.
Isn't it your bed-time?
Not for another hour at least. 5-6 hours a night. Too much stuff to be done.
Thats what my nan says then goes into the garage because she has ‘so much to clean in there’ only for her to be going through and moving a pile of junk and moving it from one side to the other
I'd love some examples of what you think sucked. Whip It? Material Girl? Money for Nothing? Once in a Lifetime?
ZZ Top videos. Van Halen videos. Rush videos. Journey videos. Steve Miller. Billy Squier.
FFS, watch Separate Ways. And The Cradle Will Rock. I Can't Drive 55. Sharp Dressed Man. Dancing In The Street. Time Stand Still.
I would rather watch crappy music videos than Jersey Shore, Real World or 16 and pregnant. At least it was entertaining and not staged "reality" shows.
I can't even imagine how bad those must be.
MTV in the 80s was magical and I'm sorry you missed out.
I do remember going over friends' houses for sleepovers and being unimpressed then. Though it had a cool factor in that there was OUR music playing on the TV 24/7, we were more interested in video games, getting into trouble, and talking about girls.
Yes they did, mostly. But that was brand new stuff at the time and pretty ground breaking.
Might as well say how crappy a show I dream of gene, the munsters or MASH is. Not saying they suck, just for example.
Or look back to the jersey shore or when MTV started putting on their first reality tv shows lol.
It was a new medium, through modern eyes you are probably right. Think how bad a lot of things were then - computer games were very basic and repetetive. Even the legends of sport then, it looks amateurish if you look back at old footage. But at the time it was outstanding. This was a real performer doing music to videos on your television! Not through a radio, you didn't have to pay to see them live.
I totally know what you mean. When I watch LOUD, they will have a retro segment.
You get to see how the music industry basically decides on a, 1: Look, and 2: Sound. Then it’s just cookie cutting at it’s finest after that.
However, they tend to find the bands that stand out. Lyrically, typically, and ability, obviously.
But further to your point.
The music videos were the same: on stage (probably even the same studio stage) “in front of an audience” ( to show you they can rock a crowd! YEAH!) And they would even be doing the same dance moves (or trying to) likely choreographed by the same dance choreographers.
It was the Hair-Band days.
The bands that stood out were like, Def Leopard, Aerosmith, Poison, Motley… The ones that were kinda posers, were like Shark Island, and who even remembers who else….
But you see the same thing today.
When I was in high-school, it was bands like Avril Lavigne, Fifi Dobson, and a band I knew from my home town, Tiger Lily, popularly known as Lillix.
If you watch Lillix’s video “It’s about time”, you can see the similarities with Avril’s “skater boy”.
The industry is always looking for a look, and sound. It doesn’t hurt if they actually have the artistic originality to back it up either.
Oh, I’ll just add, they were also ALL singing about Rock N’ Roll! Like every, single, one of them.
TV sucked when it came out. It was all blurry and black and white.
Truth
Mike Nesmith of the Monkees started MTV and the start of music videos. So, it was a learning process that actually didn't last long. Only five years. Yes, MTV is still on the air, but the programming changed.
He did "Elephant Parts" but was not involved in the creation of MTV.
And his mum invented Liquid Paper.
You are correct. He was approached to help but declined. He did help start the concept, though . I got that impression from an interview with him about the start of music videos.
Highly disagree, as the early MTV music videos are my favorites. There is a certain "magic" about them IMO, it's hard to explain. They just seemed so fun and creative in those days (not that there aren't fun and creative ones now, but there is something I really enjoy about those '80s music videos, probably because the music is some of my favorites as well). Maybe the live performance ones weren't creative, but still fun to watch.
MTV came into existence when music was at its absolute worst,you definitely have a point. The videos themselves were kinda entertaining at the time though,it was brand new.
Music was so much better when My started, way better than the auto tuned manufactured pop star garbage they push on us now.
You're not that wrong. Most music videos in that era (by volume) were bad and low budget. The reason everybody remembers the Take On Me and Sledgehammer level videos were that they were the very best in terms of budget and practical special effects.
That being said, a lot of those "duller" low budget videos shot on sparse soundstages or recycled concert footage were infinitely more well known by everyone, than many better videos made later on. Music videos were a massive cultural touchstone and you had to live under a rock not to know at least some of them.