I want MTV

When MTV first launched over 40 years ago, they proudly introduced their first music video: 'Video Killed the Radio Star'.

Whoever appeared on MTV got the lion's share: "They only got a few scratches on their hands while we had to install a bunch of microwaves." A backing vocalist kept repeating the channel's original slogan: "I want my MTV."

Video killed radio stars, the title of a song by 1980s new wave-synth pop band, The Buggles, but also MTV's declaration that a new era had arrived to wipe out the old way of listening to music.

But things have changed, and in less than half a century MTV has gone from being the killer to being the victim, as new media emerged: MTV's five music channels in major European music markets such as the UK, France, Germany and many other countries will stop broadcasting at the end of this year.

In its key US market, MTV's paying subscribers have also fallen by a third in about 10 years.

MTV was once an object of envy. In British rock band Dire Straits’ “Money for Nothing,” a pioneering 3D animation music video that also served as the opening video for MTV Europe, legendary guitarist Mark Knopfler sings about an electronics store clerk who watches MTV and is jealous of the rock stars who appear there.

And for those who don't know, that slogan was actually invited by MTV to read, for a fee of... $1. According to the 2019 documentary Biography: I Want My MTV, when the channel launched, its founders had to go to a shabby bar in New Jersey to watch, because the channel wasn't available in Manhattan.

A familiar symbol of decades is about to disappear

Yet even in those twilight years, a star as big as Mick Jagger seemed to have sensed that MTV would be the beacon of youth culture, continuing the youthful spirit that had changed the world in the 1960s. The end of MTV will probably make even those who disliked the channel sad.

One of those people might be Mark Knopfler! Knopfler hates music videos. If he did, he'd just stand there and play guitar all the way through. That was the original idea for the Money for Nothing video. He believed that music videos would destroy the purity of musicians and performers.

During Knopfler's time, MTV was popular with young people but was an eyesore to some traditionalists because they thought the channel commercialized music, glamorized music, and created "noise" so that people could not pay attention to real music.

But as music becomes more and more commercialized in all aspects and technology algorithms become smarter and more diverse, we suddenly remember the time when all music and fashion trends came from MTV and feel like we've lost a truly innocent and simple way to listen to music.

And now, what do we say when we talk about MTV? It changed the world. Not just because it created Madonna and Michael Jackson. On a larger scale, many academic studies even point to MTV as one of the soft factors that led to the end of the Cold War.

The 1980s, when MTV was born, coincided with a new crisis in relations between superpowers when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. It was also the time when the West saw the emergence of hardline conservative politicians, such as US President Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

The Euromissile Crisis of the late 1970s and 1980s also rekindled fears of nuclear war, and MTV was one of the few free spaces for famous artists on both sides of the Atlantic, such as Peter Gabriel, Billy Joel, and Scorpion, to share their concerns about world peace.

In today's uncertain world, we wonder what youth force can stand up, gather strength and create strong voices, like MTV did in the 1980s?

Hien Trang

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/toi-muon-mtv-20251026101340124.htm