Ahh, MTV. I remember when it actually played you know, music. Even though my parents blocked it from me as a youth I still found a way to watch it at friends houses and even at home.Sorry mom and dad. I liked watching it's non music shows too-I love Beavis and Butthead (still do, their dvds and music video are critique are fantastic), Aeon Flux and the Real World. Obviously my favorite show on MTV was Headbangers Ball. Sure it was a sanitized and marketable kind of music but growing up in rural New England it was the best we could have done in the pre-internet years.
MTV is dead and buried. The Jersey Shore didn't kill it, but it did kick the corpse a few times and it was indicative of the greater problem. Was it a focus on reality TV? No, because the Real World and Road Rules were also reality TV shows. Among the first of their type and very trendy setting at the time.
What partially killed MTV was the videos themselves. First off it gave the artists visual interpretation of their music, and thus made it harder for the viewer to have their own interpretation of the song. So it was bad for music in that way. Secondly it made musicians become more television friendly. One bad video could kill an otherwise talented artists career. Don't believe me? Go ask Billy Squier who was a very popular and talented musician but had his career killed by one absolutely horrible music video. If you weren't good on TV, you were over as a musician.
The final nail in the coffin for MTV was the internet. Youtube did to MTV what MTV partially did to the radio. Why wait to listen to your favorite song or watch the video on MTV when you can do that on Youtube right now? Video killed the radio star and the internet killed MTV.
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