We Wanted Our MTV - Assignment Example

We Wanted Our MTV If we look at music history in the United s, we quickly realize that television added a new dimension to the industry, becoming an integral tool in music industry profit and trends. Bob Horn’s Band Stand first aired on October 7, 1952, and, in 1956, when Dick Clark became host, the show was renamed American Band Stand (I am the Beatles). The show played weekly until it went off the air in 1989. On Sunday, February 9, 1964, at 8 p.m., in what is described as “[…] the most important event in the history of rock music,” the Beatles aired live on The Ed Sullivan Show in their first American debut performance (The 50s Web). Then, in 1981, a television show that completely revolutionized the relationship between music, television and the viewing audience debuted, MTV, short for Music Television (The Guiness Enclclopedia Vol 4 2951). It began as a show owned by Warner-Amex Television, produced for Nickelodeon by former Monkey’s star Michael Nesmith (Guiness 2951).1 The first video to be aired was “Video Killed the Radioi Star (Guiness 2951),” with Buggles. MTV, staffed with five “video jockeys,” or VJs hired from radio and theatre to introduce music videos on its 24 hour cable station featured what was often amateur footage of rock and roll concerts accompanied by VJ commentary (2951). The station used “I want My MTV,” as its promotional slogan, and it wasn’t long before “I want My MTV” was heard chimed by adults, teenagers, and even young children. Featuring popular bands of the time like David Bowie, Pat Benetar and Duran Duran, the show’s ratings skyrocketed and gave rise to specialized music cable channels (2951). By 1984, just three years into its run, the show was realizing a six million dollar per year profit (2952). Money For Nothing Years In 2001, Billboard writer Deborah Russell interviewed Judy McGrath, who began her tenure with MTV at its inception, and was, at the time of the interview, president of MTV Group and chairman of Interactive Music on the history and future of music television (Billboard 2001 Vol 113 p 58). In that interview, McGrath reflects on what reflects on predictions made that “’Cable is so tacky. MTV will never last (58). Even so, McGrath says, she couldn’t resist the opportunity to be around music, and says that she was attracted to the ground rules – there were none (58). “MTV,” McGrath says, “was home for the college drop-out, the crazed art student, the person who just wanted to argue music (58).” In other words, everyone wanted their MTV. By 1984 MTV had added the MTV Music Video awards to its programming, and the award itself is in the image of one of MTV’s early program promotions, the “moon men.” The first award show included a performance by Madonna, in her famous, or infamous, wedding bustier sporting her “boy toy” belt (Wikipedia MTV). In 1986, Dire Straits received two MTV awards for its Money For Nothing, from the group’s Brothers in Arms LP, which parodied MTV . The song replaced I want My MTV as the show’s new slogan (Rock on the Net Dire Straits 2006). Today, the MTV Music Awards are a highly sought after music award. McGrath describes the early years from 1981 to 1985 as the “’Money-for-nothing Years’”.2 We started off with practically no money, no staff, no show, no news department (58).” The rough and amateurish looking videos were “cobbled footage,” McGrath says, put together in conjunction with music to give the viewing public what they wanted (58). “It was like doing your homework by candlelight (58),” McGrath reminisces. It was during the “money for nothing” years, July 13, 1985, that MTV responded to their viewing public’s liberal ideologies by broadcasting seventeen hours of Live Aid, an event organized by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to raise funds for famine relief in Ethiopia (Wikipedia Live Aid). The broadcast hookup was out of London, Philadelphia, Sydney and Moscow, viewed by an estimated 1.5 billion viewers in 100 countries around the world (Wikipedia). “We hardly knew what we were doing,” McGrath confessed to Deborah Russell, “but it was amazing. I’ll never forget Madonna doing ‘Holiday’ in fornt of a bunch of czed Led Zeppelin fans (Billboard 58).” Artists and bands like Madonna, Duran Duran, David Bowie and others became MTV staples, and, likewise, MTV became an essential component of the promotional success of these artists’ music as the audience watched the music videos go from poorly lighted concert stage shows that focused on bands performing before live audiences, to choreographed and skillfully produced productions (Les Brown’s Encyclopedia of Television 3rd Ed. 368). The amount of money that record companies were willing to put into the artists’ video was reflected in the quality of the video, and the music video production style and techniques were so successful that they influenced TV commercial and “main-line” television shows (368). The Reagan Years In 1989, MTV was televising highly polished music videos featuring the Stevie Nicks promoting her new solo release The Other Side of the Mirror (Atlantic Records 1989). The video featured Stevie Nicks, never looking more beautiful, in a video produced by the label Atlantic Records (Atlantic). The video shows the direction that music videos were taking at the time with special effects of rooms on fire, and, at the end, Stevie dancing atop the water in a Hollywood Hills swimming pool. The video was romantic, seductive with close ups of the beautiful Nicks. The album went “platinum,” meaning it sold one million copies, and we can surmise that Nicks’ video contributed to the album’s success (McLeod Blue Crystal Mirros 2006). MTV’s archives contains historic videos, like the 1989 teaming of Ozzy Osborne with Lita Ford in their duet Close My Eyes Forever, produced by Dreamland/RCA Records. The video features Ford and Osbourne, young and fresh and sounding good (Dreamland 1989). Another video featured Tom Petty with Ring Starr on drums and George Harrison on guitar singing I won’t Back Down (Dreamland/RCA 1989). MTV’s video archives also contain a rare video of The Traveling Wilburys, the group that consisted of Petty, Starr, Jeff Lynne, George Harrison, Bob Dylan and Roy Orbison (MTV 1989). In a rare, “never before seen,” video, MTV took us back to Woodstock with a video of Janis Joplin singing Work Me Lord (Private). It was a well shot, mostly close up view of the singer as she belted the song, and it was videos like this that made MTV history. MTV’s video archives is a virtual hall of rock-n-roll history and fame! McGrath describes the 1986 to 1990 as the “’Reagan Years’ meet the ‘We Are The World’ years (58). We reacted to the Reagan legacy by launching MTV Europe, MTV Australia and MTV Latin America. We increased our subscriber base from 26 million to 47 million households (58),” McGrath says. In 1991, MTV announced plans to spin itself into three channels, and had already added non-music entertainment to its programming format with the creation of Remote Control, House of Style, and Club MTV ; “[…] things that had, I hope, some self-deprecating humor,” McGarth tells Russell (Billboard 59). The increase in MTV’s subscriber base between its debut in 1981 and 1991, when it announced plans to format into three channels, is significant of the viewing audience’s relationship to the show. MTV had transcended television to become a cultural icon. However, with the onset of non-music programming came criticism that MTV wasn’t playing enough music (59). “It seems we are always debating the issue of “non-music” programming on MTV (59),” McGrath tells Russell. “Our shows introduced a lot of people to Colin Quinn, Adam Sandler, Denis Leary, Ben Stiller, Jon Stewart and even Cindy Crawford (59),” McGrath reminds Russell. For those who want their MTV sans “non-music” programming, there is MTV2, “[…] closer in spirit to the original MTV because it’s a wash of music videos with interviews and characters mixed in. I love that too (59),” McGrath says. Non-Music Ventures However, MTV’s non-music programming, like the show itself, altered television programming with “non-music” shows like The Real World, which is the earliest form of “reality TV (Wikipedia The Real World).” The Real World featured young people sharing a great house, provided by the show’s producers, where the young people were filmed 24/7 “interacting.” The show featured human interaction at its best, and, more often, at its worst. “MTV is about mass appeal,” McGrath says, “That’s both the beauty and the struggle we face in programming. It’s hard to satisfy the rabid fan (59).” The Real World first aired in 1992, but gained its maximum notoriety in its third season when it aired from San Francisco, and featured Pedro Zamora, an AIDS activist, the much hated Puck, who suffered from poor hygiene and “[…] an offensive attitude (Wikipedia).” Pedro Zamora was considered a likable character, who unfortunately died from AIDS that same year (Wikipedia). Zamora is credited with having brought attention to the world in a real way the devastating physical and emotional suffering of those people afflicted with the disease (Wikipedia). The Real World, in its sixteenth MTV season, continues to be popular today (Wikipedia). Still, MTV’s most successful reality TV showed debuted in 2001, when Ozzy and Sharon Osborne opened the doors of their newly built mansion to the public. In 2002, when the Osbournes re-upped, “Ozzy’s coming home again,” USA declared in its May 30, 2002 issue. The first season had introduced the public to rocker Ozzy Ozbourne and his family, and it was a complete and shocking success. We saw the Ozbournes scoop the poop, literally; cuss, fight, and reveal themselves as so totally dysfunctional as to make us feel really good about ourselves. The aging rocker and his wife and family were controversial, and loved by America and the MTV viewing world. The show covered issues such as curfews, tattoos and fleas (USA). It turned the rocker’s children, Jack and Kelly, into instant celebrities, and that didn’t always go well (USA). Osbourne’s daughter, Amy, declined the opportunity to promote herself on reality TV with the family. Still, between 1990 and 1995, MTV kept current with musical trends, featuring MTV Unplugged, a series that featured top musicians like Eric Clapton, Curt Cobain and others in intimate non-concert hall settings, jamming and talking about their music in a free flow format, sans interviewer. “We had some of the most memorable moments then,” McGrath recalls, “like Nirvana unplugged (Billboard 59).” It was during this time, too, McGrath recalled that “This is also when we started to get involved in real issues we thought the audience was interested in, like ‘ Choose or Lose,’ and ‘Rock the Vote.’” Times Square Domination The mid 1990s to 2001, McGrath told Russell, was the “Times Square Domination (59). It was as if the seediness had left Times Square and the screaming fans moved in. The culture swung back to music again (59).” During that period, Carson Daly became one of MTV’s most popular video jockeys as he interacted directly with the shows fan base (59). It was a time, too, of corporate progress, McGrath reported, as the company began moving into “[…] movies, books, the internet, the Super Bowl (59).” In 1993, MTV introduced yet another non-music hit that took America by storm when it introduced the cartoon series Beavis and Butt-Head. In a loving critique of the show, written by Clemson University graduate Melinda Morrow, MA, who, herself, is described as watching, “[…] entirely too much music television (Popular Music and Society Morrow 40),” Morrow analyzes the controversial animated characters who “[…]did wonders for the show’s ratings during the five years they were on (31).” Indeed, the characters were controversial as the audiences followed them through escapades that “[…] involved random destructiveness, defiance of school authority, or attempts to score with chicks (31).” The characters were crass, crude, truant and vulgar, but caused the show’s ratings to skyrocket. Beavis and Butt-Head were analyzed and debated in America and around the world, and are listed in author Gottesman’s Violence in America as vulgar, often depicting “dangerous and easily imitated behavior […] (418). Still, the characters captivated the viewing audience, especially when Beavis and Butt-Head were shown watching music videos and critiquing them (Popular Music 31). In other words, we watched Beavis and Butt-Head watch videos (31). “The story line of each episode makes it clear that Beavis and Butt-Head are illiterate, amoral and anti-social (34),” Morrow writes. Beavis and Butt-Head were tough critics, and seldom liked anything, dissing on the most successful artists. The bottom line for Beavis and Butt-Head was that a video was either “cool,” or it “sucked” (Morrow 32). While the fact that the viewing audience related to Beavis and Butt-Head was clear, the show couldn’t shake the criticism of critics who labeled it violent and inappropriate, and in one instance the show was alleged to have been the precipitating factor for a young boy who set his home on fire (Morrow 33). The success of the show lay in the fact, as one might surmise, that Beavis and Butt-Head didn’t have to do anything the average teenager had to do, and it was fun to watch them break the rules, cuss, goggle women and be all around inappropriate. While they can be argued and debated endlessly, there is no denying that the characters contributed to MTV’s viewer magnet. Nor are Beavis and Butt-Head the only controversial subjects to come out of MTV. The show’s music awards have had their fair share of controversy, from Madonna’s Like A Virgin performance, to Andrew Dice Clay’s “nursery rhymes,” that caused him to be banned for life from the awards show; fistfights, Curt Cobain’s defiance of network execs when, after it was believed by network execs that he wouldn’t, Cobain sang his “Rape Me,” song (Wikipedia). There are more mundane controversies that have risen from the ashes of MTV Awards’ past, like Lil Kim, who appeared dressed in a gown that left one breast bare with but a patch of fabric strategically placed over her nipple (Wikipedia). When Diana Ross came on stage and appeared with Lil Kim, she playfully cupped Kim’s breast (Wikipedia). Growing Beyond Borders It is such controversies that have given rise to accusations of crude, vulgar, and inappropriate viewing for teenagers, but it has not caused MTV to lose viewers. Today, MTV’s channels are described by Les Brown’s Encyclopedia of Television as having the most “influential” programming not just in the United States, but internationally (Les Brown’s 368). The encyclopedia goes on to describe MTV as “[…] nearest service in existence to a world network […] (368).” “We’ve grown around the world,” McGrath says in her 2001 interview with Russell, “to over 300 million households in more than 83 terrorities (Billboard 59).” MTV’s VH1 channel, which is aimed at providing baby boomers with the rock-n-roll sustenance they need, and with the ideological support in non-music programming with shows featuring actress like Ashley Judd, in the 2005 documentary on AIDS in Africa called Tracking the Monster (Teaching Music Dec 2005 p15). The show airs “[…] commercial free educational programming each month (15).” Today, the MTV channels air in Europe, South America, and Asia, but its first venture outside the United States was in London (Billboard 1997 55). That jump to London helped open other Euorpean markets to MTV (55). “It’s great for the marketing department because every time they throw us off the air in some town, they can put up a billboard that says, ‘You can’t see us here, but you can see us in Lithuania.’ (Billboard 2001 59),” McGrath told Russell. “MTV was important not only in the growth of Brazilian pop music,” said then director of operations in Brazil, Andre Vaisman, “but also in influencing the market, by betting on some bands that later hit (Billboard 1997 60),” emphasizing both the economic and cultural impact the network brought to Brazil. “During the 70s and 80s, there weren’t any video clips in Brazil,” Vaisman reported during his Billboard interview with Paiano, “When MTV arrived in 1990, there were 12 clips produced in Brazil that year. In 1996, there were 260 clips produced in the country (60).” In 1997, Geoff Burpee reported on MTV Asia for Billboard Magazine (Billboard September 13 1997 56). “In three years since MTV Asia re-emerged,” writes Burpee, “in this region with the launch of its Mandarin and English language channels, it’s growth as a panAsian entity in distribution, image and localized programming has taken place at a rapid-fire clip and well ahead of schedule (56).” When interviewed in 2001, McGrath informed Russell that “We just hit number 1 in Germany (Billboard 2001 59).” With Success Comes Competition When a product is as successful as MTV, there is bound to be competition. In Europe, MTV competes with the likes of Viva, a German based program (Billboard 1997 56). There were, Billboard reported in 1997, thirty competing music channels (1997 56). The competition means that MTV must continually review itself and revise and update and be in tune to what its viewers want. MTV executives claim that they’re prepared to face the challenge in competition with “product driven” programming and by utilizing creative human resources (1997 56). There are, to date, no signs that MTV has not suffered the competition well, and today it continues to go strong, as controversial as ever, proving that the world loves their MTV. In Europe, MTV is successful with 117 million viewing homes in 48 territories, and has a 43% “year-on-year increase in ratings, and accounts for three-fifths of all music channel viewers (BBC). The show has had an economic and cultural impact around the world, and is a purely American product export in concept. Works Cited BBC News. Thrusday, 25 March, 2004. Do We Still Want Our MTV. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3567155.stm. 23 January 2006. Les Brown’s Encyclopedi of Television. 3rd Edition. Gale Research, Inc. Detroit. Duffy, Thom. Billboard. 1997. Volume 109. p55-60. Fehr, R. Teaching Music. December, 2005. Volume 13. Page 15. Ford, Lita. Osbourne, Ozzy. Close My Eyes Forever. Dreamland/RCA. 1989 Gottesman, Violence in America. Volume 3. Charles Scribner’s Sons. NY. 1999. Joplin, Janis. Work Me Lord. (unknown source). McLeod, C. Blue Crystal Mirror Stevie Nicks Biography. 12 January 2006 Marck, J. I am the Beatles. Part 19, the Beatles and Ed Sullivan. http://www.iamthebeatles.com/article1036.html. 12 January 2006. Morrow, M. Clemson University. Popular Music and Society. “But Beavis, Everything Does Suck:” Watching Beavis and Butt-Head Watch Videos. 1999. 31-40. Nicks, Stevie. The Other Side of the Moon. Atlantic Records. 1989. Paiano, Enor. Billboard. September 1997. Volume 109. Page 60-63. Petty, Tom. I Won’t Back Down. MCA Records. 1989. Rock on the Net. Dire Straits FAQ. 1997-2006. http://www.rockonthenet.com/ artists-d/direstraits_main.htm. 12 January 2006. Shelton, P. Privately held MTV video archive. 12 January 2006. The 50s Web. http://www.fiftiesweb.com/bandstnd.htm The Guiness Encyclopedia of Popular Music. Edited by Colin Larkin. Volume 4 2951-2952. Levin, G. USA Today. MTV re-enlists the Osbournes. 30 May 2002. Wikipedia. Live Aid. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_Aid. 12 January 2006. Wikipedia. MTV Music Awards. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MTV_Video_Music_Awards. 12 January 2006. Wikipedia. The Real World. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Real_World. 12 January 2006. Note to the customer – you lucked out in that this writer is 51, and has the videos with Nicks, Osborne, and Petty in her video library. I watched them tonight, excellent – wow, hadn’t seen those in at least 10 years! Thanks for the trip down memory lane! Writer Read More