MTV Premiered 37 Years Ago Today
Did you see it? Where you aware when music changed forever? Odds are...nope.
It was on this day in 1981 that MTV premiered. Combining music and television. Such a simple concept, you had to wonder what took it so long.
I was oblivious that the world had changed until after school started back up in September. That's when I started hearing about music videos for the first time. It turned out all we had to do was to adjust our fine tuning dial on the television and you could pick up the channel. I went straight home and tried it, and sure enough, music videos were part of my life.
We would hear a new song on the radio, then start tuning in to MTV to see what the group looked like. It was all good until Culture Club showed up. My brother saw the video first. I asked him was the lead singer a boy or a girl. He said he couldn't tell. I thought he was teasing me, then I saw the video. He was right. The weird world was reaching middle America a lot faster than it used to.
The first video played on the channel turned out to me one of all time favorites from the 80s. Buggles, "Video Killed the Radio Star".
It was so perfect. Because one of the biggest artist on the radio at the time was Christopher Cross. A fat guy with a great voice. After MTV, Chris went away. Wasn't visually pleasing to teenage girls, so no airtime for him. Welcome Duran Duran. Ugly people went to radio, shallow pretty people went to T.V.