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Re: MTV Turns 20 - I Want My MTV - WHO Cares?
>Then Michael Jackson & Thriller hit & the quick slide to Shitsville started
>immediately & gained speed quickly. That's about when I bailed. What was
>that? 1984?
>
>Anyway, The Who were all over MTV during those "Golden Years." Those FACE
>DANCES black & white videos were played constantly, as were videos made
>from clips from TKAA. "Sister Disco" from Kampuchea. Plus Pete's videos.
I caught a show on VH1 a while back on the history of music videos--or
actually the history of MTV. It said that when they first started, they had
to use UK produced videos because nobody else was making them. That's
likely why there were a lot of Who videos on, plus other UK acts, and also
a lot of free time. (Seems like I got movie trailers and interviews on that
cable channel, and I think that was another channel piped in. Likely the
space shots Kevin got were from the NASA channel.)
We did discuss videos here a while back and how the very commercially
successful ones are constructed these days. When Thriller hit, it
definitely changed things, and suddenly the American pop video took over.
The Who definitely dropped out of the market while they were on hiatus, and
their solo videos didn't seem to compete well in the commercial MTV climate.
I do think that some of their videos (like "Call Me Lightning," "Happy
Jack" and "Rough Boys") are timeless and could very well be played today,
but Pete's "English Boy" for PSYCHODERELICT was apparently way off the mark
as far as promotion went.
I don't watch MTV much and the current band videos look strange to me--the
philosophy represented is alien, though I do think Aerosmith caught it with
that "Jaded" video. That little band that covered "Circles" a while back
did something similar--maybe Pete went through a phase like that when he was
a teen. Whatever, TED are unlikely to do that successfully, and if they're
interested in videos, I'd think they'd do better to either edit concert
footage (Roger's chest, John's hands, Pete's sneer) or go with the huge
commercial-type videos that play on VH1. The huge commercial-type videos
seem to have multi-million dollar budgets, so they're best made in
association with some other project that's already funded--like a movie or
Broadway show.
I hear that MTV wants to get back into music more, BTW. Their market must
be getting noticibly more limited.
keets
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