Sunday, August 16, 2009

The Death of MTV (no, really this time)

For 12 years, MTV lived at the center of the world...Times Square.

At the end of this year though, MTV's time has run out.

MTV had an iconic brand name when it moved into Times Square.

They built a couple of shows around it at the beginning such as MTV Live and MTV News 1515.

Then, they got a little edgy. They started to host New Year's shows from Times Square and a tradition was born.

Then came Total Request Live. Even if you hated it, you couldn't deny the impact it had on the bubblegum pop era of '98-'04.

It broke Britney, Christina, Backstreet, N*Sync, Hanson, LFO, and O-Town (for Christ sake).

But they also had their fair share of artists that broke the top 10 that didn't quite fit the norm from artists such as Incubus, P.O.D., Deftones, and AFI.

Ever since 1992, MTV had been considered a pioneer for groundbreaking reality television with The Real World. They'd been good at it, so why stop there, right?

Well, 17 years later, reality has killed the video star. All those dating shows, all those shows about yo' momma, and all of those shows about do-nothing, know-nothing 20 somethings took over the very thing that defined MTV. Music videos were shoved to late nights for insomniacs.

Not only that, but the era of the Internet has brought on the I-Pod and Youtube and has effectively made MTV less and less of a tastemaker because there are so many other avenues to watch your favorite music videos.

Digital television has also allowed people to see music videos whenever they want to on demand.

The only time this year that MTV really made music videos its focus was after the death of Michael Jackson.

I used to be excited for every MTV VMA's. I don't remember anything from the last three.

Maybe I'm just getting old and past the MTV age, but it's disconcerting to see a channel that I used to go to music for become almost completely musically irrelevant. 10-15 years ago if you didn't have a video you didn't matter as an artist.

In some ways, it's actually gotten better to become noticed, but I can't help but get those nostalgic feelings that go back to that age.

You can't tell me that in this age that people all own a music player and download music all over the Internet that people aren't passionate about music. If anything, they want more.