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MTV....when it was MTV


Francisco 2.0

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https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/8/21246660/mtv-streaming-80s-first-broadcast-cable-youtube-tiktok-music-videos

If any of you are like me and of a certain age, this will resonate.  I may just watch MTV the rest of the day.

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MTV’s first ever broadcast on August 1st, 1981 starts with footage of the Apollo 11 rocket launch. As the rocket lifts off, the footage cuts to an astronaut jumping on the moon, an acid-pop colored flag standing proud as the classic MTV logo shimmered. A music video for The Buggles’ “Video Killed The Radio Star” plays.

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It’s an iconic scene, and one that I’ve watched countless times over the last few days thanks to a recent upload on the Internet Archive. Tens of hours of footage, spanning from that very first broadcast in 1981 through the end of the decade in 1989, are streaming for free on the website. Each upload, which started in early April and is being continuously added to, comes with descriptions about which VJ was hosting that particular day: Martha Quinn, Alan Hunter, JJ Jackson, Nina Blackwood. There are even Christmas episodes.

 

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“This is my personal collection of 80’s MTV VHS recordings,” the uploader notes. “I’ve been collecting recordings of full, unedited, with commercials & especially the VJs for years. I’ve found these videos from old websites, torrent sites, sharing things, The Original MTV VJs facebook page, and of course the Archive.”

 

Due to demand, Archive.org is requiring sign up to access the content:

https://archive.org/details/mtv-80s-vhs-full-recording-collection

 

 

 

 

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I remember sitting on the floor about 2 feet away from the TV watching it for hours while my parents yelled at me to turn it off and move back from the TV.

Fast forward to today-  me yelling at my kids to turn off their ipads and find something else to do. 

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Guest Lobo

I didn't get MTV until I was 17, that was 1993.  I had seen it of course at the homes of friends 'n family.  But while people bag on that era as the time that it transitioned into more controlled programming and content...I came to a stunning realization.  I was also a radio DJ at the time (1991-1993).  MTV didn't do take on reality TV, news, interview shows, etc. at their own demise.  The reason I look back at that era that I watched it regularly, and think lowly of it, is because they played videos of shitty songs.  They spent their first ten years playing good songs that also happened to have a music video component.  But they music was good.  By the time I came along as a regular watcher, it was shitty music trying to get dressed up to videos.  The music sucked, that's what the problem was. 

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A few months ago we watched MTV videos from the heydays on YouTube, ate popcorn and drank wine and laughed and reminisced about the good ole days. The three videos I remember were Elton John - Nikita, Culture Club - Karma Chameleon, and a David Bowie song can’t recall. We commented that our parents were right and wrong. It WAS highly subversive (the gay and even gender bending agenda was on full display) but it didn’t harm us. But then maybe it did, the lesbian and her trans girlfriend might not be the poster children for the harmless effects of MTV on the kids of the 80s, at least according to our folks.

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I watched this shit religiously from about 85-92 (in between watching the same SportsCenter like 4 times in a row) since I would stay with my grandparents in summers and after school and they had cable.  It was amazing.  

 

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I watched MTV religiously from about 1984 until 1991 or so.  Even before they really pulled away from actual music and toward reality TV, the programming seemed to get lazy where they played about the same 10-15 videos 4-5 times per day.  Still, MTV is one of the big reasons why I loved being a child of the 1980s.

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