MTV Before Michael Jackson

[Jeff da Weasel]

Could be. I think everybody since the Internet became a household thing "knows" that, but since I heard it just a couple of years ago, I always wondered if it was real fact or an Internet fact.

 

 

No, Mike. It's a real, actual fact. MTV themselves have done several special self-congratulatory shows commemorating this fact.

 

In the "not a fact" category is the bull{censored} that Ebony Magazine has dispensed, and believed by Icon (it's not Ebony's fault completely by the way: this was a false report by the Associated Press years ago, and people keep picking up the mistake).

 

There were black artist videos on MTV before MJ's videos for Thriller hit in 1983 (anyone remember the Busboys?). However, none of them were in heavy rotation before MJ, so that part is legit.

[kurdy]

Maybe "Beat It" was the closer, or first half closer. Did anyone record the show and still have the tape? I don't believe everything I read in Google or Wiki.

 

 

MTV began broadcasting in '81. Thriller came out in '82. How could they play "Beat It" if it didn't exist yet?

[Dean Roddey]

MTV began broadcasting in '81. Thriller came out in '82. How could they play "Beat It" if it didn't exist yet?

 

 

You don't remember that whole advertising compaign they had, "Playing the hits before they exist"?

[Jeff da Weasel]

MTV began broadcasting in '81. Thriller came out in '82. How could they play "Beat It" if it didn't exist yet?

 

 

And that's the real point... MTV debuted on 8/1/81 (first video was indeed the Buggles; second was a Pat Benatar vid). Thriller was released 16 months later on 12/1/82. The first vid was "Billie Jean" which aired on March 10, 1983.

 

Now, should MTV have been playing MORE black artists before that? Sure, definitely. But the original format of the station was based on pop/rock radio, which at the time was filled with white artists. I think MTV has always been motivated by money, and that's where the money was then.

 

As soon as they found they could exploit the efforts of black artists, they did. Michael Jackson paved that way by recording music and making videos that were equally accessible to both black and white kids who made up the MTV viewership. The rest is history, for good or bad.

[franknputer]

I think MTV has always been motivated by money

Gee - ya think? :lol:

[Jeff da Weasel]

Gee - ya think? :lol:

Dude, if there had been a hip hop community of the financial power that it has today back in 1981, MTV would have ONLY played black artists.

There's an old adage that the answer to any question that starts with "why?" is almost always "money". This definitely qualifies.

[Dean Roddey]

There's an old adage that the answer to any question that starts with "why?" is almost always "money". This definitely qualifies.

 

 

Actually, significant amounts of research has refined it to 'money or sex'.

[franknputer]

Dude, if there had been a hip hop community of the financial power that it has today back in 1981, MTV would have ONLY played black artists. There's an old adage that the answer to any question that starts with "why?" is almost always "money". This definitely qualifies.

Um, yeah. There's another old adage that goes "No {censored}, Sherlock!" Does anybody actually think that MTV was ever about anything but the money?

[Ernest Buckley]

You can call it racism... or whatever...

 

My opinion which means nothing...

 

The only color the music biz is interested is green.

 

If it don`t make money, they don`t care.

 

Anyone really surprised by that?

[MikeRivers]

 

MTV began broadcasting in '81. Thriller came out in '82. How could they play "Beat It" if it didn't exist yet?

Bootleg? I don't know these things. I'm no historian and I can't even remember what year this is. But I really do remember a "fact" that Beat It (and I don't even know what album that was on) was the first video played. But it's really not that important.

 

I remember "Video Killed the Radio Star" but I don't remember that it was that big of a hit. Was it? It wouldn't be beyond MTV to make up their own history. I'm not accusing them here, but it's certainly possible, feasable, and it would be a great story.

 

Look at how hard it is to prove them wrong. Here's a whole forum full of musicians and nobody has come across with a personally recorded tape of the first MTV show.

[Jeff da Weasel]

Jesus, Mike.

[franknputer]

No kidding - that's really out there, man. It's fairly well documented about The Buggles' song being the kickoff. The song came out in 1979, so no doubt someone (thinking of the marketing potential) thought it would be a good story. But after the fact? What purpose would that even serve?

 

Conversely, if they'd started out by broadcasting a bootlegged video from a company as large as Epic Records - aside from it being commercial suicide - it would be equally as well-known and discussed.

[gtrbass]

Video Killed the Radio star was a big hit in Europe. It was Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes. They went on to replace Jon Anderson and Ric Wakeman in Yes for the Drama album & tour. Downes was later the Keyboardist in Asia, and Horn formed ZTT and as a producer handled Frankie goes to Hollywood, The Art of Noise, Seal, Grace Jones, etc. Thomas Dolby was also involved with the Buggles.

[amplayer]

I really don't see how anyone can begrudge the MI for wanting to make money. Is there anyone here who will always invest in something they think will lose money?

[elsongs]

I really don't see how anyone can begrudge the MI for wanting to make money. Is there anyone here who will always invest in something they think will lose money?

Cigarettes
Gym Memberships
Trips to Vegas

People do it all the time.

[kurdy]

No kidding - that's really out there, man. It's fairly well documented about The Buggles' song being the kickoff. The song came out in 1979, so no doubt someone (thinking of the marketing potential) thought it would be a good story. But after the fact? What purpose would that even serve? Conversely, if they'd started out by broadcasting a bootlegged video from a company as large as Epic Records - aside from it being commercial suicide - it would be equally as well-known and discussed.

 

 

Yes. Someone really would've had to go through great (and I mean great) lengths to try to rewrite a bunch of events in musical history in order for that "conspiracy" to be true. It would have to be consistent with a bunch of other events and dates, which it clearly isn't.

 

MTV began broadcasting in August '81. A source I own states that Michael Jackson hadn't even begun sessions for the Thriller album until December of '81, when he recorded his duet with Paul McCartney. The rest of the Thriller sessions begun almost exactly a year after MTV began broadcasting, and took four months to complete. It would've been a stupid move on both MJ and the label's part to produce such a big budget video if the album hadn't already been long completed, and a single chosen, especially with MTV being so new and unproven at the time.

[Geoff Grace]

Although I missed its premiere, I watched MTV from just about its beginning; and yes, they spoke a lot in those days about the fact that they had kicked things off with the Buggles' "Video Killed The Radio Star" video. In fact, they still had it in rotation at the point I became a viewer.

 

I remember coming home from my gigs, turning on MTV, and watching videos sometimes until dawn. They were almost exclusively mainstream rock and new wave in the beginning (Rainbow, REO Speedwagon, Split Enz, Icehouse, etc.), and I remember them playing the occasional Joan Armatrading and Bus Boys videos within that format. But they really made a big deal about Michael Jackson when they premiered his "Billie Jean" video, and I did witness that event. That opened the floodgates for other Thriller videos and other genres of music, and the rest is history (or HIStory ).

 

Unfortunately, I don't have any of it on videotape because I didn't own my first VCR until 1985. So, I don't have proof, just my memories.

 

Best,

 

Geoff

[franknputer]

I really don't see how anyone can begrudge the MI for wanting to make money. Is there anyone here who will always invest in something they think will lose money?

Not necessarily begrudge them for it, but it bears remembering when one starts getting misty-eyed about the idea of them being in it "for the art".

[Super 8]

It would've been a stupid move on both MJ and the label's part to produce such a big budget video if the album hadn't already been long completed, and a single chosen, especially with MTV being so new and unproven at the time.

 

 

Exactly. No one in the music industry thought Mtv would amount to anything. Who is going to sit there and watch music videos with the sound coming out of that tinny TV speaker? Radio was where it's at. So why spend the money to make a music vid?

 

IIRC, Mtv had about 40 music vids to work with when they started out.

If you compare MJ's "Billy Jean" vid to "Rock with You" from "Off the Wall", the production values shot WAY up. There's no way they would have spent that much money for Billy Jean if Mtv hadn't proven itself.

 

I didn't get my Mtv until late summer '83, but I do remember that same year hearing on the news that MJ's camp was complaining that Mtv wasn't playing black artists. Perhaps that was a push to get their video in better rotation?

[Jeff da Weasel]

Previous to MTV, there were rock videos, of course. In the late 70s, I remember staying up late on weekends with my friends to watch videos on "Don Kirshner's Rock Concert". Mostly live-performance or lip-synced videos, but also artistic pieces by people like Bowie and so on.

[franknputer]

There were produced videos in the 70's, but they were mostly a promotional vehicle for radio & stuff like that. I think that they weren't particularly for public consumption. The concept, however, goes back a long ways - in the 1940's there were "Soundies", which were short 16mm films that played on coin-operated rear-projection machines - basically a film jukebox. Later, in the 60s, we had the Scopitone, basically an updated version of the same thing. The films in these things were professionally produced, and are considered the precursors of the modern music video.

[Jeff da Weasel]

IIRC, Mtv had about 40 music vids to work with when they started out.

Here's the original MTV playlist in August 1981:

The Buggles - Video Killed the Radio Star
Pat Benatar - You Better Run
Rod Stewart - She Won't Dance
The Who - You Better You Bet
Phd - Little Susie's on the Up
Cliff Richard - We Don't Talk Anymore
The Pretenders - Brass in Pocket
Todd Rundgren - Time Heals
REO Speedwagon - Take it on the Run
Styx - Rockin' the Paradise
Robiin Lane & The Chartbusters - When Things Go Wrong
Split Enz - History Never Repeats.
.38 Special - Hold on Loosely
April Wine - Just Between You & Me
Rod Stewart - Sailing
Iron Maiden - Iron Maiden
REO Speedwagon - Keep on Loving You
The Pretenders - Message of Love
Lee Ritenour - Mr. Briefcase
The Cars - Double Life
Phil Collins - In the Air Tonight
Robert Palmer - Looking for Clues
The Shoes - Too Late
Stevie Nicks & Tom Petty - Stop Draggin' my Heart Around.
Rupert Hines - Surface Tension
Madness - One Step Beyond
Gerry Rafferty - Baker Street
Pat Benatar - I'm Gonna Follow You
Tom Johnson - Savannah Nights
Rockestra - Lucille
Styx - The Best of Times
Carly Simon - Vengeance
Iron Maiden - Wrathchild
Blotto - I Wanna Be a Lifeguard
Rod Stewart - Passion
Elvis Costello - Oliver's Army
REO Speedwagon - Don't Let Him Go
The Silencers - Remote Control/I'm Too Legal
Juice Newton - Angel of the Morning
Rockestra - Little Sister
Bootcamp - Hold on to the Night
Cliff Richard - Dreaming
Lee Ritenour - Is it You?
Fleetwood Mac - Tusk
Michael Stanley Band - He Can't Love You
REO Speedwagon - Tough Guys
Blondie - Rapture
The Who - Don't Let Go the Coat
Rod Stewart - Ain't Love a Bitch
The Pretenders - Talk of the Town
Rainbow - Can't Happen Here
Andrew Gold - Thank You for Being a Friend
Gerry Rafferty - Bring it all Home
April Wine - Sign of the Gypsy Queen
Kate Bush - The Man With the Child in His Eyes
David Bowie - Ashes to Ashes
April Wine - Just Between You and Me
The Specials - Rat Race
Talking Heads - Once in a Lifetime
Bootcamp - Victim
Rod Stewart - Tonight's the Night
Nick Lowe - Cruel to be Kind

[meccajay]

My thinking is that if MTV had taken the hard line about no non-rock artists and held it for say even 3 years, it would have turned BET into a massive media empire. Into the next Viacom or bigger.

Remember that rap music was so called "invented" at around the same time in music history as the music video, give or take a couple years.

BET would have been the only game in town for black R&B video's, and rap video's. It would have become a 21'st Century Motown propelled by the explosion of the rap industry. They didn't do that bad as it was.

[Super 8]

Here's the original MTV playlist in August 1981:

 

 

Okay, I was off by about 20. Still, that's not many videos to pick from.

One can see why record companies would not be too eager to jump into this. I think the perception was that kids would see a video once and say; "Okay I've seen it, why watch it again?", and that the channel would die from lack of sustained interest due to a lack of content. They underestimated the average teens ability to sit in front of the TV for hours and watch videos while talking on the phone and eating snack foods. When I was a kid, I liked Mtv because if there was something on I wasn't interested in, I knew it would be over within three minutes and something else would come on. You could watch Mtv without having to be engaged in it. It never demanded your attention.

[Super 8]

it would have turned BET into a massive media empire. Into the next Viacom or bigger. It would have become a 21'st Century Motown propelled by the explosion of the rap industry. They didn't do that bad as it was.

 

 

Isn't BET owned by the same company as Mtv?

Also, remember that Rap exploded because suburban white kids got into it. Had music remained segregated, I don't think rap or Thriller would have done nearly so well.