MTV Before Michael Jackson

Reading the Ebony Article, I wasn't suprised that MTV wouldn't play black artist before Thriller. Even Lionel Richie had the same problem. To white/too black. I know racism is a "thing" nobody wants to talk about, lets keep it under the carpet.

But to the point. I'm curious as to why they were not going to play black artist and why it changed. To me this only shows how most people in the coporate music circle cared less about the "actual" music.

So if they played Michael's video and it didn't draw a huge audience, then MTV would have dropped the genre/black artist all together?

In my opinion they didn't play Thriller because they thought "hey this is a great record/video but rather because of the power and attention it brought the station."

Record companies will promote/record/sign anything regardless of "musical value" as long as it makes money.

Now it's easy for everybody to relate MTV/MTV2 and disregard the man who actually contributed to what it was several years ago.

AI

You've got racism AND Michael Jackson bundled together in one thread, Patrick!!! You've done really well this time!

The believed that their audience was a midwestern, male teen audience, that wouldn't be interested in anything other than straight ahead rock music. Turned out that they were wrong, but that was the reason for their lineup at the time. Of course many black viewers wouldn't have considered MJ to be terribly black for that matter. The CBS records head of the time claimed that he threatened to pull the entire CBS roster if MTV didn't play Billie Jean. MTV denies this, but they suddenly started playing it.

Who knows, but at least they used to play music.

Hey, they play more music these days than I can ever remember. It's just in the commercials that reinforce MTV is cool.

Sorry this is OT, but you've got a really badass post count, Patrick.

(666)

Sorry this is OT, but you've got a really badass post count, Patrick. (666)

Yeah I noticed that after I posted the thread. Well' I'm going to bump it up and get away from that number.

AI

You've got racism AND Michael Jackson bundled together in one thread, Patrick!!! You've done really well this time!

It's verse versa, like I mentioned, Lionel Richie had the same problem, there were black stations refusing to play his songs because according to Lionel, "they sounded too white."

I think the race relates to the MOTOWN/R&B/black dominated genre at the time rather then the actual skin color.

AI

For that matter, rap had problems getting played on black radio stations also in the early days from what I remember. And many of the black old guard had problems with it, in the same way that many old guard whites had a problem with rock and roll, because they are both loud and agressive.

Motown was not necessarily watered down, but purposefully not in your face, and therefore was widely listened to by black and white audiences alike. I'm white and I'm definitely a Motown baby. That stuff was all over the radio when I was young and I was heavily influenced by it, and by the Stax/Volt stuff which I like even more.

I have to disagree with you, there were lots of Payola going on back then, few artist were lucky to get airplay but most of the songs played were due to heavy pressure from record executives. I have read lots or bios and documents on Motown activities and they didn't have it easy.

AI

MTV used to not feature any black music artists.

Now they don't feature any music artists, period.

Also, Michael Jackson is BLACK?

Sure, that's true. The Atlantic Records folks, one of the all time greatest record companies and with a much deeper history than Motown even, had their ups and downs and at one point they couldn't pay up to Alan Freed (the most important DJ at the time I would think), and he wouldn't carry them and just cut them off. It was an open secret at the time, more or less until Congress got involved. I'm sure it continued(s) to happen, in one way or another, still these days.

But of course Atlantic had the last laugh, since Freed was sacked because of the scandal and died not too long afterwards, whereas Atlantic went on to great success and eventually sold out for like 17 million I think it was (that's in I guess 70's dollars, which wasn't a bad payoff for the owners.)

Michael Jackson is a black artist?

I thought that Beat It was the first video played on the first MTV program, but that's a foggy memory of an old factoid with questionable credentials, though I did watch the first MTV show.

Dean Roddey's first response is spot on. MTV started as a sort of FM radio rock thing. That was the demographic. As soon as they realized artists other than their initial roster were going to draw an audience... they changed course.

It's kind of like calling BET racist. BET caters to a certain demographic. No harm, no foul. I saw Bobby Caldwell perform on BET live and he's as white as white. But his fan base is probably 50% black as well. BET are not racist, they cater to a specific group of people. I'm in that group and I'm pretty damn white too!

Once MTV clued in via MJ... the doors opened.

"Video Killed the Radio Star" by the Buggles.

I thought everybody knew this...

I agree with Lee Knight, I don't think it was a racist issue at all with Mtv. They were pretty much a Rock station in the beginning.

Black is not just a color it's a genetic, I'm not black in color if you look at my skin but my family and 99 percent of my ancestors are black.

You dont have to have a black skin to be black. ICE T. for example.

But I don't think I going to teach race.

I'm quoting from the article. Did you read it? "MTV did not play black artist before the Thriller album." That was the word of the man being interviewed.

AI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YBsUjpLHWM

And now stop the racism bull{censored} puhlease,.........

I can recall seeing George Clinton and his various groups and friends on MTV before Michael Jackson and Madonna turned the whole thing into a joke.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1355/is_14_110/ai_n16807343

Here's an interesting article from Jet Magazine about MTV's history of playing black artists. (Michael Jackson wasn't the first black artist to be played, BTW.)

Don't say that in Europe or you are in trouble. We have very strict anti-racism laws here.

Apart from that black and white is not a color, yellow is a color for example, or when I'm blue I'm a temporarly colored white.

I think he really needed to get his fly fixed since there was obviously something wrong with it (among other things).

MTV was really odd back in the beginning. This was partly because there weren't a lot of videos being made. Thriller came out about 1 - 1/2 years after MTV started up. CBS did have to play hardball to get them to play it.

I like this song, but this is where MJ started getting really weird. That whole bit at the beginning makes no sense, and it's a Twisted Sister rip-off anyway.

And that thing at the end......I don't know where that was going. What the hell was he saying? He morphs from a Black Panther, and then starts smashing windows with racists/supremacist graffiti. And there's that unfortunate preoccupation with dry humping his hand.

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. I watched the first MTV show, but I sure can't remember what was the first song they played. Somehow "Video Killed . . " seems too obvious, and they would have played the biggest hit of the time, which surely wan't that.

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.