Here’s a quick way to date yourself: do you remember when MTV actually played music? Like, all day? And from different genres?
Boy, are you old.
I was flipping through the channels last night looking for something to watch, and also wanting to see what channels we actually have now. We just switched from Comcast from DirecTV, so now we can actually watch TV when it rains (we’re moving up in the world, apparently). Anyway, I saw MTV3, and was temporarily filled with joy.
See, MTV3 (or MTV Tres), the last time I saw it, reminded me of MTV as it was back in the day. They played music, and a halfway decent variety of it, at that, provided you didn’t mind it in Spanish (which I don’t). You could turn on the TV and be serenaded by the likes of Maná, Gustavo Cerati, Kinky, Daddy Yankee, Ivy Queen, Julieta Venegas, Cafe Tacuba, and untold numbers of others, some of which I’d never heard of… which, let’s face it, is the best reason to listen to the radio or watch MTV in the first place.
But then my enthusiasm vanished like steam from a bathroom mirror.
See, the same as MTV used to play some cutting-edge stuff–not to mention not-so-cutting-edge stuff like the Charlie Daniels Band–before they had more money to throw around than the government of Equatorial Guinea and moved to a series of mind-numbingly dull, stultifyingly stupid reality shows, MTV3 now features oodles of brownsploitation. Do we really need more Tila Tequila? Yes, they still play music from time to time… provided you’re willing to stay up ’til 2 AM, and provided you don’t mind more Reggeton than anyone should ever have to listen to, larded with lowest-common-denominator pop, most of which wouldn’t be out of place on MTV, or Toon Disney.
Now, I’ll grant you, maybe I’m just getting old. Maybe a channel whose first name is literally “music” doesn’t need to play music, as such. Maybe the viewing/listening public really is predisposed to condescension from marketing executives and focus…
Aw, fuck it. No, I’m not, and we’re not. Can we please go back to television that isn’t afraid of creativity, and that treats us like adults? Please? I miss the days when irony didn’t have to be dressed up in quotation marks. You know, back when you could turn on the TV and see the music.
Gads, the days of MTV as a channel that played (gasp) music, are shrouded in the misty past*. It is sad – I despise “Reality” television. For a short time I even watched CMT, just because they actually play videos, but I’m really not a country music fan, so the “sad bastard” music got old quickly.
With some of the digital cable offered now you can access music channels – no videos, but the genre selection is more diverse than MTV was.
* I guess I’m old!
Sadly we must relegate ourselves to watching most music videos on (thank god for) YouTube. Fortunately VH1 still plays videos in the wee small hours of the morning (they used to call it Insomniac Music Theater) which, frankly, got me through the first 7 weeks of being a new mom and up all night.
Nothing beats Rhapsody for finding new music, although Pandora comes close, and there are a few decent net radio stations. I only go to YouTube to get videos to post or email so I can share what the band sounds like. To be honest, I’m pretty amazed people still make videos.
LastFM isn’t half bad, either. I suppose it’s time I got with the program and signed up for Rhapsody, though… radio just isn’t cutting it, and the days when you could turn to MTV for something new or different have long passed.