It started in 1981, Music Television (MTV) began it's reign over 90 percent of what teenagers and twenty-somethings watched in the 80s and 90s. During the early 90s, MTV decided that they wanted to create a soap opera to break up all that music. The only problem was that they had no money. This endeavor spawned the reality television show (thanks MTV... I really appreciate the never-ending and torturous seasons of American Idol). The first in this virus-like genre was The Real World.
Soon every TV station was pumping out reality shows that didn't really depict reality. Instead they were game shows where the contestants were dropped off in a jungle, required to eat dead cockroaches, or excited about meeting some rich, bachelor who made out with 50 potential brides.
MTV then took out more time slots for videos and replaced them with The Hills and Real World II, III, IV, & V and the only time music fans could catch a video was in the wee hours of morning. In a late 90s/early 2000s brainchild, MTV decided to leave their reality shows on MTV but create MTV2, a station completely dedicated to videos 24/7. This lasted a few years.
MTV and MTV2 now both play endless reruns of reality shows and I cannot remember the last time I caught an actual music video... until now. I'm currently watching a video by the Sick Puppies. So not only is MTV playing videos they are playing rock videos. This is another anomaly. The last time I caught videos on MTV, it was a block of rap crap created after Kanye had permeated the music industry (insert gag noise here).
Strange stars aligning and weird coincidences that placed videos on MTV tonight aside, I am now a FUSE girl. Yep, FUSE is a channel that plays shows about music. They have 5 countdowns, 3-4 hours blocks of just videos, and a fun group of VJs that actually know about music (including Steven and his Untitled Rock Show). FUSE gives tips on must-see concerts, 
goes behind the scenes of music videos, interviews musicians and occasionally will air a movie inspired by music (think Mark Wahlberg in Rockstar). Almost every one of their shows has music videos in it and the others are about music, musicians, or the industry.While I began my music days as an MTV fan, I have been converted and baptized into the FUSE fold. I am a true believer... and you should come over to the dark side, too.
3 comments:
I have not ventured into the FUSE channel yet..however a couple sites I like are http://www.tinymixtapes.com/
and http://mog.com/...being the music freak that I am.
You can sometimes catch music videos on VH1, but of course it is the top 20 crap that you can hear playing anywhere.
Maybe music videos are a thing that you will only be able to get on the internet...youtube is definitely almost as smart as Google.
wow its scary the similaries with music intrests there are between you and my wife. She has been a huge fuse fan now for 2 years and i think has a strange crush on Steve....anyways thanks for blogging.
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