Reality Killed the Video Star

I miss music videos. There was a good five year period where I feel like my whole life revolved around watching music videos. I remember days home from school where I’d order pizza and watch MTV for hours, the same rotation of music videos over and over again. I’m fairly certain this is where my love of movies came from; one can’t watch the Spike Jonze video for Sabotage as many times as I have and not have an innate appreciation for cinema. In fact, there are certain songs that I remember specifically by the music video and every time I hear those songs, the video flashes in my head. I can’t even remember the song that goes along with the mentos/foo fighters video, but I certainly remember the video. About a year ago someone showed me the single ladies music video on youtube and something started niggling at the back of my mind. I’m admittedly very bad with new and popular music (I’ve never had much of a tolerance for popular music, with the exception of Nirvana), instead I have some ridiculous penchant for finding music that was popular approximately 20-30 years ago, or for music that not many people like. So when I saw the Beyonce video, not only had I never heard the song (which I will admit I like) but I found it completely ridiculous that I was forced to watch it on a 3″ screen with crappy resolution. Really, what this seemingly innocuous occurrence did was made me realize how ridiculous the music video market has become. I don’t want to sound like one of those twentysomethings who talks incessantly about how much better things were when I was a kid because I don’t actually believe that they were wholly better, but I have to say, there was something awesome about the music videos of the early 90s. For huge chunks of time throughout the day you could watch/listen to non-stop music. There were whole shows dedicated to certain genres of this music (Yo! MTV Raps for instance) and of course when I got home from school everyday there was Total Request Live. As I said before, I’ve never been that in to popular music, and honestly there were times during TRL that I had to change the channel because I hated the music so much, but the truth of the matter was that no matter how much I hated it, I knew the music. I knew the songs that were out, what was popular, what the country was listening to. And maybe that’s an unintentional metaphor for our current fractured state of being or maybe that’s just an odd coincidence. I don’t even have cable television any more so I don’t quite know why it bothers me so much that I can’t watch music videos on MTV, but it does. I can’t stand the thought that people watching MTV and VH1 are watching it for the reality programming more than for the music. As the music industry continues to teeter on the brink of annihilation, it seems like a dark tragedy that it’s former outlets have given up on it completely. And I miss the music video. The first video ever played on MTV was Video Killed the Radio Star, who knew that something could come along and kill the video star too? Peace, Love, and Music, Julia