In recent weeks, I’ve noticed a few comments here on the blog talking about state of music videos these days and how some folks find the need for videos unnecessary since networks don’t seem to air them on TV anymore. When Music Television launched in August of 1981, it revolutionized the way the world enjoyed music. Radio took a back seat to mini-music movies that were created for each new single released by musicians. MTV got people used to watching and enjoying music visually in a way that had never been done before. Then, in the ’90’s, MTV decided to focus more on original programing on their network letting music videos fall by the wayside (allowing other networks like Fuse to pick up their slack … but even those networks devote a lot of airtime to non-music video related programing). Today, you’d be hard-pressed to find one full-legnth 3 minute music video to watch on MTV at all. As a result, MTV is trying to take back control of the music video market by launching a new website at MTVMusic.com where their catalog of music videos can be watched online at any time:
The cable music channel, which debuted in 1981 with round-the-clock music videos but now primarily focuses on reality programming, has archived its video collection on a new Web site, MTVMusic.com. “For all of you haters out there griping about how MTV doesn’t play music videos anymore, here’s something to calm the waters,” according to a Tuesday blog post from MTV. “MTVMusic.com offers up a more in-depth library, including over 16,000 videos, “Unplugged” performances and exclusive MTV concert footage.” MTV promised to add more videos daily. It currently filters videos by most viewed, top rated and vintage videos (David Bowie, New Order, Duran Duran …). Users can also search by artist or song name. As of Wednesday afternoon, the “most viewed” videos on the site were Britney Spears’ “Womanizer,” Dire Straits’ “Money for Nothing,” and Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.” Insert Rickrolling joke here.
While I would argue that NOTHING will ever be able to replace the amazingness of watching music videos on a TV network 24 hours a day, I think that this is prolly the next best thing. Once upon a time Polaroid cameras were all the rage … and now, digital photography has basically killed the instant film medium. It’s not better, necessarily, it’s just newer and more technologically advanced. The same thing happened to MTV … the public’s need (mind included) for shows like The Hills have forced the network to air that sort of programing instead of the music videos that made the network thrive. I’d argue that you can’t even call MTV “music television” anymore. But, again, this new site is prolly the best way to handle the problem. You Tube, as amazing as it is, is notoriously unreliable because unauthorized videos get taken down all the time. This new MTV site should offer all the videos we’d want to watch without the worry that they will be taken down. This is all very new so who knows if people will even care. I know that I, for one, like the idea of an online library of all the music videos in existence. Is this new site that? We’ll see. But, in the meantime, I’m gonna try and see if I can find any music videos on my actual TV to watch before they are all gone for good.
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