MTV’s 40th Anniversary: How Video (Sort Of) Killed the Radio Star
https://www.sweetwater.com/insync/mtvs-40th-anniversary-how-video-killed-the-radio-star/
Excerpt:
...Not many would deny that there would likely be no YouTube had there been no MTV. The connection is obvious. Apart from the music videos, the many nonmusic programs that MTV developed beginning in the ’90s and to the present had a clear influence on the wide variety of reality-based content on YouTube. And, in many ways, YouTube has become the MTV of today’s generation.
But YouTube is not just a theater for nostalgia. Current artists like Olivia Rodrigo can debut a video on YouTube for their latest hit and get literally millions of views in a matter of a week. Rodrigo’s megahit “drivers license” premiered in January of 2021 and already has 260 million views. That’s about as many views as there are people in the United States alone.
Whether you are old enough to have “been there” and to remember Aug 1 (this author was 15 then) or whether you have heard plenty from your parents about the golden age of MTV to feel like you lived through it, there is no denying that life for all of us changed that day. What will the next 40 years bring in terms of music and video? Who knows? Many of you reading this will see that future. For some of us, the image of Buzz Aldrin on the moon with the MTV “flag” and the opening guitar riff of that first airing will forever be etched in our hearts and minds as our generation’s moment when music and TV really took off. It’s all up from here.
I remember jumping off the school bus at an earlier stop so I could run through the woods to get to my house just in time for the Duran Duran video premiere at 3:05 pm. If I had waited for the bus to go around the block, I would have missed it.