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In August 1, 1981 MTV premiered on american cable as a station that would play strictly music videos, an idea revolutionary at the time becasue of it's novelty and innovation. Although MTV wasn't the first experiement of airing music video programs on major network TV, 1970's Album Tracks from WNBC holds that title, it was certainly the strongrest and most successful attempt at it. For a while MTV broke barriers ranging from introducing great music videos to great talents such as Adam Sandler, Jon Stewart, director Spike Jonze, and ground-breaking shows like Beavis and Butthead. Behind this rise to dominance has been a rocky road tainted with blatant racism and disturbing reprecussions from it's success.

You wouldn't know it by watching MTV now but in it's infant stage it was not very fond of playing black artists; in fact CBS Records President Walter Yetnikoff called out MTV by stating "I'm pulling everything we have off the air" and "I'm not going to give you any more videos. And I'm going to go public and fucking tell them about the fact you don't want to play music by a black guy". MJ went on to have an illustrious career with MTV releasing timeless videos such as Thriller, Beat it, and BAD. These videos indisputably aided MJ in leaving his imprint on popular american culture... oh yeah, and his music was pretty good too.

Now-a-days you can watch many shows with ethnically diverse casts and music video programming as variant as the cast of The Real World each year. It's also evolved (some would argue devolved ) into a channel strictly for reality shows, ranging from dating shows to feaux-sitcoms, specifically designed for the "teeny-bopper" demographic. Amidst the monotony of mind-numbing "reality" TV, yet strangely and embarrasingly entertaining, one would never know that the "M" in MTV actualy stood for music. Music videos are sparse and generally formulaic advertisement designed by label heads utilizing marketing schemes instead of allowing creative people to be creative.

Now some readers might be wondering why I'm ranting on and on like some old man sour at a newer generation, but like my man O.D.B. aka Big Bay Jesus once said, "I do it for the kiidddsss". I don't think it's fair for a powerful and influential medium like MTV to be able to spew such garbage and pass it off as music. If you don't think MTV has had a powerful influence on the kind of music each generation listens to then you havnt done your homework. Song formats changed, emphasis on talent altered, genres began to blend, and american pop-culture rotted. Proof of this is the very artist on top of Billboard today selling the most albums; Mariah Carey, Usher, Justin Timberlake, Alicia Keys... all attractive people with little artistic depth. No longer is there an emphasis on bothersome things likes songs or actual music but rather a focus on image and "trend-riding". As a result, materializing is an entire generation of people growing up on plastic music without awareness of it's capable artistry and genius. Don't beleive me? Lil Wayne, Usher, Chris Brown and Plies are your current big names in music when just a decade ago a far superior, artistically and sophisticatedly, heap of artists dominated music like 2Pac, Babyface, Outkast, etc...

Peace, love and happiness,

Pops aka Big Papi aka "I do it for the kiiddsss"