The Video and the Radio Star

The first time I watched MTV, I was elated. Finally, a 24-hour a day cable network dedicated exclusively to one of my greatest loves- popular music. When I was younger, growing up in the 1970s, I was always impressed with the rather rudimentary music videos of the day that were often seen on shows like Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert and Bert Sugarmand’s Midnight Special. As with some of the early MTV music videos, many of the promotional music videos that came before it on such shows do not hold up. However, many do, and back then, I was always happy to see my favorite stars either performing live or in one of those videos.

The first time I saw MTV, I was at a friend’s house. As soon as I sat on his living room chair, the video “Sweet Dreams” by the Eurhythmics popped on the screen. By then it was 1983, I believe, and the striking video, which featured philosophical lyrics and mixed sadomasochistic overtones with ideas of Hinduism, blew me away and stimulated my creative juices. This medium had great potential, I thought. I had always been a fan of the fledgling videos from the decade before and imagined myself with the creative medium to produce such videos for the new cutting edge network.

As fate would have it, however, I did not get into filmmaking like I desired, and as part of my newly-found spiritual practices (which coincidentally enough was from the tradition that spawned Hinduism), made a conscious decision to lay off television, which I did for a little more than five years. Then, when I started watching television again in the late 1980s, I was well aware of the popularity that MTV and VH-1 had gained over that period of time, and enthusiastically tuned in to see what was going on. To my initial dismay, I found a medium that not only did not cater so much to the rock ‘n’ roll that was so popular when I grew up, but more to visual music stars like Michael Jackson and Madonna. Although they were certainly talented on the musical level (especially Jackson), I felt that the medium had taken a turn that I had not expected, and in my stubbornness, did not fully appreciate.

Even now up until this day, I lament that video killed the radio star. I also lament, as Stevie Van Zandt put it in a speech this year at the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame induction, that the best music out there is no longer the most popular, like it was all those years ago, before the medium of music video took hold and good looks became more important than the music itself. But despite the nostalgia for FM radio not being what it once was, if I really think about it, I wouldn’t want things any other way.

I mean, after all, we live in a Capitalistic Democratic Republic, where the consumer ultimately rules the roost. Who am I to say what someone else should like and not like? I happen to not like what I call the over-production of much of the 1980s music. I happen not to like the fact that if a Joni Mitchell came along today it would be hard for her to get airplay because she can’t shake her ass that way Beyonce can. I was not into the disco music of the late 1970s, did not particularly get the whole grunge thing in the early 1990s, was not into hair bands, and for the most part, abhor the egotistical crude materialism of hip-hop, and never was really moved by contemporary R & B. I also don’t like that there are so few record companies today and they seem to have so much creative control over the modern artist. But if the consumer doesn’t like what is being presented to the public, they can rebel and go underground- which to me, is the original spirit of rock ‘n’ roll in the first place.

Moreover, there are many things about today’s music scene that are great. There are now, for example, with the help of the internet and the computerized music technology that really started in the 1980s, more artists to listen to than ever before. Maybe the cream of the crop are not making the kind of money that they once could have, due partly to, in my estimation, the poor taste of the public, but at least there are artists who are able to sincerely express themselves through music that may have not even had any kind of voice back in the day. There is also internet-based and satellite radio that plays more varieties of music than was ever before possible.

I understand that someone reading this might consider me a music snob. I, rather, see myself, as just like anyone else: I have my own tastes ((and distastes) in music for my own reasons and just happen to use a sometimes strong voice to get my point across.

One thing that has taken me a long time to learn, though, is that my initial distaste to the popular music of the day, often turns into like, years down the road when I revisit the same music. It is as Bob Dylan, a man who has reinvented himself several times but has still followed the beat of his own drum for five decades has said, “The times they are a changin’.” I can also imagine what Madonna’s response might have been if someone would have expressed their concern for the seemingly accidental prophetic statement that “video killed the radio star.” I can see her defiantly staring back and simply saying, “So what?!?”