When people think of MTV, they often remember the iconic videos of the 80’s and 90’s. They remember the first time they heard Michael Jackson, Madonna, or The Cure thanks to their music videos on MTV, and they have fond memories of sitting down with their families to watch these music videos on television. However, MTV started airing music videos in 1981, so it has been around since before many of us were even born. When MTV began broadcasting in 1981, the music video wasn’t much more than a commercial for an upcoming album release.

Music videos were created as a promotional tool, providing artists with an additional outlet to share their music with their fans and listeners. Music videos had been around since the 1960s, but they didn’t become an integral part of the music industry until MTV started playing them on the air in 1981. To this day, most major artists will release both audio-only and video-based singles from their albums, although the music video’s commercial influence has been severely undermined by the internet (YouTube in particular).

MTV changed the music video forever, according to MTV VJ and All Things Considered co-host Kurt Loder, who called the music video a magnificent invention in an interview with Yahoo! Music that took place on April 1, 2011 at the celebration of MTV’s 30th anniversary at Irving Plaza in New York City. Nowadays, however, MTV’s transformation from a 24-hour music channel to an outlet that provides original reality shows such as Jersey Shore, The Hills and Teen Wolf has led many to say that the network’s heyday has long passed.

Carol Vernallis (2013), “Music Video’s Second Aesthetic” in: Unruly  Media, New York: Oxford University Press, 207-233.

Daniel Cookney ‘Vimeo Killed the Video Star: Burial and the User Generated Music Video’, Music/Video: Histories Aesthetics, Media, 255-267.

By Amelia Keegan.