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The Mike & Carla Morning Show

The Mike & Carla Morning Show

The Mike & Carla Morning Show

Put On Your Neon And Watch The First Two Hours Of MTV From 1981

By Carla Rea

I WANT MY MTV!

The 80’s were a colorful, indulgent, “no worries” time if you were a teen. When MTV was launched, me and my friends would sit in front of the TV for hours, anxiously waiting for the next video to play. Who would it be? Michel Jackson’s Thriller? George Michael’s butt video? Duran Duran in the boat?

We’d listen to Nina Blackwood, Mark Goodman, JJ Jackson, Martha Quinn, and Alan Hunter give us all the info we needed on those videos, and artists, cause they were totally cool, and totally “in the know.”

The concept behind MTV was simple: Show music videos and content related to music all day long, every day. And it worked phenomenally. The golden age of MTV lasted from the early 1980s to around 1992, and in its heyday it had a massive impact on the music landscape.

If you’re old enough to remember the launch of MTV on August 1st, 1981 at 12:01 A.M., this will bring you right back:  Somebody put the first two hours of MTV on YouTube, and it will immediately transport you back to that day, and time, and feel.

Everyone knows the first video they played was “Video Killed the Radio Star” by The Buggles.  You’ll also see all of the original VJs introduce themselves, plus the very first ad that ever aired on MTV, for a three-ring binder called The Bulk.  It was followed by a commercial for “Superman 2”.

For many, the 1980s and ‘90s represents the most interesting stage in music video history. With huge budgets to spend, a number of revolutionary music videos were released – The iconic “Thriller” video, and A-ha’s amazingly creative “Take On Me” represents music videos that were hugely influential at the time and which cemented MTV as a cultural force. There’s something very powerful about visuals and imagery being combined with music. Visual storytelling quickly became an integral part of music creation.

Here is the link for that first two hours of MTV.  Put on your neon and scroll through it. And below are the first ten videos that were played on MTV – RIGHTEOUS!

  • Video Killed The Radio Star - The Buggles

     

  • You Better Run - Pat Benatar

    Not the first version of this song. In 1966, with the band Listen, Robert Plant made his recording debut singing lead vocals on a cover version of “You Better Run”, which was released as a single by CBS Records.

  • She Won't Dance With Me - Rod Stewart

    The lyrics to ‘She Won’t Dance With Me’ contain the use of the word f*** –  which remained unedited in the video.

  • You Better You Bet - The Who

    “You Better You Bet” was written by Pete Townshend as a love song for his girlfriend at the time. He says, “I developed [‘You Better You Bet’] over several weeks of clubbing and partying. I had gone through a lean period in my marriage and was seeing the daughter of a friend of mine. I wanted it to be a good song because the girl I wrote it for is one of the best people on the planet.”

  • Little Suzy's On The Up - Ph.D

    The song was released as Ph.D’s first single, appearing on their self-titled debut.  Tesla also covered the song in 1986 under the name “Little Suzi”. Tesla released the cover as the second single from their debut album, Mechanical Resonance. The single broke Tesla into the mainstream and was the most successful single from their debut, 

  • We Don't Talk Anymore - Cliff Richard

    The song reached number one on the UK Singles Chart in August 1979, remaining there for four weeks. It was Cliff Richard’s tenth UK number one and his first since “Congratulations” in 1968.

  • Brass In Pocket - Pretenders

    The lyric describes the female singer about to have her first sexual encounter with a particular person, and is expressing her confidence that the experience will be successful. According to Rolling Stone magazine critic Ken Tucker, the song uses “an iron fist as a metaphor for Hynde’s sexual clout”.

  • Time Heals - Todd Rundgren

    Healing was Todd Rundgren‘s ninth studio album, released in 1981. The album’s themes are spirituality and the human condition, something Rundgren had touched on many times in earlier works, but not with the consistency in this album. where every track explores a different aspect. 

  • Take It On The Run - REO Speedwagon

    This was the first concert video to be aired on MTV, from REO Speedwagon’s Live Infidelity home video release. The video was interrupted after 12 seconds due to technical difficulties. The technical difficulty moment contains only a blank black screen with a 200 Hz tone for a few seconds before going back to MTV’s studio.

  • Rockin' The Paradise - Styx

    Released as the fourth single from their tenth album Paradise Theatre. “A.D. 1928” is a short, piano-based song by Dennis DeYoung, set to the same melody as “The Best of Times“, that segues into “Rockin’ the Paradise“. These two tracks would serve as the opening songs of not only the Paradise Theatre album, but also its tour and the 1996 Return to Paradise reunion tour.

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