Listen to Dire Straits Michael Jackson - Billy Jean
MTV Music Awards 2013
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Music Television (MTV) rightly deserves a place in the ingredients of modern Rock/Popular Music. The emergence of MTV had a huge impact on the nature of what became successful in modern pop. It determined the imagery as to how the music was portrayed and it became a major marketing tool for music producers, etc. MTV also swung control of the music creativity back to the major labels and production houses and away from the musicians and artists themselves, rendering them once again little more than cogs in the powerful music production industry. |
Listen To RM Radio Madonna - Express Yourself
MTV Live 2013 - Katy Perry - Roar
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As one observer noted – During the early 1980s, MTV began to replace radio among a generation of teens born during the 1960s. These were teenagers who had no personal recollection of Elvis Presley, The Beatles, or the Vietnam War. Instead they sought their own musical identity. MTV helped create the visual rock of Duran Duran and pop metal and played a major role in the huge mania that developed around Michael Jackson. In short, in the 1980s, MTV played a major role in reshaping the Pop industry as it designed and delivered rock to the TV generation. Rock and pop bands now not only had to sound good, but had to look good and to be able to perform visually, or develop TV caricatures and TV special gimmicks to gain popularity with a youth TV audience, that relied more on visuals than sound, more so than the earlier generation that relied and worshipped the sound and the lyrics of bands and artists. From now on Popular music changed in nature from being one dimensional to multidimensional. Sadly, many musos would despair, as musical talent itself no longer was enough to cut it with the emerging youth generation in the west, that spent more time watching TV than hours at school or college. |
Wham - Wake Me Up Before You Go Go
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Pop Muzic 1979
Human League - Don't You Want Me
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American teenagers, raised
on TV, readily and wholeheartedly embraced the video craze, which had a dramatic impact on the stylistic and wholistic direction and development of Rock/Pop music. The post baby boomers on watched more television than any other activity. By the time they graduated, they spent more time watching TV than sitting in the classroom. A survey in 1981, of eigth graders revealed the youths named TV personalities as their Top Ten role models. Even in schools, TV’s played a greater role in instruction. |
Culture Club - Do You Really Want To Hurt Me
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I Want My MTV
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MTV attracted the TV Generation with young, visually exciting bands from the dance clubs of The UK. Started as a reaction to the austerity of punk, English dance clubs – or discos provided working class youths with escapist entertainment. ‘Most kids who actually live there are sick of the street,’ said the founder and guitarist of Spandau Ballet, a prominent dance club band. ‘They take it for granted, because that is where they live, and don’t know anything better…They want to be in a club with great lights, and look good and pick up girls.’ As with its American counterpart, English Disco focused on a fashion-conscious audience. ‘Discos are always parties because you have to make your own visual entertainment’, the member from Spandau Ballet commented. ‘The most important thing in a club is the people, not the music they listen to. You become the most important person. You become the visual aspect of the evening, rather than the band.’ 'Discos', he continued, appealed to ‘people who liked being looked at - that’s why dancing is so important, and why people try and beat each other at dancing. It’s also why clothes are so important’. Simply put, working class kids, just wanted to look good, dress up and feel good, dance good and attract the opposite sex. He also said there was an excessive concern over fashion in British culture – kids wanted to be mods, skinheads, soul kids etc. Kids just wanted to dress smart and enjoy themselves. |
Spandau Ballet
1980s Party Mix
Top 100 Best Songs Of The 1980s
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Flock Of Seagulls - I Ran So Far Away
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Thompson Twins - In The Name Of Love
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Depeche Mode - Just Can't Get Enough
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MTV also refurbished the career, of 1970s icon, David Bowie, who helped lay the ground work for electro-pop. Bowie, the king of glitter rock had served as a model of fashion for the foppish New Romantics, began to abandon a hard, guitar-based rock sound for the synthesizer sound in 1976, and released a collection of techno-pop sounds. In 1983, at the height of the New Romantic success, Bowie recorded ‘Let’s Dance’ which with the help of MTV, scored high on the US charts. |
David Bowie - Let's Dance
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MTV, criticized for airing only videos of
white artists, played the visually stunning, expertly choreographed Jackson videos and helped create Michaelmania. Though Jackson’s records had always sold well, Thriller sold at an amazing rate after it was promoted on MTV. At the height of the mania it sold one million copies every four days. |
Michael Jackson - Thriller
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Jackson’s success helped by MTV paved the
way for other soul-pop artists, including British Bands, such as Culture Club, which merged the English concern for fashion with a Motown-influenced sound to climb the charts. The extravagantly bedecked, video-ready Culture Club played in the words of Boy George,’imitation soul’, and soon climbed to the top. The Eurythmics were another successful act to follow with an updated Motown sound. Wham were another band – as a sharply dressed duo from Britian, they hit the charts with African-American inspired dance music. |
Culture Club - Karma Chameleon
Eurythmics - Sweet Dreams
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MTV also helped the youngest member of the Jackson family, Janet, to stardom. Janet Jackson hit the top of the chart with ‘Control’, and three years later did the same with ‘Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814.’ ‘Janet’s a video artist,’ her manager, Roger Davies, reasoned. |
Janet Jackson - Control
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Whitney Houston was yet another act to
achieve massive stardom through MTV (How Will I Know), as was Prince who struggled for awhile until he discovered sexually explicit lyrics and movements and achieved stardom. As with other African-American and white soul-pop artists in the wake of the mania over Michael Jackson, Prince also attained international stardom through video. |
Whitney Houston - How Will I Know
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The success of pop metal and electro-pop bands and the unparalleled achievements of Michael Jackson indicated the importance of MTV. One observer noted: ‘At any one time, 13000 homes are watching MTV. If the video is in power rotation- 15 or 16 plays a week – and that audience tunes in 10 times, that’s 1.3 million people hearing the record and deciding whether they like it or not. If they like it, they’ll buy it’. Another observer noted – ‘There isn’t a national radio station. And that’s where MTV comes in. That’s where they have their power: immediately showing everyone in this country this new band.’ Another artist complained about the dominance of MTV. ‘Things which used to count, such as being a good composer, player or singer, are getting lost in the desperate rush to visualize everything. It is now possible to be all of the above and still get nowhere simply by not looking good in a video, or worse still, not making one.’ |
Michael Jackson - MTV
Wham - Freedom
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