So, a couple of weeks ago, MTV re-branded itself to remove "Music Television" from its network. It was just a technicality, that channel hasn't had anything to do with music for years (and possibly even decades).
Not that I really care. I don't need MTV to tell me what's cool (although they are kind enough to let me know what isn't cool, which is pretty much everything they air). A rotten pile of shit by any other name would still smell revolting.
I want to submit a resume to them to take over as network president, but I couldn't find an e-mail address to sent to. Return it to its former glory. Make the focus on MUSIC again.
I'm sure everyone will agree that MTV has going downhill since the mid-90's. But their problems go back way further than that...
In an effort to broaden my musical horizons and expand my collection of songs (because MTV sure wasn't going to do so), I ran out to my storage location to find any and all Blender magazines I owned. I knew I had a couple with articles like "500 Greatest Songs Since You Were Born".
While working on backing up my computers, I started reading it. The #1 song on that list is "Billie Jean" by Michael Jackson. Duh. But here's the shocker:
MTV rarely aired videos by black performers, and when they refused to show “Billie Jean,” CBS Records president Walter Yetnikoff went ballistic. “I said to MTV, ‘I’m pulling everything we have off the air, all our product. 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.’” - Page 78, October 2005 issue.
There it is. Back in 1983, MTV was run by idiots. Maybe they were more concerned with the bottom line being negatively affected by airing a video by a black man than they were with good music. Maybe they were just racists.
MTV was doomed to fail from the beginning. They should just take it off the air at this point, because it's only going to get worse.
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