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The Day the Music (video) Died #
For the most part, movies these days don’t seem to be as good as they were say, 20+ years ago. Movies today all follow a formula. If you’ve seen one Avengers movie, you’ve seen them all. The movie industry has been largely taken over by statisticians and analysts who know the “formula” for optimized and predictable profit.
Music today is no different. Music is designed around predictable expectations of the genres it services. “Artists” producing music today seem to seek not to push the boundaries of their genres, as much as they seek to fine tune their songs towards what is selling.
As of today (12-31-2025) All MTVs remaining music channels are shutting down . I had read this was coming. But to be honest, like most people, I really had no idea that MTV even still had music channels.
Music, Movies, and just about any other creative medium in the world seem to me to follow a cycle of life. A cycle that I can apply to many different things in my own life, including even software engineering. My belief is that if I can become aware of the patterns that exist inside of these somewhat closed systems, that I can pay attention to the hallmarks of transition from one phase to another, and I can use that data to make informed decisions about how I want to react.
The Early Years – Creation of the playfield #
Introduce the medium #
I remember when MTV first came on the air. Heck I remember when cable television came out in our neighborhood (maybe a year or two in advance). But yes, August 1st 1981 was MTV’s first broadcast. Right in between Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983). I was instantly fixated and obsessed. My brother and I had a system for watching a shared TV. He would get 30 minutes, then I would get 30 minutes, and so on. I recall every 30 minutes I wanted to watch more MTV.
Establish a space for exploration #
These were the days where, with the invention of cable, television was just throwing crap against the wall and seeing what stuck. Running a nationwide television station was now relatively easy, and so in the early days of cable the world was struggling to find content. Many cable stations were going off-air in the evenings just because they couldn’t find enough content to fill up 24 hours.
Then, along comes MTV which could just play “music videos” all day long with VJs (Video Jockeys) instead of DJs (Disc Jockeys). At the time, there weren’t that many music videos to chose from. Because of this we spent a good amount of time with the VJs themselves. They would talk about the people making the music, tell stories, interview producers and artists, and more.
Third Parties explore the space created #
As the viewership went up, so did the desire to have your song played on MTV. More and more artists started getting on board and making music videos. With more and more videos entering the platform, a new challenge emerged. If airplay meant sales, who was going to get the most airplay?
The Golden Years – High Innovation and Creativity #
Creativity and Innovation in the format #
Once the number of music videos reached a critical mass, artists and producers were forced to think creatively about how to present their video in a manner in which made it stand out from the rest. Videographers tried many different tactics from being provocative, controversial, even leaning into satanic or anti-religious (which at the time carried a lot of attention). The article 19 Rock Videos Banned from MTV showcases ways in which videos sometimes were even created for the express purpose of getting banned – just to get attention.
Some of the most noteworthy attention to early videos came in extended format videos. Most notably, Michael Jackson’s Thriller aired in a full 14-minute format (and began with a disclaimer that Michael Jackson did NOT worship the occult).
Diversity Exposure as a byproduct #
A wonderful side effect of the Golden Era of creativity and exploration in music videos wound up being a heavy injection of diversity exposure. MTV sometimes takes heat for how non-white races or different sexual preferences were treated in its early years, but the honest truth is that criticism is revisionist history at best. The playfield was level in the early days of MTV. I remember it took me two-decades to look back and realize that Boy George was a man dressing as a woman and was gay. That was simply a result of it just being a “normal” thing on MTV. I loved Michael Jackson and there was absolutely zero thought given to whether he was black, because it wasn’t even really mentioned. It was all about the music and the video. This time in a medium’s lifecycle is the best time for actual diversity and inclusion as the diversity is just there and not yet agenda driven or co-opted.
Creativity turns from visual elements back to music #
After the visual medium and story telling aspects of the medium became saturated, standing out took something even more unique. With so much diversity and production value being put into the visual elements, attention shifted back to the music.
MTV became the catalyst for the emergence of new genres within music itself. Without MTV, it is quite possible that we would never have seen the introductions of genres such as Hip-Hop, Hair Metal, New Wave, R&B and Grunge. Each one of these genres can be loosely tied back to a video or videos that became wildly popular and put into heavy rotation. Many of them leading to the introduction of shows specifically focused on that genre, such as Yo! MTV Raps .
The Co Opting Years – Standardization and Formula #
Constant Profit over Risk #
Wherever creativity and innovation flourish, interest will follow. Wherever interest follows, money follows. Wherever money follows, those who would seek to subjugate it follow.
MTV significantly reshaped how money flowed in the music industry. The industry was able to capitalize on the high promotional value of artists on MTV at unseen rates. However, the shift also introduced challenges. The cost of producing high-budget music videos increased, the cost of securing licensing rights increased. And most importantly the channel’s programming choices could skew which artists and genres received exposure.
Corporations are profit machines, and eventually they all seem to arrive at the formula of wanting to see consistent predictable financial returns, over riskier high-profit/high-loss explorations. Once corporations figure a pattern that yields consistent return, they abandon all creativity and innovation in pursuit of that pattern.
Both the music and the channel shed creativity and exploration for profit #
This normalization/homogenization took place in both the music and videos themselves and MTV itself as a platform. Music became more and more formulaic following the boy-band/Britney Spears formulas. And MTV itself started experimenting with non-music content.
Expanding on take-over ideas such as AL TV , MTV ventured further into a blended genre with Beavis and Butthead , which still included music videos, but introduced non-music content as a steady part of the channel’s line up. The introduction of The Real World to the channel was the last nail in the coffin. The show was so wildly popular that it, alongside a host of new non-music related shows became the primary content showcase on MTV.
Since this shift has happened, we have seen no more creativity or innovation come out of the platform.
Is this cycle a pattern in platforms and mediums itself? #
It does seem to me that when I look over similar medium such as Music, Video Games, Social Media, etc. that most things follow that similar pattern.
- A new medium is born, there is an explosive period of creativity and innovation.
- People become wildly interested in the medium and money flows into it.
- Money attracts corporations and profiteers.
- Profiteers find patterns/formulas in the medium that generate predictable revenue.
- Creativity and innovation in the medium is replaced by the pattern(s).
While the lack of innovation may spell slowly declining profits over time, the patterned methodology still produces revenue, which means there still is interest.. Yet, somehow I feel sad, as though a wealth of possibilities and fresh explorations have been removed during the process.
What would it be like if people in the mediums were willing to still take chances? What are we missing out on because they aren’t? Are we truly maximizing who we are? Does this pattern lead to stagnation as a country, or a species, or individuals that open us up to be replaced by something or someone more creative and innovative in the future?
If we ourselves as a collective or individuals succumb to the pattern ourselves, does one day someone shut down what was once a great and magical thing, like they did MTV today, and no one even notices?