Integrating Video Music

 

This PM Magazine package went behind the scenes at MTV, talking with various VJs and executive Les Garland about the new channel. The positive promotion is countered by comments from Black students about its limited appeal and playlist.


The whiteness of the MTV playlist since its launch is obvious in this promo, which rattles through the many new bands MTV takes credit for making popular in its first years on the air. The promo was captured in flow from November 1983—just after the video for “Say Say Say,” a duet between Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson. 


This segment of flow comes from shortly after an airing of Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" on March 25, 1983. The video had just been added to MTV's playlist two weeks earlier, reportedly after the president of CBS records threatened to pull all CBS artists if MTV wouldn't play it. In this flow, we see some context by way of how MTV combined classic AOR acts with newer pop or new wave acts which had been part of its "video music" from the beginning. MTV made a point of discovering new music, and that new music had a better chance at play if it was visually compelling. Older acts could get by on their AOR credentials. This clip begins with the end of a Thompson Twins video, one of the newer acts, which directly followed a video by John Cougar, a basic AOR act. "Billie Jean" played prior to that. Note that this flow includes a promo for MTV providing "All Music" which would seem to be a reference to its playlist opening up. But the acts included are new wave ones: Culture Club, Modern English, and Lene Lovich. 

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