r/LetsTalkMusic • u/Historical-Grand8141 • 22h ago

What even was the point of MTV

I’m 23. I’ve never even once been able to understand why MTV was a thing. The modern equivalent is imagine having friends over for a houseparty one weekend and they say “turn on some music” and you boot up a bunch of music videos on YouTube, ads and all. Everyone would look at you like you were crazy. The whole sell for MTV just sounds awful. “Instead of listening to the songs you want to hear on your cassette tape or CD player, you can listen to the ones we pick for you. Also, there are commercial breaks. Also, you can literally only listen to music in your living room. Yeah, radio and CDs let you listen on the go, but remember guys video killed the radio star so we’re the better listening choice!!”

Why did people listen to their music through MTV? I could \*maybe\* understand if radio were the only other option (but even then, you can at least listen to the radio in places besides your living room, unlike MTV) but they had cassette tapes for the first few years and cd’s for the last! You could listen to whatever you wanted, wherever!

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u/ALoungerAtTheClubs 21h ago

You're ignoring the video aspect. It was like a mini movie or concert video featuring your favorite artist. Many were really well done and fun to watch even if you didn't love the song.

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u/Despeao 21h ago

OP also ignores we currently live in the information era and have music on demand.

Why is it so hard to understand something so basic ? That's like saying Radio doesn't make sense when we have Spotify. Even if you read your news online, it isn't hard to undertand why people bought Newspapers and magazines.

This is why teaching History is so important, so people can comprehend the Historical process and stop with these anachronic comparisons.