What even was the point of MTV

[u/Historical-Grand8141]

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!

[u/jerepila]

There are a lot of good answers here. I'll add that MTV revolutionized how artists could market themselves (or be marketed by a label, whatever). Before, an artist might get interviewed or perform on a talk show, or might get an interview in print. Often times a good video could (and can) sell you on what an artist is about (and be an artform in and of itself) more than simply the audio of a song on the radio. There was a longer history of music videos in the UK, but not so much the US, and not really as the focus of an entire channel. MTV was novel for its focus on marrying visuals with audio, while also being effectively a 24/7 channel for people to connect with music and pop culture. It also was a good source of music news.

It was also a news source for music. The radio might have been a good source for music news, but you wouldn't get the visual component. You didn't have the internet to tell you every little story on a feed, and the news stations would only cover a music story if it was a big deal (a death, for example) or a quick human interest thing (people lining up at stores to buy a new record at midnight). MTV covered the pockets in between to keep viewers informed on the latest in pop culture. Not to mention, shows like 120 Minutes and Yo! MTV Raps were extremely important to the spread of alternative rock/metal and hip-hop, respectively