Time to get a bit nostalgic for another post. I Want My MTV is a lengthy, oral history of the first decade of MTV, when music was the focus. Like many of videos of the era, it's assembled in very brief snippets that make it seemed edited by someone with a short attention span.
The chapters are easy to follow, it flows in loose chronological order and we get to read sentences by many of the major players of the time. Stewart Copeland hates Sting, Martha Quinn wonders why and Adam Curry hates everyone.
The chapter on the winner of a weekend with Van Halen is sad and shocking as is the chapter on the video that ended a career.
The book depicts a lot of egos, sex and drugs. Plenty of coke was consumed. There's still a lot of he said, no he did not about the network's race controversy in the pre-Thriller era. I'm surprised a few of these stories came to light as, even thirty years later, they're rather eyebrow raising. Makes me wonder what the author/editors could not, or would not print.
If you were there during MTV's heyday and want to relive the times, or want to find out the history of a station that did change the way music was marketed, it's rather compelling reading.
4 comments:
I remember at the time thinking about that Billy Squier video, "wow, that's really gay." And this was the 80s; in hindsight everything looks really gay. Watching that video makes it all come back. Eesh.
Apparently he's married to a woman. Who'dve thought?
The director really did some projecting with that one, but Squire's management should have put their foot down and erased the tapes.
MTV used to be great!
I agree, but it would appear the videos did not make the corporation as much money as the Real World.
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