Nothing satisfies quite like a raw feed from a mundane moment in history. In this case, a random posting from the excellent music blog Idolator sent me into a three-hour fugue state.
An early MTV viewer with fastidious and deeply geeky archiving tendencies recorded three hours of footage from the music video network — with commercials — in 1983, and apparently preserved his VHS or Beta tape with quality standards worthy of a museum. It is now lodged in Google Video for viewing by incredulous future generations.
It is a safe bet that I was there during those three hours, splayed in front of the old Sony Trinitron with a bowl of chips balanced on my bony chest, mainly because MTV arrived just in time to help chart my course. If I had a free minute back then, the old plastic switchbox from Green Country Cable got switched to Channel 26, provided there wasn’t an R-rated movie playing on The Movie Channel.
So watching 25-year-old footage from a station that continues to exist in name only triggered some long-dormant sense memories: I seemed to know too well which clip of a horrid soft-rock hit was coming up next on an ad for Sessions Records’ not-available-in-stores “Greatest Hits Album,” and did not need to be told why Safeguard is “the smallest soap in the house.” I could call out the shots on Huey Lewis and the News’ “Heart and Soul” video as if I had personally drawn up the storyboard. Sick.
But here are a few artifacts dredged up by this video journey that even the sharpest mind is unlikely to recall.
The short-lived phenomenon that was 1-800-HOT-ROCK. I’m certain that even back in 1983, that sounded like porn. “Now, you can buy the hottest records and tapes anytime, just by calling 1-800-HOT-ROCK,” the announcer promises while flogging the second
Asia album for $6.99. That wasn’t even a bargain back then.
The Police’s Syncronicity Tour was sponsored by Cambridge Cologne. Original MTV VJ Mark Goodman announces this before dates start scrolling, including a Nov. 20, 1983 concert at the Myriad. You could also buy an exclusive MTV/Police tour shirt for $12. A quarter-century later, the Police are back, but you cannot smell like their sponsor anymore.
It was possible to have an “Almost All-Genesis Weekend” without it being an intentional joke. Yes, MTV played a Genesis concert on Saturday, then a Phil Collins special on Sunday. And when that was announced, that probably sounded awesome to a teenager with questionable social skills and no car.
You could see a Bow Wow Wow video directly after a Quiet Riot video. It’s as magical as it sounds.
But the most profound realization that came out of my 1983 immersion is how ridiculous the concept of “MTV editing” seems today. In those days, sociologists and media analysts would wring their hands over attenuated attention spans brought on by flashy jump-cuts.
Well, having just let the doors fly open on my Delorean, I’m back to tell you that original MTV feels like a Terrence Malick film compared to what we see today. This was a slow three hours, and with their laissez faire, anything goes delivery, Goodman and Martha Quinn would not qualify for current MTV duty. With that slow attitude, they probably wouldn’t be allowed in Manhattan, much less the Times Square studio.
But this extended video is absolutely worth the trip. In MTV’s mythology and VH1’s “I Love the ‘80s,” the images and ideas of the time have been filtered and processed through today’s snarky historical revisionism. To understand what it was really like, it’s best to go back there yourself.