[September 02, 2011] The Blade, Toledo, Ohio, Kirk Baird column Tweet Sep 02, 2011 (The Blade - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine had the best of intentions when he stuck it to MTV and its Video Music Awards last week via Twitter. "Forget--you" was the gist of his comment. (*Note: I subbed out the expletive because profanity and newspapers do not mix.) Levine's point was that the Music-Television network, which celebrated its 30th anniversary in August, annually puts on a celebrity circus known as the VMAs to honor the best in the field of heavily played radio singles morphed into short-form movies. The VMAs aired Sunday and were watched by millions, but that was due more to its star power than to celebrate artistic achievement. As most everyone knows, the event is a farce since MTV hasn't been in the business of music since, well, Tawny Kitaen was popular. Sometime in the 1980s, probably shortly after the death of parachute pants, music videos ceased to be novel or cool. I say this with apologies to my best friend who once upon a time had a collection of music videos on VHS he titled "Kick-Ass Videos." And yes, I still make fun of him for that. But really, videos were lame. They were marketing gimmicks conceived by the record label to gain added exposure for their artist-client and his/her/their new single. And for several years the method worked. Music videos were cool, and revolutionary, and even fun to watch. They connected us with performers in a new and occasionally powerful way. Music videos also changed the record industry by promoting style over substance. Once MTV showed up on cable systems nationwide and we could see the singers and bands beyond a pair of crummy binoculars at a concert, artists were judged by the record-buying public equally by appearance and musicianship. The music videos and the network were as much about hype as anything else, and as a teenager I bought into all of it. I actually watched an hour or more of commercials and other inane videos on MTV so I wouldn't miss the world premiere of Michael Jackson's ground-breaking video for "Thriller." I faithfully called in my votes for MTV's Friday Night Video Fights because, you know, Rush needed my help. And I even stayed up late to watch the uncut version of Duran Duran's "Girls on Film" video and its promise of potential nudity as shown on USA network's Night Flight series. MTV had edited the band's risque video featuring provocatively dressed models so that it was absent of anything not suitable for impressionable teenage eyes. I was the original MTV generation, someone who grew up with music videos and the network and its VJs -- a term so quaint I say it now with a mouth full of sarcasm. MTV was the litmus test of what was hip for teens in the 1980s. It was a channel our parents hated and didn't understand, which made it all the better. As I grew older, though, so did the network. MTV was forced to constantly reinvent itself to stay relevant and cool, unlike most networks. The change in direction necessitated a shift from music to other program alternatives. There was the game show Remote Control. There were Monty Python's Flying Circus reruns. And of all this at the expense of music videos. By the early 1990s, videos had fallen so far out of fashion with viewers that MTV had a show largely devoted to mocking them, Beavis and Butt-Head. That series along with the early forerunner to reality shows, The Real World, proved to be seminal programs for the network and its future. It was proof that viewers weren't tuning in to the network to just watch videos. For a decade or more the joke has been that MTV is no longer about the M. But now I feel like the joke's been on us. Music videos were a brief pop culture phenomenon that helped redefine the music industry, but there's certainly nothing special about them now. They are all over the Internet on performers' Web sites and YouTube and online music services such as iTunes. Watch them as much as you want and relive your glory days with MTV. But a network mostly devoted to music videos no longer makes sense. Now a network all about crime, home improvement, food, and military? Well, that's something different. Contact Kirk Baird at [email protected] or 419-724-6734. Follow him on his blog, toledoblade.com/cultureshock, or on Twitter, @bladepopculture. ___ (c)2011 The Blade (Toledo, Ohio) Visit The Blade (Toledo, Ohio) at www.toledoblade.com Distributed by MCT Information Services [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]