On This Day in 1981

It’s hard to believe, but in an age before The Hills, My Super Sweet 16, and even Cribs, MTV used to show nothing but music videos. Nearly three decades on and the iconic channel has changed significantly––but its revolutionary impact cannot be underestimated. That making a video to accompany a song is now firmly entrenched in our music-culture psyche demonstrates the remarkable prescience of the channel’s original approach. On August 1, 1981, when MTV launched, there weren’t many videos to play—five of the first 61 shown were the work of Rod Stewart—and there was a heavy reliance on crude promotional material and concert clips. The concept was so fresh that technology was struggling to catch up, and the channel’s presenters––“VJs”––initially had to insert videos themselves via a player that would produce a few seconds of blank screen before flickering to life. But soon magazines were routinely referring to children of the 80s as the “MTV generation.” The advent of the MTV Video Music Awards in 1984—a star-studded annual event—helped to elevate the music video to the status of art form, a concept later developed by genius promo-directors such as Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry and Chris Cunningham. By the 90s the channel was moving away from videos and towards original programming, as well as diversifying with new stations such as MTV UK & Ireland, MTV Classic and VH1. The Unplugged series briefly became a bellwether for folksy early-decade tastefulness, while the charmingly postmodern Beavis and Butthead showed a pair of vacant Gen X-ers mindlessly snickering at videos. But the channel was still capable of breaking pop stars on the back of one outstanding video, with Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera taking the fast track trodden by Madonna and Cindy Lauper. Given the increasing saturation of the market, it’s not surprising that in the 00s the station began cannily working to capture as big a chunk of the tween to mid-20s demographic as possible via programs like swearathon The Osbournes and the frat-ready Jackass and Punk’d. Perhaps this weekend MTV will mark its birthday by dusting down one of those Rod Stewart videos from launch day? We've gone for one of the channel's debut promos (converted from Betamax), originally aired in the first five minutes of its first broadcast.