I Want My MTV

I mentioned the other day on my post about Wrapped Around Your Finger, that I was slogging my way through a huge book about the first 10 years of MTV. From its creation, to it's 10th Anniversary in 1991. Obviously, there is more history then that, but what this book highlights is when the network was a Music Network and not a reality TV network.

My takeaway from this book turned out not to be about the videos themselves (the stars of the network), but the drugs and the drugs and the more drugs and the girls and the drugs and the booze and the tits and a$$ and even more drugs and wasted constantly and everyone is doing it. Nothing personal, but this was not what I expected to hear, constant "Frat Party" conversation for almost 600 pages! It pervaded every area of the Network, the executives, the VJ's, the Record Companies, the Artists (duh), the Directors and even the crew were wasted! That, for me, was the final insult. I have worked in production and was crew on the final season of American Bandstand and that was not how my crew acted. We were professionals. :-)

The book is written in little snippets of interviews with people. You are discussing whatever the subject of that particular chapter is and you get two lines from the main players of whatever the subject is. As someone else pointed out in a review, it is lots of "He Said, She Said" and you, the reader, are left to try to figure out what really happened. It was interesting, I am not going to lie, but I find that at the end of this musical road, I am disgusted by what went on in the day and what might still be going on, for all I know.

Very sad, because there were so many hours spent watching those videos and loving everything about MTV.

I am not sure I would recommend this book, but if those videos made your childhood, maybe you might find it of interest.