The Greatest Channel You’re Not Watching
The music video for Pat Benatar’s “Love is a Battlefield” sets up a familiar pop dilemma: a smalltown girl with artistic dreams is crushed by the mean city. But here, it’s worse, because the only opportunity Pat finds to “perform” is as a sex worker in a skeevie club.
Then Pat and her escort buddies ram the fear of god into their Miami-Vice-era pimp and escape thanks to nothing but the power of … choreographed dance.
It is the epitome of the miracle that was pre-reality-television MTV.
Over and over, music videos showed us that if our feelings and drive were big enough, we could overcome anything. Or fall in love. Or become a star. Or reveal our honest selves. Or get rich. Or revenge. Or all the laughs. We, on the screen’s other side, could do any of it, even if we came in armed with nothing but fingerless gloves and beat-timed shoulder jabs, like Pat.
It’s naively hopeful. But, also, don’t we want it to be true? And while pop music had sounded this message for decades, being able to see it play out in a mini movie made a whole generation of kids believe in it even more deeply. At least I think so.
Now we kids are quite a bit older. Like, is-the-human-body-supposed-to-make-that-sound older. Also, like, you-could-be-doing-something-good-for-your-health-and-friendships-but-of-course-you’re-probably-too-busy older.
Which means you are not watching MTV Classic.
To that, I say you are starving yourself of the 3-4 minute, breakdown-averting, superior-to-some-kinds-of-candy, musical-cinematic-joy-doses that are offered up hour after hour, day after, all from the stretches of years that made you, you.
And I believe you are doing it because you want me to die.
Before we get into why, or even to my all-time favorite music video (totally nonsensical that it is), let us have another example. Please, step away from this rant for a moment to view “I Believe in a Thing Called Love,” by The Darkness.
Don’t you feel a bit of happiness you didn’t 3:52 ago? Or however long you made it?
You certainly feel better that that one guy in the band who heard the concept and said, “Nope. Fuck that. Not doing glam. Does Five Finger Death Punch have an opening?”
If nothing else, did it make you say, “Oh, that reminds me of that one crazy music video, which is __________” (Post it on my Instagram, if you want, cause I’m curious and I’m always looking for new stuff.)
And, as if it might be the original algorithm of our lifetimes, that one video will lead you to another one, then another. You can spend hours on this trip. You can do it with friends. For even more fun, do it at a family holiday. Don’t tell anyone; just grab the smart TV remote and start with Gillette’s “Short, Short Man.” Enjoy the follow-on conversation with your nephew and his parents!
MTV Classic serves up these memory spikes around the clock. They come from the 1980s, 90s, 00s, and 10’s (?). You can pick your flavor! I Want My 80s. Rock Block. House of Pop. 90s Nation. Total Request Playlist. YO! Hip Hop Mix. 120 Minutes. Metal Mayhem. Or the ultimate shuffle, Classic Videos.
But you aren’t watching. You just aren’t.
How do I know?
Because MTV Classic is consistently one of the lowest-rated channels on cable. In 2019, the last time anyone bothered to check, I guess, it ranked 111th of 115, just two places ahead of something called “Newsy.” (Newsy no longer exists, at least not under that amazing first draft=final draft name.) And before you say, “Well, you know, social media …” please have a look at MTV Classic’s official Instagram account. It has 42k followers. (Including me!) However, it might be bad sign that the most recent post was in 2014. And MTV Classic seems to get some play on TikTok, but TikTok confounds me in ways that make me continue to never, ever download the app. That last point is probably why I am in the hardcore demographic for MTV Classic—but you could be too.
In 2017, the channel had only 14,000 viewers a night. I was one of those 14,000 viewers, for sure. MTV Classic helped me drift into sleep many, many a night, or kept me company when sleep sure as shit wasn’t in the cards.
But why are you not watching? Help me understand?
How would a quick roll of George Michael’s “Freedom 90” not meet some urge for you, as it must be the most gorgeous video ever filmed. (You’ll see.)
Okay, okay, you slowly-decaying, grumbling, Boomer Jr., you say, why not just cue up what you want on YouTube when you want it? You do know you can make your own lists, don’t you? Do you even understand that you are constantly linking to YouTube and not MTV in this post?
Hahaha! I DO know.
It’s that MTV Classic isn’t YouTube (though it has a YouTube channel), or Spotify, or Pandora, or anything similar. And that’s the point.
I love throwing on MTV Classic in the morning because I DON’T know what video is coming up next. It’s that old-school excitement of listening to a killer radio station. I know it will play something I like, whether new or known, but I’ll just have to catch it when it happens. And the surprise when you get a run of more than one good song in a row … It can make you believe in luck. Or something slightly more divine.
But you’re savvy. Your kids teach you things about Snapchat. You would totally, totally remember, all on your own, that a young Keanu Reeves co-starred in a Rebel Without a Cause-inspired Paula Abdul video, “Rush Rush.” Yes, you’d absolutely call this up on a tough day and enjoy the sweet nostalgia of the Internet’s Boyfriend always being the best kind of boyfriend even without the gentle nudge of MTV Classic.
Speaking of your kids, or just your friends from younger generations, if you’re lucky enough to have them, I can tell you there are few things after 40 more awesome than showing someone a music video they didn’t know existed but that will blow their mind. Show ‘em Johnny Cash’s cover of “Hurt.” Want to talk about mental health and the long-term damage of living with constant anxiety? We didn’t always call it that in the 90s, be we thought about it and tried to tell others, like in Geto Boys’ “Mind Playing Tricks on Me.” And like every other American generation, we struggled with faith and family and the terrors that can arise when they go wrong, a horror we wanted to primal scream about, like in Madonna’s “Oh Father.” Find a Friday night when you were going to stay inside anyways, break out the age-appropriate mind-altering substances, from sugar to whiskey, and take them on a journey. Let them take the reins too. What a way to learn about a person: through whatever it is they decide to throw on.
But this a horror writer’s website. So, what’s the tie-in? (Other than that Madonna video. Fuck, that is heavy if you really think about it.) How about this? I sometimes write about, or at least dwell on, the kinds of fear and pain that don’t immediately come to mind during a slasher or exorcism pic. For example, the fear that the past really will be better than the future, and that there might not be anything you can do about it. Or the agony of a loved one who’s gone forever, even if not because of death, but because of the death—the complete, absolute, final death—of a beloved relationship. And sometimes it’s the combination of them and a lot more, like the brutality of a life and promise cut short. With that in mind, I can’t help but think of 2Pac’s mesmerizing, art-house video for “Do For Love,”which doesn’t show the artist because he was already dead.
And then there’s creation. And inspiration. Every video was dreamed up by someone or someones who believed in it, sweat to make it real, put it out there at the risk of ridicule, and lived with it and its impacts long after the initial passion/feelings/POV faded. (Or they just wanted to make some dollars. And if it was shit, they made less dollars the next time. = Motivation.) Each has something to say. That’s true even for the WTF ones. (Take another break, please, and figure out for me how the Nietzsche-inspired weirdo behind Will to Power had a hit with this cringey version of “Baby I Love Your Way/Freebird Medley”? It was a number #1 song! How? How?). Anyway, each one is someone’s darling, just like novels and short stories are, from the NYT-bestsellers to small presses and indie publishing. I try to keep that in mind whenever I’m watching MTV Classic and something makes me ask, “How did this get made?” That’s true even when I come across something like Jermaine Dupri and Mariah Carey’s collab “Sweetheart.” Someone bled, figuratively, for whatever makes it to your screen, whether via MTV Classic or Kindle. (Though in the case of “Sweetheart,” my empathy runs out very, very quickly.)
So, as someone who occasionally creates things, but always needs a heavy diet of music and those delicious appetizers of the film world—music videos—to fuel my attempts to be a better person than I was yesterday, I beg of you, please do one thing:
WATCH MTV CLASSIC!
OR THEY’RE GOING TO CANCEL IT!
THEY’LL TAKE IT AWAY FROM ME! WITHOUT IT I DON’T KNOW HOW I’LL HANDLE THE VOICES! THERE ARE SO MANY OF THEM AND SOMETIMES THEY START TO MAKE SENSE, LIKE WHEN THEY SAY …
Ahem.
Please take a moment to enjoy a master of the music video, David Bowie, and his wholly unique offering, “Ashes to Ashes.”
Now that we’re all back to some dope-lush serenity, please, if you would, check out MTV Classic.
You might even see my favorite video of all time.
Thank you for your attention. You’ve been so wonderfully kind. Just super swell.
MTV Classic is channel 143/1614 on Comcast/Xfinity.
MR
P.S. Is there hope for the future? Are new, mind-popping videos still being made? Have a peek at Fontaines D.C.’s “Starburster” (2024). And I didn’t even have time to introduce you to MTV Live, which is “used for video premieres and spotlight of new videos.” 😊