When First I Came to MTV

I'm not one for '80s nostalgia. And it's been decades since I actually sat down and watched anything on MTV. (I am aware that there's very little music on the Music Network anymore.)

But back in 1982 or '83, when I first got cable t.v., MTV was brand new and for awhile there I was addicted. I don't know how many hours I spent watching all those weird old videos with my daughter, who was just a toddler then. (The Greg Kihn video below used to scare the crap out of her!)

Most this music seems strange to me nowdays -- all those horrible synths and drum machines. Still, there's something blissfully dumb about that sound that brings back happy memories. I guess that is nostalgia.

I'm not sure what set me off on looking up all those old videos. Maybe it was hearing "White Wedding" on the radio a couple of nights ago. Maybe it was hearing The Floors do Kihn's "The Break Up Song" at Corazon Saturday night. Maybe I was blinded by science and didn't even know it.

Who knows, who cares? Here's my Top 10 Favorite MTV videos of the early '80s.

NOTE from October 16, 2025:

I hadn't visited this post since who knows how long and probably wouldn't have come here today, except for the recent news that MTV's various music channels are going off the air in the United Kingdom and much of Europe. No official death knell for its U.S. presence, but I wouldn't bet much on its future here.

In the original text of this post above I said "it's been decades since I actually sat down and watched anything on MTV. " That holds true 14 years later.

As often happens with YouTube videos, most of the ones I originally posted here in 2011 were gone by the time I looked today. I've made an effort to restore those.

 

Let's start with Billy Idol, who never again seemed nearly as sinister:



Without MTV, I might not have discovered Wall of Voodoo:

One-hit wonder Thomas Dolby's one hit might just be the classic 80s pop song. I always thought John Lennon would have gotten a kick out of this one:



Men Without Hats knew something about Pagan joy:



The special effects in Greg Kihn's "Jeopardy" video now seem pretty amateurish. Of course, I'm not three years old like my daughter was when she first saw it:



The Clash's "Rock the Casbah" was a powerful and uplifting little fable about a popular rock 'n' roll uprising in some unnamed fundamentalist Islamic kingdom: 

David Byrne was Geekus Maximus in "Once in a Lifetime":

The J. Geils Bands "Centerfold" was as catchy as it was sexy:

Think about all the poor souls who never would have known about the joys of rockabilly had it not been for The Stray Cats:

And finally, here's the one that launched the glorious disaster that was MTV. Ladies and gentlemen, The Buggles!