"A flur­ry of pre­ma­ture obit­u­ar­ies recently blew through the inter­net after the announce­ment that the net­work had shut down in oth­er parts of the world, Europe includ­ed. But even there, some expressed the sen­ti­ment that MTV had already died long before. And indeed, in the U.S., where it orig­i­nal­ly launched, ask­ing who remem­bers when MTV actu­al­ly used to play music videos has been a com­mon lament for decades, aired even by gen­er­a­tions too young to remem­ber those days them­selves."
"The first music video that greets the vis­i­tor is The Bug­gles' "Video Killed the Radio Star," and appro­pri­ate­ly so, since it inau­gur­at­ed MTV itself when it went live on August 1st, 1981. What fol­lows are all the rest of the videos played on that first day, like Phil Collins' "In the Air Tonight," Blondie's "Rap­ture," David Bowie's "Boys Keep Swing­ing," and Kate Bush's "Wuther­ing Heights." (Oth­er, less wide­ly remem­bered entries include no few­er than three songs by Cliff Richard, which speaks to the then-incom­plete for­ma­tion of the kind of pop-musi­cal cul­ture we still asso­ciate with MTV.) The site's oth­er playlists recre­ate oth­er eras and genre-spe­cif­ic pro­grams, from 120 Min­utes to Total Request Live, Head­banger's Ball to Yo! MTV Raps."
MTV still exists in the United States and certain markets for the time being. Premature obituaries spread after announcements that the network had shut down in other parts of the world, including Europe, and some felt MTV had effectively died earlier. MTV Rewind offers a way to relive MTV's music-video era. The first video presented is The Buggles' "Video Killed the Radio Star," followed by other inaugural-day videos such as Phil Collins' "In the Air Tonight," Blondie's "Rapture," David Bowie's "Boys Keep Swinging," and Kate Bush's "Wuthering Heights." The site recreates era- and program-specific playlists and currently holds about 40,000 music videos.
Read at Open Culture
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