Do you remember the first music video that you saw?

[BrazHog]

We didn't have cable for the longest time. I remember borrowing a videotape with some music videos from a friend. Standouts were Walk of Life and Walk Like an Egyptian. There was also some video of a heavy metal band playing inside a B-29, but it didn't make much of an impression.

 

[Weazel]

Slow to get MTV, but this one from 1990 stuck:

 

[Mouth]

I'm pretty sure it was Mexican Radio.



We didn't have cable, but my best friend and next door neighbor had cable. I think it was on MTv at his house, but it could have been on the uhf channel 69 as they had music videos. They played the crap out of Robert Plant, Big Log.

Remember when tv stations would shut down at the end of the day?



I remember the world premier(isn't that what MTv called new video premiers? Seems like it had a signature name) of Thriller. The premiers were big deals.

 

[4pickupguy]

 

[4pickupguy]

I saw the Buggles’ Video Killed The Radio Star when MTV debuted.
Me and 50 zillion others.

I remember Chrissy and I seeing this at band practice at our drummers house. It all seemed so new and exciting, turns out Frank Zappa was right about what videos would do to music. Suddenly, every other artist were super models and the music fell to nothing behind a list of other priorities. Videos had been around forever and “video shows” like Friday Night Videos were popular, but the idea of a 24 /7 channel seemed ludicrous.

 

[Si G X]

Earliest I can remember clearly is Bohemian Rhapsody, the bit with the faces used to freak me out as a kid.

 

[elihu]

What I remember about MTV is that when it started it was fun!

 

[Vibroluxer]

Slow to get MTV, but this one from 1990 stuck:

This song will always remind me of one particular day when I was a Penn State student. I should have been studying but was watching the local cable station where they played music in the background and the news would scroll across the screen one letter at a time.

Anyway, I was reading the news when I saw the name of the girl, with whom I spent the previous evening, was arrested for murdering her infant! Well that got my attention and this song was playing in the background.

Long story short, she was one of those women who was pregnant but no one could tell. She gave birth at home, the baby was breech and was still born. Being young and stupid, she put the remains in the basement freezer. The charges were dropped and life went on.

But that song will always remind of that girl and that day. Elaine.

 

[Jakedog]

Over at a friend’s house. They had cable. It was my first time seeing MTV.

 

[Refugee]

First MTV type video was Pretenders, Brass in Pocket. But first video performance was a PBS broadcast of the Woodstock Movie. By the time I was 13 I had long hair, bell bottoms and several black Jimi Hendrix shirts. My favorite was the Still Reigning, Still Dreaming one. OMG, just found one on Etsy for $120.00!!! Wow!!!!!!

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Yeah, seeing Jimi play the Star Spangled Banner was what got me into guitar.

 

[Toast]

Video Killed The Radio Star by The Buggles was the first official music video I saw. I've disliked practically all music videos since then. I can't stand music video network programming and music video directors as well. So it goes with me.

 

[Vibroluxer]

I remember Pat Benetar saying that back in the early days of MTV, all you needed was a video and you got air time. There simply weren't enough around to fill the playlist.

That would explain some of the terrible music and videos.

 

[Milspec]

"In the air tonight" by Phil Collins would have been the first for me. At least without counting those old Monkey's bits on tv.

Admittedly, I was not much of a MTV watcher back in the day, there was very little music allowed in my house as a kid so it was only while over at a friend's house. That was life in the rural parts of Nebraska back then, a steady diet of AM radio so I knew all the talk shows, classic country, Sinatra, and some polka.

 

[effzee]

First MTV one I saw I'm sure was the Buggles. But the early one I remember best is this, for some weird reason

 

[rand z]

The one posted above ^^^.

I kinda liked it!

imo

 

[bowman]

That’s a good question, and no, I don’t remember the 1st vid I saw. But thinking about it reminds me of how really bad some of those early videos actually were. It was such a new thing that a lot of terrible videos got on the air until real film makers got involved and the standards got better.

 

[ChicknPickn]

In the beginning, when Music TV was about music, I remember visiting the home of someone who had cable. First video I remember was an "old school" vid, actually showing the members of Electric Light Orchestra performing music.

 

[bottlenecker]

 

[Vibroluxer]

"In the air tonight" by Phil Collins would have been the first for me. At least without counting those old Monkey's bits on tv.

Admittedly, I was not much of a MTV watcher back in the day, there was very little music allowed in my house as a kid so it was only while over at a friend's house. That was life in the rural parts of Nebraska back then, a steady diet of AM radio so I knew all the talk shows, classic country, Sinatra, and some polka.

That sounds like Pittsburgh. Around here there is still a Polka show on public access.

 

[Back at it]

An old friend had made a short film, the roll of rock and roll in oral hygiene which was my friend furiously brushing his teeth in his family’s bathroom, his guitarist was sitting with his pants down on the toilet and his drummer was in the shower

it was 2 minutes of foam with a rock soundtrack….

the revelance was he knew the people that were starting up mtv and they didn’t have enough content to go 24/7 so he got his short on mtv that first weekend before the actual launch