something that i've wondered about often, which came up again during
the mj tribute, was that it's said very often that before mj's video
got heavy rotation on mtv, videos by black artists were not shown on
channels like mtv.

ok, so far i can follow.

but if you look at youtube, or your own dvd collection, it's obvious
that there's a gazillion cool vids out there from way before jackson
got onto mtv.

which leads you to the rather sad conclusion that most of those clips
by the jacksons which we all know by heart in this day and age and
which were recorded well before michaels first vid on mtv, were never
shown on mtv at it's beginning?

i mean, those clips are musical history, then as much as they are now.
how could stuff like that simply be ignored and refused? wtf?

even prince had several videos before his first video was finally put
into rotation on mtv.

so were there different music channels at that time? i mean, i always
thought mtv was the first and for a long time only video channel, no?

but there are probably as many videos from before mtv's launch then
there are videos from since it's launch. so somebody was playing them.
and if there were like weekly music shows on stations, that would play
like an hour of music, would THEY play black and white alike? or would
they also segregate?

if you're old enoug to remember (not trying to offend anyone, lol) do
you remember what you thought about that kinda seperatist bs?

i mean, i'm sure black and white artists alike had fans of all colors
since if you like a song, you like a song. if you think someone is a
great talent with writing skills or a beautiful voice you want to buy
their record.

it's just hard to conceive that in such a recent past there were such
large groups of people who obviously wouldn't.

or did they? i mean, it seems strange to me that simply by showing the
videos of a still select few, like michael or prince, public oppinion
would have swayed that quick and drastic.

isn't it more likely that most of the music buying/loving public was
already embracing artists whatever color or sex etc and the channels
or corporations like mtv were the true racists in the equation that
pushed black people's videos back so long until finally they found
that they couldn't any longer?


[Edited 7/9/09 5:42am]

The Jackson videos you're thinking of were all released before MTV started. MTV only started in 1981, so to get a clearer idea of what videos they were snubbing you'd have to look at black videos that came out between 1981 and early 1983 when they first showed "Billie Jean".

I've actually heard though that Eddie Grant's "Electric Avenue" was actually shown on MTV before "Billie Jean". Don't know if that's true or not, but it should be looked into.

midnightmover said:

so they didn't play any older videos at all? i mean, how did they fill up
their week? would they play the same set of videos over and over again?

If anyone remembers BET before it became a piece of shit. They use to show videos on a daily basis. Before MTV you would see videos

IstenSzek said:

Hell yeah, they played the same set of videos over and over again.

Referring to your main point though, I think they were reflecting the audience to a greater degree than you think. Or at least the white male adolescent audience. Corporations like that do not exist in a vacuum.

midnightmover said:

you're right. it's just hard to believe if you've grown up in later times
and in an environment where no prejudices were handed down to you.

i hear and read stuff all the time that i know is true, but it's just hard
to wrap you mind around it. that people actually thought that way or had
such idiotic prejudices or such intolerance.

which made me think, well perhaps hope, that in this particular case it'd
have been more a case of corporate influence instead of corporate and the
demographic going kinda hand in hand.

but thinking it through a bit better i realise how naive that sounds cuz
a lot of the same ignorance is still around today.

..
[Edited 7/9/09 6:31am]

Sometime around 73-74 radio stations really started getting into formats so different genres of music were no longer mixed on the same station.

MTV came along and did the same thing radio did. So you had MTV playing pop and rock music and BET playing RnB groups.


It is not the people who come up with this stuff it is the corporations but things are changing as society becomes dominated by people of mixed race.

I always liked all kinds of music but to this day I am not a big fan of MTV. Just think of all the RnB acts who could have a exposure to a whole new audience if MTV had played their videos prior to MJ or Prince. Even BET would put something on by a white artist if the music fit the RnB mold.
-----

IstenSzek said:

Do I remember? Yeah, clearly. How could they do it? lol Racism, my dude. What was it like? Like everything else, you just lived w/ it. The only Black led revolution in the 80s was Ps band. And The only Black vid MTV used to play was Musical Youth doing Pass the Dutchie cuz they were euro/international.

BET came out in 1980 nationally.
MTV came out only a year later.

BET didn't have veejays until Donnie Simpson and "Video Soul" in 1982 (the original host of the show was nothing I heard).

JonnyApplesauce said:

Musical Youth was 1982. Does that mean Mike wasn't the first black act on MTV?

midnightmover said:

Yeah that's what it means.

The first time I saw a music video period was in the late 1970s on "The Midnight Special". I remember seeing Rod Stewart "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy", The Jacksons "Blame It On The Boogie", and Ambrosia "How Much I Feel". In those days, they were called "Promotional Videos".

The first time I saw black music videos was around 1980. Every Saturday, I would watch "Casey Kasem's Top 10" on WGN. Each week, he would count down the top 10 songs on the Billboard Charts for pop, soul, and country. He would air one music video (promotional video as it was called back then) for each genre each week. That's the first time I saw Prince's "Controversy" video. If I'm not mistaken, I think I remember seeing a video for "Let's Work" also. Casy was the first person that I heard Prince's real name. Casey just said "his real name is Roger Nelson". I didn't find out till years later that Prince was actually his real first name.

vainandy said:

wow, that's so cool.

I just hope I'm remembering correctly and not mistaking it for the "Controversy" video. If I remember correctly, "Let's Work" was filmed with the same church setting as "Controversy" and "Sexuality". That's been a lot of years though and I've never heard anyone else mention seeing a video of "Let's Work".
.
.
.
[Edited 7/10/09 9:02am]

vainandy said:

I would love if you were right about that, but I don't think there was a video filmed for that song.

vainandy said:

I also remember USA Network's show Night Flight around the early 80's they would show Prince video's often.

I always thought the MJ First wasn't really a first but more of a break through. After all, what about the Pointer Sisters and Donna Summer who were releasing hits before "Billie Jean" with videos?

Timmy84 said:

the Capitan

VinnyM27 said:

As first, I think they mean first to be in regular rotation, which means they showed it what, once every hour? I heard there were a few before, but probably were seen maybe once every two week, probably at around 2 AM.

midnightmover said:

I saw some of the playlist from that time, I think it was Eddie Grant, and then Michael

Michael was the first black artist to be put in regular rotation on the network I believe...

Sounds to me like the story about Mike breaking the colour bar is a myth.

The situation you had in the early 80s was that there was the whole anti-disco backlash, but somehow it became White = Rock, Black = Disco. That's why groups like Chic couldn't get airplay anymore but White acts that were heavily influenced by them like Duran Duran were everywhere. MTV pretty much followed that formula. They would play some international Black acts like Peter Tosh and Musical Youth, but shied away from popular American R&B acts. So no, MJ wasn't the first Black artist on MTV, but he was the first popular American R&B artist to get a major push from them and he was the one that caused MTV to change their policy to allow popular American R&B acts to get heavy airplay.

Black videos before then including the pre-MTV era were shown on various syndicated video shows like Hit City or New York Hot Tracks, the America's Top 10 tv show (where Casey Kasem would pick a song from each chart, including the R&B chart, to play the video) and shows like Midnight Special which would show music videos in addition to in studio performances and of course there was BET.

midnightmover said:

A myth and lazy reporting. It just easier to say "first ever" rather than "first in regular rotation". I don't know that MJ and his people (Sony) pumped that up so much but it probably got confused with the truth.