If you’re anything like this Gen-Xer, your introduction to music by the likes of Michael Jackson, Van Halen, Bananarama, The Cars, The Go-Gos, ABC, Madonna, Tears For Fears, The Clash, The Human League and so many others during your formative years came by way of MTV. We learned of the music, the clothes, the hair and music news during the golden age of the music video. Remember the VJs??? Mark Goodman, Nina Blackwood, Alan Hunter, J.J. Jackson and Martha Quinn, who was in the J. Geils Band’s “Centerfold” video.
I have the hilarious memory of actually going to the MTV concert when it came to Cleveland. It was hosted by Club MTV’s Downtown Julie Brown (wabba wabba wabba). Milli Vanilli performed “live.” If I really tried to recall all my MTV memories, I’d blow a gasket.
It’s the holiday season, and author Craig Marks has given us Gen-Xers a gift: a new book called I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution (Penguin). Coming in at 608 pages, the book is sure to be an absolute joyride. According to Kurt Andersen, host of Studio 360:
“Before Google and before Apple, MTV was the one post-60s American enterprise that really transformed the culture. And now we have this definitive, riveting, revealing, amazingly well-reported insiders’ account of how an improbable group of visionaries made it up as they went along. You want I Want My MTV.”
Listen to a conversation from Studio 360 between Kurt Andersen and author Craig Marks here:
If you’re on mobile, LISTEN HERE.
Links:
Buy I Want My MTV from Barnes & Noble
Download I Want My MTV for iPad or iPhone from iTunes
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