I loved the video for Sledgehammer. I was 12 years old the summer it came out. We didn’t have cable TV then, but I’d turn on MTV anywhere I could, hoping for a glimpse of it. My dad used to take my sister and me on roadtrips all over the country and I vividly remember the rare times we got to stay in a motel (they had to have a swimming pool with a diving board), turning on MTV, and catching that Sledgehammer video a few times every hour. It was only years later, after becoming a Wallace and Gromit fan, that I learned that — of course! — Aardman had done the animation for Sledgehammer.
A little-known Italian design & architecture group called the Memphis Group was responsible for the dominant aesthetic of the 80s.
Memphis Design movement dominated the ’80s with their crazy patterns and vibrant colors. Many designers and architects from all around the world contributed to the movement in order to escape from the strict rules of modernism. Although their designs didn’t end up in people’s homes, they inspired many designers working in different mediums. After their first show in Milan in 1981, everything from fashion to music videos became influenced by their visual vocabulary.
Or were they? What’s interesting, in terms of the timeline of influence, is that MTV debuted before that September 1981 show in Milan. Here’s the first MTV broadcast in August 1981, featuring the brightly colored logo:
I got word that Pepsi had bought the first spot in the 1984 Grammy telecast and they were gonna play a new Michael Jackson Pepsi ad. I’m like, “Michael Jackson belongs to MTV, not the Grammys.” I wasn’t gonna let it happen. So I called Roger Enrico, the head of Pepsi, and said, “Roger, I’ve got a major problem. This Pepsi Michael Jackson spot that’s gonna run in three weeks on the Grammys? That should run on MTV first.”
“Well, Garland, I’ve already made a deal with the Grammys.” I go, “Wait a minute. You know how we do world premieres of videos. What if I world premiere the commercial? And what if I give you 24 promos a day for two weeks leading up to it? Would that interest you?”
He goes, “How much do you want for this?” I said, “Nothing.” He goes, “What? You’re telling me you would promote a commercial 24 times a day for two weeks before playing it? Garland, I like your style. Done.” So it played for the first time on MTV.
In 1996, Nick Cave was nominated by MTV for Best Male Artist. This was an award he was not interested in winning, so he wrote MTV a letter. “I am in competition with no-one.” Click through to read the sincere thanks in the first paragraph, and the loony bin muse protection in the third.
The whole thing is a perfect snapshot of everything to love and hate about the 1980s: the art bull market, Manhattan, fashion’s hardworking LGBT backbone, and the nature of celebrity in the dawn of the fractured and streaming media world we live in now.
The link above has pointers to downloads of footage from three shows. (via fimoculous)
Watch the first hour ever broadcast on MTV. Of course, you have to wade through MTV’s crappy interface and, oops, you can’t look at it on a Mac because “Microsoft’s Windows Media Player Plug-in for Macintosh does not support Windows DRM”. Thanks, assholes. Hopefully this will show up on YouTube soon, DRM or no. (via girlhacker)
What’s the most offensive show on television? MTV’s My Super Sweet 16. “Marissa created an exclusive guest list and announced it at school. If you weren’t on the list, well, sorry. When a few kids begged to get an invitation, she made them have a ‘dance-off’ in front of her. Watching her get off on that was like watching the Emperor zap Luke Skywalker with those fingertip lightning bolts in Return Of The Jedi.”
Stay Connected