This course, part 2 of a 2-course sequence, examines the history of rock, primarily as it unfolded in the United States, from the early 1970s to the early 1990s. This course covers the music of Led Zeppelin, the Allman Brothers, Carole King, Bob Marley, the Sex Pistols, Donna Summer, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Prince, Metallica, Run-DMC, and Nirvana, and many more artists, with an emphasis both on cultural context and on the music itself. We will also explore how developments in the music business and in technology helped shape the ways in which styles developed. Emerging out of the experimental and ambitious years of late-60s psychedelia, rock splintered into a variety of styles in the 1970s as the music business continued to expand. By the end of the decade, punk and disco had challenged the excesses of the hippie aesthetic, as rock became more commercially streamlined and radio friendly. The emergence and rise of MTV transformed pop music and propelled the careers of Michael jackson and Madonna, while heavy metal and hip hop dominated the late 1980s. Nirvana leads alt-rock's return to simplicity in the early 1990s.
The Rise of MTV Part Two
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History of Rock, Part Two
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I Want My MTV (1980-89)
MTV emerges from a developing cable television industry. Michael Jackson and Thriller. The rise of Madonna, Prince, and Janet Jackson. Does MTV make music more visual than aural? Mainstream rockers continue thrive. [Read Chapter 11 and work through listening guides and dedicated video.]
Conoce a los instructores
John CovachProfessor of Music and Director
Institute for Popular Music
We continue our discussion of MTV and it's rise by taking a look at what the
initial audience was for MTV. MTV determined that their audience was
going to be mostly Middle class, Midwestern white kids.
it's because this is where they knew they had cable access, where they had, they
were like any kind of radio station, they kind of understood the opportunities of
the demographic that was available to them.
And that's the demographic early on that was available to them.
So if you think, for example, of the movie Wayne's World.
And, and what that whole sort of cultural set of values in music and all of that.
You get a pretty good idea of what the early cable.
TV audience was, so you got lots of mainstream rock, with emphasis on the
kind of aggressive, guitar-based kinds of groups, almost no black music of any
kind. And not too much music that was that was
sort of highly fashionable, or challenged sort of, you know male you know,
traditional heterosexual male values very much.
I mean it was, pretty much, a traditional mainstream white rock environment where a
group like Foreigner or The Cars or Boston would be very comfortable.
So, what starts to happen with MTV is that Michael Jackson makes a video for
Billie Jean. Now, we'll come to a talk about Michael
Jackson a little bit later but, for now the importance is this video of Billie
Jean. The video for Billie Jean, MTV did not
want to play this video. MTV would argue that they knew their
demographic and they knew that most of their demographic or they thought they
knew that most of their demographic would not be interested in music by Michael
Jackson and in most black artists. And to a certain extent, there's a basis
in fact because we talked about it in the previous lectures last week and before.
This, the division in the 70s, between black rock, black pop and white rock
through the decade. So, they were really going, basing it on,
on market trends and the way people were buying records and the way radio stations
were formatted. But CBS Records and especially their,
their, their CEO Walter Yetnikoff, really wanted the Michael Jackson video on MTV.
Because who would be better to take advantage of the video possibilities of
MTV than Michael Jackson? A fantastic and very engaging dancer.
And so the story goes, and it's contested by others, that Walter Yetnikoff pounded
the table and said, if you don't play this video by Michael Jackson, this Billy
Jean video, I will pull every video by every one of my artists.
And of course, CBS was, of course, a big label, this was a time when MTV was
really hurting for good videos. And so, they relented and put the Michael
Jackson video, Billy Jean, on the air. Now, again, this is a story that is
contested so take that into account. A lot of people have got stories to tell.
You'll find that all through the history of rock music when people are telling
stories of themselves and the business. Never the less, there was a controversy
there, artists have said. That they felt like MTV did not want to
play black artists because there was a kind of racist, or certainly a racial
motivation behind it all, and there were artists who have stories to tell about
that. Nevertheless, Billie Jean was played.
It was aired, first aired on March 10, 1983.
And it became such a popular video, people felt like they had to see the
Billie Jean video on MTV, that people went out and got cable, just so they
could get MTV, so they could see the Michael Jackson Billie Jean video.
In many ways, you could say that the popularity of Michael Jackson.
And the videos he produced, and some of the artists, other artists that we'll
talk about who were producing videos that you could see on MTV.
that, the popularity of those artists actually pulled MTV up.
Because of course, you could hear Billy Jean on the radio But to see the video.
To see Michael Jackson doing everything that he did in, in terms of his dance and
a, nobody had really ever seen anything quite like that before.
And so in many ways, this Billie Jean video, even though MTV sort of went to
viewing and it went into programming up, kicking and screaming ended up being what
the best thing that ever happened to MTV. Lets talk a little bit now as we talk
about the growth of MTV over the course of the, a decade, we'll come back to this
at the end of this series of lectures talk a little bit about the pros and cons
associated with the rise of MTV. Because there has been a lot of debate
and a lot of, certainly a lot of controversy during the day, with
musicians and critics about MTV as it, as it started to gain dominance, as it
started to really challenge radio as a venue for being able to support, to
support, the continuing career of established artists and break new artists
as this, they started to get that power, people started arguing, or at least
debating the value of MTV. On the plus side, a lot of people would
say that MTV opened up new approaches to music and video, at least eventually.
after they got past the just sort of playing the record.
And just sort of flopping and dancing around with no particular reason to it.
People starting thinking, well if we could do something with a video part of
it that would make it interesting. That would tell a story on it's own.
Some of the first stories had nothing to do with the stories the lyrics were
telling, that was a little bit disconcerting.
But others really started to grab this idea of making the video and the music a
kind of integrated thing that became a, sort of, video experience that was better
in many ways. some people would say, than just hearing
the music by itself. and so, music becomes a kind of
multimedia experience and it isn't totally it is in some ways keeping with
the history of rock music. After all, images on album covers had
always played a role in understanding the music.
We talked about that when we talked about music of the 70s going all the way back
to Sgt Pepper's and that album cover and before.
For and the idea of using images on stage shows.
I mean, think about Pink Floyd, you know, and the flying pigs, and the crashing
airplanes, and the various kinds of images and things that had been used and
live shows. Alice Cooper, Kiss, all of those kind of
things, to put, to make part of the music visual, so that you had to see something
in order to see something in order to understand it.
It's not new with MTV, it's just new that these videos are available on a cable TV
and you can see them 24/7. the knock against MTV is that having the
videos available in that way makes your interpretation and your understanding of
the music too literal. One of the great things these people
would say, about music, is that without, without everything being stated so
literally, in this case they would be thinking visually, without it being
stated so literally it leaves the listener's imagination open to create a
meaning in the music that's all their own, that's individual.
And when you have that laid out for you, literally in front of you in a video, it
sort of shuts that down. They're sort of giving you a
visualization of the music itself, and that's the one that is seen as
authoritative, and whatever one you may develop in your head Is somehow secondary
or just your own personal thing. And so the idea is that MTV sort of,
shuts down that imagining. The other, would be, that because these
videos are visual, they tend to prefer people who are.
Photogenic, good looking, look, you know, look, look good to the camera right?
And so, what that means is that to a certain extent success could be
dependent, on, how good somebody looks as opposed to.
How good they sound, and the, the criticism that MTV videos were too
dependent on looks and image and not dependent on enough on the music, that
you know, this, this was the kind of music that if you listened to the music
by itself, it seemed very boring but if you know, attractive people were on the
video, all of a sudden it was much more interesting.
the question would be is that true? And secondly if it's true, what's wrong
with that? What's the problem?
Anyway, that's, that would be the criticisms that were leveled at it.
So, let's now talk about what the spread of MTV how it became clear that MTV could
challenge radio in breaking new artists and promoting established ones.
What we want to do is we want to look at the artists that not only rose to fame,
With, with the help of MTV and with, with it, with the coverage that it eventually
was able to provide. But also how MTV helped support the
careers of established artists and even mainstream artists who might otherwise
have, have, have, have, have not particularly needed extra bolstering had
there not been an MTV. So, let's turn to the next video.
to the music of Michael Jackson and Madonna, two stars that really helped
define the early years of MTV.
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