Last night, MTV officially said goodbye to "Total Request Live" - formerly one of its most popular programs - and teens everywhere are left to cope with the lack of an opportunity to scream, jump up and down, and wave posters on national television.
Yet, while many people will miss TRL, I'm not one of them, and not just because I have a job that precludes me from watching any sort of daytime television.
TRL was the beginning of the end of MTV as far as I'm concerned. As mentioned before, I'm no fan of the current MTV and often hark back to the days of yore when I could turn it on, enjoy the music, and occasionally glance up to catch a visual.
Sure, MTV had other programs interspersed between music videos, but they had clear themes. TRL tried to give kids too much stuff (It's a talk show! It's a countdown show! It's a belly dancing show!). Still, it became popular because the hyper-scheduled TV program was the only sort of "variety" show aimed at teens, and kids love something they can claim as their own.
But MTV shouldn't have been so distracted by one show's success that it started making all its programming that way. It should have remembered that the generation from the 80's and early 90's that made the network what it was, basically a radio you could see.
You may be one of those people who longed to be screaming in the audience the day "Puffy" changed his name to "Diddy," but it doesn't matter now. TRL is gone now, and MTV still has crappy programming, and I've decided to move on, so you should too.
Just case you want to dwell, though, here's another reason to say, "Good riddance!" to TRL: it launched the career of Carson Daly.
See...NOW, you're with me.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Good Riddance, TRL
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4 comments:
While I am not the best judge (admitting that I *do* enjoy some non-music MTV programming, ahem, The Hills, ahem, Making the Band), I think it is a little harsh to hate MTV because they stopped playing music videos 24/7. They responded to the requests of their audience and gave em what they want. (Sing it with me now, I Wannnna my MTV) Regardless though, they have brought back EVERY music video they've ever played and its avilable - gasp - 24/7 on the wonderful world wide web. http://www.mtvmusic.com/ So, at least they get an A for effort?
I don't know how you posted about TRL without bringing up Josie and the Pussycats! A great, if poorly marketed, post-modern extravaganza. At one point, Tara Reid believes she's going to be on TRL. Instead, she's lead to a fake studio where Carson Daly tries to kill her. During their fight, Carson falls for Tara (meanwhile the "actors" were dating in real life) and they get to know each other between baseball bat swings at each others' heads. Tara is not fooled and ends up showing Carson who wears the pants in that relationship.
Classic.
RE: laura v.
Good point, but MTV took it overboard when TRL became so popular.
RE: will i.
I'm both awed and scared by your trivial knowledge. Mostly awed.
No one expects MTV to play videos 24/7, but 5/7 would be nice. Maybe even 12/7. Possibly sometime other than 4 am so that music fans who actually sleep at night can still enjoy them. And I love how they came out with MTV2 so they could play videos 24/7 and stopped playing videos on it, too.
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