This popped up on my Facebook feed today, the 45th anniversary of the launch of MTV. As someone who witnessed the birth of MTV, the coolest thing in its time, I got a kick out of analyzing this.
A few observations:
- Rod Stewart was the first artist to be shown twice (#3 "She Won't Dance with Me" and #15 "Sailing"). He was seen twice more in the first 50 (#26 "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy" and #37 "Passion").
- Other artists featured more than once in the first 50 videos: Pat Benatar, The Who, Cliff Richard, Pretenders, REO Speedwagon, Styx, Split Enz, Iron Maiden, and Lee Ritenour. Stevie Nicks appeared twice, once with Fleetwood Mac and once with Tom Petty.
- The fact that so many artists appear more than once probably says a lot about how few were doing music videos at the time. Soon, it became pretty much standard to do a video for songs being released as singles.
- One artist notably missing is Michael Jackson. In fact, in its early days MTV received a lot of criticism for how few black artists were featured. Ironically, Jackson would add to his legendary musical status with some of the most popular music videos of the era, including "Billie Jean", "Beat It", and of course, "Thriller".
Happy birthday, MTV! You were such a big part of what made life so wonderful in the glorious 1980's.
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