When MTV Actually Mattered
The Cars' music video for "Since You're Gone."
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The Cars' music video for "Since You're Gone."
I remember this song as a kid, my dad played the Cars a lot; I guess he thought it was cool. Underrated song, as Ric Ocasek does a decent 60s-era Dylan impersonation, especially on the line "I can't helllllllp it."
MTV never actually mattered – that's NEVER in case you missed it. It is more vapid now then it ever was (i.e. always has been), and the 80's still suck (with very few exceptions, and the Cars aren't among them) despite what MTV has you believing.
MTV was terrific - and it mattered - for about a year or two. Then it began to suck. In fact, if you weren't in NYC or one of the other major markets, you might have missed the best part altogether. A shame, really, because a lot of great artists were experimenting with the medium before it started sucking. (They were using video long before MTV, of course...MTV just gave them an easy outlet.)
Whatever good content came from MTV was just that: content. The network simply showed artists' work. No one gives a gallery credit for producing the art it displays. It was always the bands that may or may not have been culturally important, not MTV.
