Early MTV question

Does anyone remember if these music videos (from Little River Band) were ever played on MTV?

Curiosity (Killed the Cat)
Reminiscing
Lonesome Loser

 

I don't remember any of them, and my family had MTV from the beginning. If their record company thought videos were important, I'm surprised I never saw them, because MTV in the first year or so would play anything (except r&b) that provided them with a tape. There was a novelty group from Albany called Blotto, that had a video shown quite often.

 

The only one I ever saw was Night Owls and that was played frequently.

 

Wasn't "Night Owl" by The Little River Band?
I saw tHAT video on early MTV.

 

I KNEW I wasn't alone...
I'm like, 'Why do I remember THAT song?', and it's because they played SO OFTEN!

 

Help my memory...wasn't "Reminiscing" basically band performance shots, keyed-over occasional images like parked cars, or a moonlit night? If so, I've seen it.

 

I actually remember seeing Blotto more than The Little River Band. Same with Doug and the Slugs.

 

No, then. Definitely don't recall having seen that on early MTV. Well-shot promo, though.
It was one of my personal favorites working Adult Contemporary radio in my first gig.

 

Nope.

 

Not very early MTV. In those days, what they aired was cuts from Time Exposure. I remember seeing Man On Your Mind quite a bit.



Dan

 

yeah... "Night Owls" and "Man on Your Mind" were shown a fair amount in the first year...

 

I wonder how many times a day MTV played Van Halen's Jump video back in 84.

 

I'll tell 'ya!
...TOO MANY TIMES!

 

All I know is I never got tired of this classic

 

All MTV rotation charts can be found here.

This was the first issue that had it in Feb 1983.

https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-Billboard/80s/1983/BB-1983-02-12.pdf

 

This Sunday marks the 40th anniversary of MTV's cable debut (August 1, 1981). What would be your favorite videos from the first day? From the first 25 videos, I'd go with The Who-You Better You Bet (although it seems the audio is speeded up versus the studio recording), Pat Benatar-You Better Run, and The Pretenders-Message of Love and Brass In Pocket.

The list of the first 25 videos and trivia are in a web article I wrote a couple of years ago:
List of First 25 Videos Played on MTV

 

“Mr. Briefcase” by Lee Ritenour

wins the award for "one of these is not like all the others".

 

The Who video is probably my favorite. I also has the distinction of being the first one played a second time.

As far as I can tell, MTV isn't doing anything this Sunday to mark the occasion. At midnight, they will be half way through a Fast & Furious movie.

MTV Classic has "I Want My 80s" at midnight - I wonder if they will show anything from the first day.

 

Good trivia mmars982. It would be nice if "I Want My 80s" on MTV Classic played the first few hours of the MTV debut on Sunday. Since MTV itself hasn't played music videos in years and years, it doesn't look like they would replay the debut again. But, 40 years is still quite an anniversary. BTW, after the first 25 videos, The Who's Don't Let Go The Coat video aired as well as Sister Disco from the Concerts for the People of Kampuchea.

 

Speaking of early MTV, we are just a couple of days away from the 40 year anniversary.

 

And Pete Townshend's Rough Boys was played on the first day too (somewhere after the first 100).

 

I always liked that video. At the end, you even get a bit of Townshend's "windmills", too. Actually, the first time I saw that video was on American Bandstand!

 

Some videos had (ahem) rather 'brief' runs on MTV.
I only saw the video for Dave Davies' "Mean
Disposition" single played one time. Perhaps too
"John Waters-esqe" for the programmers there?

 

that's the one I remember...