Welcome to Listening Habits, a column where I share the music I’ve been fixated on recently.
The tech revolution’s attempted takeover of pop culture is on shaky ground. Streaming and social media consumed industries, namely media, television, music, and film, and in the rush to capitalize on a new frontier of wealth, it destroyed many things that came before: physical media, cable TV, radio, and movie theaters. If you paid enough, your phone could do it all. And yet it seems to me that the people still yearn for an escape, but with few options available, they have no way to articulate it.
The idea entered my mind a few months back when I observed some online consternation about whether younger generations knew how to find new music. Outside of algorithmic playlists on streaming services, young people tend to discover songs and artists through TikTok. This led to the requisite handwringing about kids today and their incuriosity or whatever else, but to me it made perfect sense. I was among the last generation to have a prevalence of magazines, record stores, and, importantly, television to at least formulate my early tastes. If you liked a band or song on TV, you could go to a store clerk, magazine, or cousin with access to Kazaa for a whole connective tissue of other artists you might similarly enjoy. Streaming playlists are meant to fill this role, but they feel corporate and strict. YouTube can help, especially in certain artists’ comment sections, but it’s a harder deal. What the kids really need is their MTV back.
Let’s first acknowledge that when I say MTV, it’s shorthand for a type of channel that includes BET and VH1. It’s just easier to talk about this through the biggest tent. When I grew up, MTV was ground central for youth culture, for better and for worse. I won’t pretend it was perfect—it had many of the same problems that Spotify, YouTube, or TikTok have, with a lot of decisions being sales-driven—but it did have something that these current-day platforms have consistently missed: contextual basis. It wasn’t just a venue for the latest videos of the hottest songs; the story of the artists and culture around the music came with it. MTV was part of an ecosystem that worked in tandem to give you the story of artists and bands: what’s hot, what’s not, what matters in the culture and where it headed, all converging in one central location.
At least, that was the aim. MTV could be a frustrating place, particularly if your favorite music wasn’t getting the shine you thought it deserved. When the music video was king, there was a tendency to use cheap sex and tawdry tricks to garner attention at the expense of better music. People rightfully complain about the masculinity crisis now, but the seeds of a backlash driven by a group who felt themselves alienated from where the culture was headed in the early 2000s, only instead of DEI and “woke”—and the corruption of our entire federal government—it was concentrated to Total Request Live, which originally aired from 1998 to 2008. Hosted by Carson Daly and his sideburns, TRL was where kids could call in and vote for the top 10 songs of the moment, and it became a juggernaut.
In retrospect, TRL may have been a sign of America’s growing disdain with democracy. Rather than MTV curating taste, it left it up to the viewers. The top 10 more often than not was full of boy bands, pop princesses, the hottest rap song of the moment, and the token alternative/metal record. TRL catered to a young audience, and its most visible segment tended to be teenage girls, usually white, screaming into the camera over big pop records and Barbie-looking stars. For obvious reasons, this set off a certain segment of the population that did not fit in those categories, and was incapable of grasping the idea that their taste in Korn, Radiohead, or Nine Inch Nails was not endemic of the entire country. There was a popular conspiracy theory that the TRL voting system was fake, that the corporate parents of MTV were just shoving this music down their throat—so much so that in 1999, people famously pulled off a prank of voting for an old New Kids on The Block record as a test of its validity. TRL did air the video, although the validity remained in question.
Nobody likes gatekeepers, but tastemakers, even if they’re jerks, have a value. They provide a cultural lens through which to connect music, movies, and books. Without the avenue of an outside structure like MTV, all you have is the sporadic madness of the internet, which has only done more to make us less culturally interested or engaged and emboldened us to create a million little fiefdoms that don’t amount to much. There was utility in organizing one dependable home base for the latest music and trends, and indirectly giving shine to other facets of culture as well.
Today on the internet, you can find MTVs everywhere, on a much smaller scale. It’s not just limited to series like NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts or First We Feast’s Hot Ones. Shows like On The Radar’s freestyle series and Noochie’s Front Porch series routinely serve as viral showcases for artists both young and old. Add to that DJ showcases like The Lot Radio and Boiler Room streams; interview shows like Nardwuar and Drink Champs; and more critical formats like Anthony Fantano or Bandsplain. Each has its own specific mission, but together they also show that the facets of MTV’s former platform are still workable, and without a real base to bring them all together, they can only be as relevant the virality they gain.
The thrust of their success is that they’ve become important platforms for people to showcase music that might not get attention on its own or through TikTok. One of the biggest things to come out of the pandemic was Verzuz, partially for nostalgic reasons, but also because the idea of comparing discographies was an effective way to advertise an artist’s music and draw in a new audience that might not have otherwise checked it out.
Culture desperately needs a big mainstream alternative to a handful of good YouTube channels, and lest you think this is all just pure nostalgia wish fulfillment, I have thought through what an MTV 2.0 could look like in 2025. Do I expect this to actually take place? No, but as a philosophical exercise, let’s explore it.
The Path Toward “A New MTV”
- Revamp how to watch. BET started its own separate app where you can watch its shows exclusively, which is a good idea although not for the price point and available programming. These networks need to improve both, and it should be free to anyone that still has a cable subscription, like with Max. YouTube and Twitch could be utilized as second-screen experiences: a DJ-mixed stream of videos, some online versions of existing shows, and reruns of some bigger programs online the next day.
- Start small. Don’t make the mistake that Vice made, and spend an exorbitant amount of money in the foolish pursuit of endless growth. Bring in new VJs, come up with a more modern approach to genre-specific shows like Yo! MTV Raps or Alternative Nation, and partner with some of the better or less obnoxious streamers and podcasters. Make those cheaply made talking-head shows/docuseries, too … at least at the start.
- Don’t fall for nostalgia bait. A lot of these music networks have become shells of themselves for all sorts of evil corporate reasons I can’t even begin to untangle. They seem to now exist as nostalgia traps for a certain generation of loyalists. It would be better if these networks actually try to reflect where music is now, and not just in a shallow award-watch way. They should reflect what’s burgeoning, which cities are producing cool stuff, what people are wearing, and where they are going out, alongside the biggest things in music today. All these things are being covered anyway in sporadic ways all over the internet; bring a home base to it.
- Bring back a reporting element. One of the worst things about Viacom tearing out MTV to the studs is what happened to its news division—which had only been online by that point. MTV News was a vital source in both blog and televised forms. I don’t want to give Kurt Loder too much respect here, but my point is that it was valuable and had brand recognition that mattered. While the tech industry has done a good job of destroying digital media, any return of MTV should include its news division.
- Listen to the kids. Whatever a new MTV does, or however many hours it devotes to music, it should feel like a place curated for and by the generation that actually needs it. It won’t be perfect or completely representative, but that should be its goal above all else.
Is this a pipe dream? Probably. MTV seems to be stuck in some kind of limbo between Viacom and private equity hell. Based on the recent asking price for BET, it would not be cheap to purchase MTV, either. In any case, we need to cut off the dependence on the internet as the only way to learn about anything. A new MTV would be a good place to start.
The Non-Rap Song Of The Moment
It’s another sad girl summer; time to lock in.
If you would like to contribute something or ask a question for future installments, email me at israel@defector.com.
