I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution by Craig Marks

Jun 14, 2012 Patricia rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: didn-t-read

This is the second book I have desired to read in some electronic format with internet connection (the first being 1Q84 because the darn thing was HEAVY.) Reading this book, I greatly desired the internet as I was reading because I wanted to watch the videos as they discussed them. Because watching videos while reading a paper copy involved me getting up out of my chair and booting up the laptop (which is chained up so I can't bring it to my chair)I didn't watch as many videos as I would want to...more

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Jan 06, 2012 Amar Pai rated it 3 of 5 stars

Readable enough, but there's a surprising dearth of wild and crazy stories. It's more a collection of A&R types bickering about arcana like who should get the credit for MTV Unplugged. As if it were the cure for cancer!

I've read really great oral histories, e.g. Once in a Lifetime: The Crazy Days of Acid House and After . They weave together a fantastically entertaining tale that's greater than the sum of its parts. With I Want My MTV the assorted interviews never coalesce into anything so...more

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Apr 25, 2013 Judy rated it 4 of 5 stars

It was a leap of faith to launch a television channel showing nothing but music videos. Especially when the quality of those videos varied so greatly. I Want My MTV is the story of the first decade of MTV when the channel grew from a nucleus of a few cable systems around the country into a national cultual force that flexed its social and political muscles and changed American culture forever. Ultimately, it was the launch of such programs as House of Style and The Real World in the early 1990s...more

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Jan 15, 2013 C.E. rated it 5 of 5 stars

It's hard to imagine anybody who came of age in the 80s and who loves pop culture not being gaga for this book, which although simple, is one of the most thoroughly engaging reads I've come across in quite some time.

The structure is simple. Marks and Tannenbaum take a more or less chronological approach approach to their oral history. Each chapter starts with something of an introductory essay and then is followed by pages of cannily sequenced quotes which allow the chapter to tell the story of...more It's hard to imagine anybody who came of age in the 80s and who loves pop culture not being gaga for this book, which although simple, is one of the most thoroughly engaging reads I've come across in quite some time.

The structure is simple. Marks and Tannenbaum take a more or less chronological approach approach to their oral history. Each chapter starts with something of an introductory essay and then is followed by pages of cannily sequenced quotes which allow the chapter to tell the story of a particular aspect of MTV's history.

And what a story it is. There's something for everybody here as MTV at once provides a history of the rise and fall of the megabucks music biz,an interesting primer on how to run a business, a history of the cable broadcasting industry and a pretty fair look at the overall ebb and flow of American culture since the Reagan era. Plus, it's really funny.

Essentially, the timeline is as follows. A bunch of renegade radio and pop culture types start a network nobody thinks anybody will watch. Because of that, nobody's really minding the store and the network adapts an "anything goes" approach, throwing slop at the wall and seeing what sticks. This mix of irreverence and incompetence strikes a chord and MTV becomes the dominant force in pop culture for a quarter century or so.

The first section of the book is fascinating as the early pioneers of the network share how things got started. It's a classic rags to riches tale with a lot of sex and copious drug use. The stories in the interviews in this part of the book give readers a real sense of a bunch of young people who aren't making any money but are having the time of their lives and that sense of fun translates to readers.

Once the network is started, the book becomes a tour-de-force nostalgia trip, digging up the stories of once favorite videos, long since forgotten and spending time with VJs is sort of like a virtual high school reunion. I kept scrambling to Wikipedia and YouTube to search some of the names and videos that tickled a memory chord.

As the story comes up into the last decade, there's a pervasive sense of loss as the inevitable corporate takeover turned MTV into just another slick, processed product. Yet, behind it all you get a sense that the authors and most of the key players understand that for a network where 90 percent of the programming was beyond inane, MTV did more than anything to shape America's cultural landscape in the past 20 years and, without overreaching, the book does a nice job suggesting thought provoking nuggets such as "MTVs support of synth pop videos paved the way to an increasingly gay-friendly culture" to "Remote Control paved the way for much of today's comic sensibility."

Overall credit goes to the authors. It might seem like an oral history is a lazy way to tell a story, but the intros to each chapter are incisive, the interviews exhaustive and the sequencing intelligent. It all makes for an engaging, coherent and really, really entertaining read.(less)

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Jan 10, 2013 Barney rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In the spirit of High Fidelity, Top Five interview statements from this fantastic oral history of that big part of my childhood, MTV.

1. Dee is just so ugly. It's like God made the ugliest guy in the world, and then He hit him in the face with a shovel -- Mark Metcalf (128)

Mark Metcalf is better known as Neidermeyer, and comes off in this text as a world class prick. But you can't argue with the campy genius of Twisted Sister videos. In my classroom, on the right day, if I close my eyes I can hea...more In the spirit of High Fidelity, Top Five interview statements from this fantastic oral history of that big part of my childhood, MTV.

1. Dee is just so ugly. It's like God made the ugliest guy in the world, and then He hit him in the face with a shovel -- Mark Metcalf (128)

Mark Metcalf is better known as Neidermeyer, and comes off in this text as a world class prick. But you can't argue with the campy genius of Twisted Sister videos. In my classroom, on the right day, if I close my eyes I can hear "Well, MR. SISTER! WHAT DO YOU WANNA DO WITH YOUR LIFE!!!!"

2. Our success had a lot to do with timing. I guess there was a hole--there was a need by the people for a Bon Jovi. Just a good time entertainment band, you know? A bridge between Phil Collins and Whitesnake. -- Richie Sambora (298)

Phil Collins and Whitesnake? 'Nuff said.

3. I interviewd David Lee Roth at the U.S. Festival in 1983. He was drunk and coked up, laughing at every joke he made. Dave was the greatest interview. -- Mark Goodman (125)

This book went far toward my belief that David Lee Roth is the single greatest rock star of all time. No one ever, not even the Lizard King in 1967, not even Elvis in 1956, perhaps not even Marvin Gaye between 1969 and 1980 could score the girls that Diamond Dave did. Short, tall, it didn't matter, Diamond Dave had 'em all. No woman or pile of white powder was safe. Even coked up and freaked out he was 17 times the lead man that Sammy Hagar ever was.

4. For "Uptown Girl", the director told me, "look at the picture in your locker as if you're in love with this woman and then dance around with a wrench in your hand." I said, "Are you fucking kidding me?" -- Billy Joel

The sheer absolute nonsense of most 1980s videos is reflected in the comments by the artists themselves. This is one of the things that made MTV so wonderful; here were these idols making complete asses out of themselves 90% of the time and looking like they enjoyed it.

5. When a musician starts to use the phrase "mini-movie" to describe a video, it's time to quit. Some videos I enjoyed just because they were train wrecks, like "November Rain." -- Dave Grohl

MTV got big, powerful and lost that irreverence. In so many words, around the time the book ends (1993) MTV became self aware....like Skynet. It then destroyed everything that is good and holy by broadcasting The Real World. The network lost its fun. For me, that is the message of this sublime book. MTV lost its fun, but left its incredible mark on people my age. Read this for the great insights into the creation of a TV network, but take away the sometimes acidic commentary of the people who were there. This is an excellent read. (less)

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Nov 25, 2012 Jesse rated it 5 of 5 stars

Really the best of these oral histories--far more interesting than the ESPN 700-pager I struggled through. This one, I would have been happy to read another 200 pages. The secret is that the authors are critics rather than journalists, so the book has a story to tell rather than just following what became popular; also, unlike the ESPN book, there's not 150 pages or so on deals with affiliates and satellite acquisition. Because who cares?

Instead, we have the stuff we want: great chapters on ear...more

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Sep 03, 2012 Mediaman rated it 2 of 5 stars

This disappointing book is merely a bunch of pasted-together quotes from different people involved with the history of the first decade of MTV. There is no narrative and the "authors" write only small introductions to chapters filled with quotes, most of which say little. Their book introduction is also poorly written and at times makes no sense.

The main problem is that the format of the book is all wrong--instead of assembling a narrative from the over 400 people they talked with, they just str...more

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May 14, 2012 Joshua rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2012

Naturally, being a music fanatic who came of age during MTV's heyday, I was going to like reading about how MTV came into being, the antics of the VJs [both on and off the air], infamous videos that caused a stir, but like a lot of massive, oral histories of this ilk, it's actually kind of hit and miss regarding what has made it into the "story" of MTV. The stuff I cared about--bands, musical genres--I liked, but reading about the behind the scenes business people and programmers? Not so much.

I...more Naturally, being a music fanatic who came of age during MTV's heyday, I was going to like reading about how MTV came into being, the antics of the VJs [both on and off the air], infamous videos that caused a stir, but like a lot of massive, oral histories of this ilk, it's actually kind of hit and miss regarding what has made it into the "story" of MTV. The stuff I cared about--bands, musical genres--I liked, but reading about the behind the scenes business people and programmers? Not so much.

I vividly remember when I first encountered MTV and it was a transcendent experience for me. I was 12 years old and it was late in 1981. I was staying with my parents and brother at Camelot Hotel in Tulsa. Even though we lived less than an hour from Tulsa, my parents loved to take my little brother and me to the Camelot [a huge hotel that resembled a castle that was sadly torn down a few years ago by classic Tulsa nimrods who love to tear stuff down] and pretend we were on vacation. We did this every couple of months. I loved the Camelot, but on this night, as I hunkered down to check out the cable choices [Camelot had the cable TV set-up that had an "A" and "B" switch, you'd toggle back between A or B to get 16 or so channels on each letter. There was no remote] I found myself flicking across a channel with a music video. What is this? I thought to myself. I was awestruck. I soon realized that this was a channel that was showing NOTHING but music videos!!! That was worth many more exclamation marks to my 12 year old, music loving self. I didn't turn the channel the rest of the night, stayed up as long as I could and immediately turned the TV back on when I woke up. People who didn't experience MTV at the start like this, have no idea the cultural impact it had on people like myself--a young kid obsessed with music, living in rural Oklahoma, starving for any kind of unique band. Luckily, Tulsa and Oklahoma was one of the places that got MTV right off the bat and I was able to discover a lot of new bands. Within a few years, I had fully embraced a new style of music and bands from England and Europe and was one of the few oddballs in my small-town. MTV was the catalyst. Now, of course, MTV sucks, but in 1981 and for a few years after that--it was an amazing thing to behold in this pre-Internet world. That's my MTV story. (less)

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Dec 13, 2011 Epepple rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: pop culture fans, film nerds, folks who spent a lot of time on a couch in the 80s and 90s

Insanely readable, fast-paced oral history of the first decade or so of MTV. For a channel slagged for valuing style over substance, the book's brief chapters and soundbyte-style quotes (except from the mighty John Landis, whose raconteur-ship cries out for a book of its own, or at the very least and anecdote-off with Peter Bogdanovich) are a clever conceptual structuring tactic mirroring the nature of the channel itself--it's simultaneously packed with information, but info that breezes by at a...more

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Dec 11, 2011 Vivian rated it 4 of 5 stars

When MTV really became big in the NY area in 1982, during my junior year of college, I remember spending every free minute in front of the TV screen, gorging on music videos. The impact was huge: the first Madonna videos, "Thriller," The Police, Tom Petty...the list goes on and on. If a group came on you didn't like (for me, anything heavy metal), waiting a few minutes brought renewed happiness.

So reading this book, which is really just an extended series of interviews with some of those involve...more

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Nov 02, 2011 Jamie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: true-stuff-and-criticism, the-lighter-side

This is what the ESPN book should have been. Entertaining as hell, enlightening, leaves you wanting more despite being exhaustive.

The strongest parts were the chapters about the really early videos, the ones that weren't overseen by the record companies. I found myself youtubing quite a few and being surprised by their weirdness (Bowie, Van Halen), their provocativeness (Duran Duran), artsiness (Don Henley), or just plain awfulness (yes, it's true: Billy Squier).

I wish there had been a little...more

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May 09, 2012 Jeff rated it 5 of 5 stars

Just finished reading the book. I want my mtv. It covers several eras. Gives backstage tales and drama with plenty of revelations. It's not a total homerun but a fun read. I kept stopping reading it prolonging it so I could spend more time experiencing the book and it's tales and revelations

It made me realize how much music videos were a new form of storytelling and love it or hate it mtv had a profound affect on culture and probably you. Sure it used to seem to be about something. It opened a l...more

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Jan 06, 2013 Tom rated it 2 of 5 stars

I Want My MTV is one of the oral histories currently in vogue and centers on the development of MTV and moving through "the golden age of video" 1981-1992 and ends with the premiere of The Real World. It's a light, breezy read, which is what I was looking for, and since I was the target age for MTV during those years and watched it obsessively back then I enjoyed this book.

That said, it's just an ok as far as these things go. It hits the high points but also glosses over a lot of stuff. It does...more

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Mar 31, 2012 charlie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Ay Ay Ay... I could go on for hours but fear that's a bad idea. So at the risk of sounding like a complete loser, I'll at least write something.

As an MTV staffer during the years covered in this book, and friend and/or coworker of too many of the people interviewed, I have a unique perspective to comment... (unique or worthless - that's what I can't decide.)

The only word I can think of to describe my reaction is "definitive". It's not an emotion, I know, but the bottom line is that the book real...more Ay Ay Ay... I could go on for hours but fear that's a bad idea. So at the risk of sounding like a complete loser, I'll at least write something.

As an MTV staffer during the years covered in this book, and friend and/or coworker of too many of the people interviewed, I have a unique perspective to comment... (unique or worthless - that's what I can't decide.)

The only word I can think of to describe my reaction is "definitive". It's not an emotion, I know, but the bottom line is that the book really captured a huge range of the dimensions of the culture of MTV and the video music industry during the 80's. And it really reminded me of the crazy times, crazy characters (famous and very not famous), and the innumerable complex creative, intellectual, business, social issues that were swirling around every day for all of us in this world.

The most genius decision of the writers (compilers?) was to do an oral history. And then they interviewed 90% of the key players ... Few who hold back. By removing the historian's "omnipotent" voice, they were able to achieve the impossible: to illustrate the cornucopia of contradictory environments this entire revolution took place in. The cast of characters were all so diverse that there is no one true story to tell. It was the variety that made this particular revolution so dynamic... And kudos to the authors for capturing something I thought would be uncapturable.

MUsic videos were sexist? MTV was too pop? MTV was a creative's paradise? MTV was run by corporate money grubbing tools? Or run by die hard passionate music fans? Rotting people's brains or responsibly guiding a new found generation? A bunch of jerks or geniuses? The true answer to all these questions was "yes". The music video revolution was driven by a thousand cast of characters who all contributed different often contradictory shades to the social explosion or worthless pop culture fad. Only an oral history could of captured this complex web of contradictions and even begin to explain the joy and idiocy of the entire era.

The petty arguments in the chapters about who created mtv or unplugged are classic... Not because of the pathetic nature of hindsight reinvention. But because these were two of the biggest catty fights filtering thru the hallways at the time and its hysterical to still see them raging on the page. The authors captured most of the warring parties perspectives perfectly.

So, as an insider I can stress, the stories not only are accurately told (as much as possible) but amazingly the authors found 100 percent of the key beats of the times for all of us. I really wanted to hate this book... Who wants to read about their old officemates... But have to begrudgingly admit, it took a very very complex moment in time and synthesized intellectually and emotionally as well as anyone could.

That being said - my edition may have had more typos and misprints than any book I've ever written... Probably proofed by some coke head burnout... Tho come to think of it, maybe that was on purpose.

Long live Chris Kreski (r.i.p.)!(less)

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Feb 19, 2013 Ron rated it 4 of 5 stars

It can be argued the four most significant cable channels in history are HBO, CNN, ESPN & MTV.
All four changed the television landscape, the way it is programmed, the way we consume it. Of those four MTV probably had the greatest influence beyond the medium- certainly on the record industry and radio. Yet its reach extended to the very foundations of modern culture. So complete was its impact that virtually everything we consume visually today is in small or large ways BECAUSE of MTV.

"I Want...more

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Jan 14, 2013 Sean O'Hara rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: history-american, history-cultural, television, music

Imagine the most epic episode of Behind the Music ever -- a sweeping tale of the American music industry across an entire decade, spanning everything from New Wave and hair metal to gangster rap and grunge, following the most significant stars and one-hit-wonders of the era.

And now imagine it as a book.

Because that's what I Want My MTV is. This is a comprehensive and in-depth history of MTV from its first conception to the moment it gave up on itself (i.e., the premiere of The Real World in 1992...more Imagine the most epic episode of Behind the Music ever -- a sweeping tale of the American music industry across an entire decade, spanning everything from New Wave and hair metal to gangster rap and grunge, following the most significant stars and one-hit-wonders of the era.

And now imagine it as a book.

Because that's what I Want My MTV is. This is a comprehensive and in-depth history of MTV from its first conception to the moment it gave up on itself (i.e., the premiere of The Real World in 1992). And all done as an oral history, which means the authors take a backseat to the people they interviewed while researching the book. And they interviewed everyone you can think of -- Adam Curry and Pauly Shore, Madonna and MC Hammer, and hundreds of behind-the-scenes people you've never heard of.

The oral history format makes for interesting reading. The authors only intrude at the start of each chapter to introduce the subject, letting their subjects speak for themselves, juxtaposing differing -- and often contradictory -- accounts of events to build a narrative. The writers keep their views of the artists out of it, letting their interviewees laud or slag different groups, different directors, and different videos.

Nonetheless, the book does have structure, with each chapter covering a specific subject -- musical movements, VJs, programs, specific bands or even a single video. The ways in which MTV altered the American music scene is covered through the eyes of the bands that benefited, those that were screwed, and the producers who had to adapt.

And of course, there are great stories by the metric buttload -- the genesis of Run-DMC's version of Walk This Way, how CBS blackmailed the network into playing black artists, the animosity between David Fincher and Michael Bay (who seems to be the second most hated person involved with MTV, behind only Kurt Loder), the excesses of Guns 'n' Roses, how Billy Squier committed career suicide with a single video, and how ZZ Top proved that older acts could adapt to the new medium.

But even at an epic length (21 hours for the audiobook) there are a few subjects that get short shrift -- 120 Minutes and Headbangers Ball combined get about as much space as is devoted to Thriller, and Liquid Television only gets a passing reference in relation to Beavis and Butthead. Still, there's no doubt that this is the most comprehensive work about MTV that you're ever likely to find and well worth the read.(less)

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Dec 19, 2011 John rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011, marketing, interviews, hiphop, culturalstudies, music

A giant book filled with mostly interviews. The book is very choppy and disjointed. Each chapter focuses on some theme and pull together quotes from interviews to help explore the topic. Some of the transitions in the quotes are awkward. As much as the method of story-telling annoyed me (some bridges, please, even MTV had VJs to tie everything together), it matched the culture and mindset of early MTV. MTV pioneered the jump cut and programming for short attention spans, so the style of the book...more

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Feb 02, 2013 Josh rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

These "oral histories" of popular subjects have been popping up a bit in the last few years, and I'm finding them really interesting for a number of reasons. They do have some deficiencies as investigative pieces, though.

The current fashion seems to be just stringing together quote after quote from the principle players and notable aficionados, etc. The chapters are generally structured chronologically, though there is some understandable overlap as they are organized under a subject piece. This...more These "oral histories" of popular subjects have been popping up a bit in the last few years, and I'm finding them really interesting for a number of reasons. They do have some deficiencies as investigative pieces, though.

The current fashion seems to be just stringing together quote after quote from the principle players and notable aficionados, etc. The chapters are generally structured chronologically, though there is some understandable overlap as they are organized under a subject piece. This works really well to talk about something like MTV, which had so many different eras, musical foci, personalities, and key moments to talk about.

The biggest challenge for the reader is trying to sort out truth from fiction, who is lying and who is telling the truth. The authors are either too weak to take a stand and/or do the research, or they think they're following some oral history playbook that exempts them from ever having to take a tough stance. That's probably the most disappointing aspect of this book.

On the other hand, a whole lot of serious people, big stars, and key movers & shakers are on the record here, and it makes for fascinating, compelling reading. The book covers the genesis of MTV all the way up to the reality era, when MTV basically stopped playing music. That's a good choice, because a) it's the story people want to hear about, b) people know the music and the musicians, they're not familiar with a lot of the backstory, but do know a lot of the superficial aspects to the controversies (i.e., MTV being racist and not playing black music, Madonna/banned videos, etc.) and c) there's no point to doing something on the reality tv era, as that's already been exhaustively done to death.

Figuring out who is lying and who isn't is a big challenge, since you get very little help from the authors in defining credibility. Some rules of thumb for me:
1. If someone takes total credit for accomplishing something, they're either lying or not telling the whole truth.
2. If someone who never worked at the network claims to know exactly what happened and who made the decisions, and contradicts someone who did work there at the time, they need to be taken with a grain of salt.
3. People who make sweeping statements probably shouldn't be taken at face value.
4. People who don't always make themselves the hero of the story and are willing to admit to making a mistake should be taken be taken more seriously.

There are some fascinating characters throughout the book. Most of the execs (record companies & MTV) spend their time trying to take credit for creating this or that, making something happen, or trying to make sure that someone else doesn't get credit for it. The level of back-biting is impressive. Most of them take credit and don't give it, and most of them probably weren't as responsible for successes as they think.

A lot of artists try to distance themselves from their MTV body of work, which usually falls flat. Some come off better in admitting they took full advantage of it, or take responsibility for their mistakes. Directors too; some of them seem to be ok with how they got their start or the work they did, others try to bury it as hack-work, which is a little sad. Several people are missing; Michael Jackson (dead, and probably wouldn't have been interviewed anyways), Madonna (a few quotes which seems slim considering how important she was), etc. But most of the players are here, as are their managers, who were in it up to their necks.

A recurring theme from the on-air talent: MTV screwed us. We made them millions and never got credit, or more than a fraction of the money we made them. It's a fair point in a lot of cases. Of course, if all the stories of people saying "we made them millions" were true, it's possible MTV would still be showing videos. MTV's model was based on getting a lot of content for free and/or dirt-cheap prices, and it's something they've fought to hold onto even after becoming an international monster. A lot of people almost certainly didn't get a fair share. Of course for the artists who saw a 2000% spike in their record sales...well, MTV didn't get a slice of that either. Unsurprisingly, the record companies are big villains as well, making artists pay for videos out of their share of the record profits, but it's amazing how few artists take responsibility for pissing away their own money by recklessly spending on increasingly elaborate videos or wasting huge sums with diva behavior (not showing up to shoot, throwing out work regardless of quality, demanding ridiculous things simply because they could, etc.). I don't think anyone is going to say nice things about the record companies; they've always screwed the artist as much as they could and treat them like crap as much as they can get away with. But ego run amok and stupidity always makes it easier for bad people to take advantage of you.

A very interesting read, full of sex, drugs, and rock & roll. It's very much an 80's tale of excess too: steeped in greed and ego. The details are good and there's a lot of very honest quotes and statements from some huge names.(less)

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May 07, 2012 Davedc rated it 3 of 5 stars

My parents divorced in the early 80s. Living in small town Kansas, one silver lining of this was that my newly single Dad had CABLE(!). That meant he had MTV in 1982-83 -- and THAT meant that I was spending hours and hours every other weekend watching music videos. By the time my mom finally got MTV in the mid-late 85-86, my video intake continued to increase. I LOVED it.

Videos, weekly countdowns, Dial MTV, Remote Control (and Kari Wuhrer), 120 minutes, Head Bangers Ball, Yo! MTV Raps, Ricki Ra...more

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Dec 09, 2011 Chad rated it 4 of 5 stars

I came of age in the era of MTV's ascention into pop culture dominance, so almost all of the material in this book was familiar to me. It was fun to be able to hear these songs echoing in the far recesses of my brain while reading about the making of the videos, and for the most part I could recall a lot of the imagery from the videos themselves as they popped up in these chapters.

While MTV is currently a black hole in my cable lineup that I haven't purposefully tuned into for years, I do fondl...more

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Jul 06, 2012 Tim Byron rated it 5 of 5 stars

This was a very entertaining book, packed full of laugh-out-loud hilarious anecdotes. The eighties in music was definitely an era of excess, and the book pretty convincingly paints MTV as the mainstream in music. MTV airplay was a gamble for the music industry, who rapidly saw video budgets increase, but who had no idea if MTV would play a video (until the late 80s, when there was a sort of payola system in place, the book implies). Amidst the excess, bizarre-o videos that the stars had no idea...more

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May 02, 2013 Bill rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: business, history, music, pop-culture, tv-and-movies

Kind of a mixed bag, because it's really three books in one.

The bulk of the book was devoted to the executive level stuff with the people who founded the network (and argued over credit for that) and the various corporate overlords who'd come later. These folks all led lives that were crazier and more rock star-like than any of the VJs ever did if the stories are to be believed, but after a while all of the boardroom stuff makes this indistinguishable from any other business history you've ever...more

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Jul 16, 2012 Shaun Swick rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: music, history, library-reads, television

This book just dominated my life for three days. It's about music and television, to be sure. Yet it's also about technology, the inevitable march of progress, and the endless cycle of change.

Each generation is always reacting to the one that came before it, and for better or for worse, MTV has been at the epicenter of youth culture since 1982. It almost happened by accident, and then it didn't. Yet here we are.

Any complaints I have with the oral history format are minimal. There are countless q...more

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Jan 17, 2012 Gretchen rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-2012

As part of the MTV generation, this book had a lot of nostalgia for me. I can tell you where I was when I first saw Home Sweet Home. I know a large part of my deep ongoing love for Bruce Springsteen is because of his Born In The USA videos. And yes, I know the Thriller dance, and how to Walk Like and Egyptian.

While I appreciated the book, I didn't love the format. Bringing in so many interviews and commentary made for a choppy narrative. It would have worked on air, but in the book, it was easy...more

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Oct 30, 2012 Ashlea (plotdriven.com) rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I am currently reading this book, which is an oral history of MTV through 1992. This corresponds with my growing up years almost exactly, which is to say, I am the target audience. I expect I will be reading it for quite some time. Not because it's terribly long, or tedious, but it just has a lot of built in interruptions, like this:

Debbie Harry recounts making her first videos, and notes that in the video for Heart of Glass her nipples are visible. This requires an immediate trip to YouTube, so...more

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Feb 13, 2012 Hank Stuever rated it 2 of 5 stars

It shouldn't be this hard to get me interested in the complete oral history of the birth and rise and fall of MTV, as it synchs up perfectly with my adolescence and young adulthood. This book managed to get into just about everything that made MTV what it was, but it also somehow makes it all seem quite dull -- which surprised me, even with benefit of adult hindsight. There are some real hilarious moments and quips, in which various rock stars, producers and directors remember the inanity of bei...more

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Jul 07, 2012 Beth Gordon rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book was a series of quotes from industry insiders and performers organized by topic within the chronology of MTV's evolution. A quirky premise to have so little text from the author and instead letting the quotes themselves tell the story. I learned a lot; some, particularly about the very beginning of the channel, was a little tedious. There was a large cast of characters, and I hadn't heard of any of them so it was hard to keep it straight in my head with all of their quotes.

It's fascin...more

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Jan 17, 2012 João Pedro da Costa rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: music

Okay: the book's title is misguiding. If you want to read about the story of MTV, you have Serge Denisoff's "Inside MTV" (1988) and Jack Bank's great "Monopoly Television. MTV's Quest to Control the Music" (1996). This book is whole different thing, but again such as misguiding title should be criticized. Done.

What is it then? Well, a fun (sometimes hilarious) oral history of MTV. The authors interviewed (rather randomly) artists, directors and producers who have co-created some of MTV's golden...more

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Dec 09, 2011 Jonathan rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: history-biography

This was a fun little trip down memory lane, way back in the late 80's/early 90's when MTV mattered. I'm especially happy that this book came out in the YouTube era, as I frequently had to take reading breaks to watch the videos being mentioned. I found the book to be interesting, as it gave some good insight into not only the creation of MTV, but also some of its seminal shows such as Remote Control, House of Style, and 120 Minutes. The chapters devoted to Yo! MTV Raps were especially interesti

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Dec 28, 2011 Ron DeVinitz rated it 3 of 5 stars

It was...ok. One problem for me is that this may not have been the right book for me to read about MTV's history. What I found throughout almost all of the last half is that where I wanted more detail (about House of Style or Unplugged) there just wasn't much to really say about them. There's a boat load of comments about the excess of the early hard rock/new wave videos, but that just goes on and on and on. I'm perplexed an editor didn't get these writers to tighten that up quite a bit.

In addit...more

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title link	preview: I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution
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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10411930-i-want-my-mtv?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1364098722l/10411930.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10411930-i-want-my-mtv?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution by Craig Marks[/url]

I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution

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