Favorite MTV show, past AND present

I did enjoy Whitesnake's Here I Go Again, especially when I realized the original version included a nip slip.

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=i3MXiTeH_Pg&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Di3MXiTeH_Pg

 

Steppin' Out was Joe Jackson's big MTV video, but Real Men packed a bigger message.

 

I always think Alton Brown looks like Thomas Dolby.

 

Weezer has had a ton of good videos, but Buddy Holly was awesome when it came out.

Heart Shaped Box was cool. Sabotage, obviously. OK Go had a bunch of good ones too.

But I don't think anything tops Safety Dance.

 

2 well-told video stories.

Allentown:

Desert Moon by Dennis DeYoung:

 

I think The Reflex by Duran Duran ended up being the longest-running Friday Night Video Fights champion. I remember it winning seven weeks in a row, then beating whatever the other video was that had seven straight weeks at the top (I believe it might have been Photograph by Def Lepard) to be the grand champion.

I'm pretty sure Missing You by John Waite was the longest-reigning video atop the Top 20 Video Countdown, also at seven weeks.

 

Black Hole Sun by Soundgarden
Beautiful World by Devo

 

Geto Boys with a detailed story: Mind Playing Tricks On Me

 

A new run of The Challenge is set to start next week. You've been warned.

 

I can't even remember the last video I watched for a song that was on the charts at the time. Plenty of 80s and 90s videos. Plenty of live shows. Plenty of album cuts against slideshows or still art of the CD. But no honest to goodness music videos of songs that were actually a thing at the time of the viewing.

Actually, I take that back, I did watch the video for Gotye's Somebody That I Used to Know last year. But before that? I dunno, Gnarls Barkley?

 

Last videos I can remember seeing there was Evanescence's "My Immortal" and Maroon 5's "This Love". And it was on in the wee hours of the morning.

Oh, and Beavis and Butthead ruled the mid-90s.

 

Loved me some John Cougar videos, too: Pink Houses, Jack and Diane

If you haven't read it, check out the oral history of MTV book. It has a ton of behind-the-scenes stories about the making of a lot of early videos.

And it makes a lot of fun of the dumb-ass air keyboard shot from Journey's Separate Ways. Love Journey and the song, but that video deserved all the ridicule it can get.