The First 10 Videos Played on MTV: Rewind the Videotape to August 1, 1981

On August 1, 1981, MTV took to the U.S. air­waves, for­ev­er chang­ing the land­scape of Amer­i­can music and pop cul­ture. If you were around then, you’ll remem­ber the Apol­lo 11 moon land­ing, the astro­naut plant­i­ng the MTV flag on the moon’s sur­face, and then the first apt­ly picked video — the Bug­gles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star.” Fast for­ward four years, and we were all say­ing, I Want My MTV.

A list of the first ten videos aired on MTV appears below. Click the links to take a walk down mem­o­ry lane.

1. “Video Killed the Radio Star” by The Bug­gles
2. “You Bet­ter Run” by Pat Benatar
3. “She Won’t Dance with Me” by Rod Stew­art
4. “You Bet­ter You Bet” by The Who
5. “Lit­tle Suz­i’s on the Up” by Ph.D.
6. “We Don’t Talk Any­more” by Cliff Richard
7. “Brass in Pock­et” by The Pre­tenders
8. “Time Heals” by Todd Rund­gren
9. “Take It on the Run” by REO Speed­wag­on (not orig­i­nal)
10. “Rockin’ the Par­adise” by Styx (dit­to)

Thanks Robin for the reminder…

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Time Cap­sule: The Inter­net in 1995

“Jer­sey Shore” in the Style of Oscar Wilde