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

great!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I remem­ber the day! This was real­ly nice…unfortunately, MTV is noth­ing like it was meant to be… it’s full of garbage now, no music videos. They need to change their name or go back to the way they were. I haven’t looked at MTV in over 15 yrs because it has such crap on it.

Hey John Hen­der­son,
This list does NOT actu­al­ly show what was pop­u­lar at the time.
This list real­ly shows what videos were avail­able at the time. Pri­or to MTV, videos were a curios­i­ty. Most were expen­sive to pro­duce, and there was­n’t any place to play them reg­u­lar­ly, so not many were made pri­or to MTV’s launch.
If you looked at the FIRST FIFTY songs, you’d see
4 songs by Rod Stew­art
3 by REO Speed­wag­on
2 by Pat Benatar
2 by Styx
2 by Cliff Richard
2 by The Pre­tenders
2 By Split Enz
2 by Iron Maid­en
2 by Lee Rite­nour
Oth­er artists that had a sin­gle video played in the top 50 includ­ed Robin Lane, Michael John­son, Shoes, Rupert Hine, Tom John­ston, Blot­to, The Silencers, Juice New­ton, Boot­camp, and the Michael Stan­ley Band.
.
HOWEVER, a look at the Bill­board Hot 100 from the same day (August 01, 1981), shows that you ARE CORRECT !!! There was a TON OF CRAP on the top 100 that day.
http://www.billboard.com/charts/hot-100/1981–08-01

This would have been a cou­ple of years before I devel­oped my own pop music aes­thet­ic. I rec­og­nize 12 of the songs and maybe 50 of the artist (I may have count­ed some of the repet­i­tive ones twice, but I tried to avoid it).
The facts that I don’t rec­og­nize half the artist and less than that of the songs def­i­nite­ly shows there was­n’t much dura­bil­i­ty in that era.

I won­der if I could rec­og­nize the Bill­board chart from rough­ly when I start­ed lis­ten­ing to the radio.

I have a ques­tion because its now stuck in my head but can’t find it… Was there a video “Bad rap on you” ? Hope you can help! Mary Anne

hey guys all peo­ple are ask­ing you to do is put MTV back on the air like it was in 1981 of August that’s when MTV came on the air and it was 24/7 music tele­vi­sion music videos please start with the very first video you guys ever did in 1981 you guys know it was video killed the radio Star by the bug­gles all we want is what you peo­ple promised us in 1981 you gave it to us and then took it away and gave us all these dumb shows Beav­is and butt-head was cool you know you had some oth­er shows that were good but we want MTV back you promised us 24/7 music videos not 16 and preg­nant or some oth­er crap like Jer­sey shore please give us back music videos 24/7 start­ing with your very first video thank you and have a nice day SINCERELY THE STATE OF VERMONT!!!!!!!!

@ Jamie Hodg­don l think that is one of the most bril­liant ideas I’ve heard in years! Unless they don’t already have rights to reboot­ing, it would cost a for­tune in roy­al­ties. Oth­er­wise, they’re crazy for not hav­ing thought of it already!!! Good on you! 😉

I total­ly agree, noth­ing but crap TV now, hey, there’s a good name for it now! CRAPTV!

I remem­ber the day… I was in my first apart­ment we got cable just so we could have MTV when it came on we all sat around and the chan­nel was all snow until just before MTV logged on for the first time there’s three or four of us there and then we just left it on the MTV for a cou­ple of years lol

Okay first of all I need the own­ers name and or how I can get in touch with them for this mat­ter because we the peo­ple old­er and new­er know that lis­ten­ing to music is a very enjoy­able thing and adding video to it . In my and I know a lot more peo­ple that would absolute­ly guar­an­tee 100%. Hey hit me up on this. It will 4 sure make you well known and you nev­er know just who has that spe­cial voice , soul ‚and groove ✌🏼

I AGREE!!! Bring it back from 1981!!! These 2020 shows make me cringe. It real­ly is just a shell now, if even that.