Back in the summer of 1997, Carson Daly came on the scene and told me he was going to count down the 10 hottest videos of the day. I believed him because all the videos featured were by the greatest artists of our time: Britney Spears, *NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys. I think that first year these three (and a few times Hanson or Christina Aguilera) were the only artists on the countdown, which was just fine with me. When I entered high school, TRL made it so you could vote online. A portion of my newspaper period was spent deciding which videos I felt deserved to be on this coveted list. I plotted to go to New York so I could be up there and meet all of my favorite people who would immediately think I was cool and take me away with them. I also thought they would wait until I was 18 and then would marry me. I had high hopes.
In the early years they would play the videos, premier new videos and talk to some really talented artists that were all about their craft. Later, though, they started doing some really annoying shit. Mainly they started putting people in the video saying why they liked the video. Bitch I don’t care why some 12 year old in braces likes Toxic! I know I like it and that’s why I’m watching this channel. Eventually the non-pop groups started getting voted on, mostly to annoy me. MTV is no place for the Notorious B.I.G and TuPac is dead and really wasn’t a great rapper so stop making me listen to him!!!! It’s 2000 guys, I just want to listen to the solo careers of former New Kids on the Block Jordan McKnight and Joey McIntire. Stop trying to make me like Korn’s Freak on a Leash (I kind of liked that song, actually).
Eventually, I got too old for TRL (aka they started playing stuff that wasn’t by BSB) and I stopped watching. When I found out the show was ending I decided to watch again, supporting the franchise that I believe I helped create only to find it had changed a lot. First of all Carson was gone (which I knew) only to be replaced by some girl called LaLa and some guy with a lot of dread locks that looked to be really heavy. They were both annoying. I now had no qualms with the show ending since they couldn’t get more reputable hosts.
Do you remember when they had that first contest to vote on the VJ and some high guy off the street won? I think his name was Jesse and MTV was mortified that America voted him in. I think they made him disappear after like 30 days because he was never heard of again.
ReplyDeletejesse camp! he had his own show. he was awesome.
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