For those of us of a certain age, it’s still sad and inexplicable that MTV—the station that used to be called “Music Television”—stopped, you know, playing music, on television. Sadly, the innocent days when MTV just played music aren’t coming back—and while it’s not like we need more confirmation of this, we did get it on New Year’s Eve. to close of MTV’s remaining music channels in the UK, Australia, and a number of other countries.
However, it’s not all bad news for MTV nostalgics. This week we launched a site called MTV Rewindfeaturing MTV music videos from YouTube in an attempt to recreate the feel of MTV’s pre-reality TV era.
You might argue that you could get the same experience by simply going to YouTube and typing “MTV music” into the search bar, selecting a video, and letting the site’s autoplay feature do its thing. Anyone who has done this, however, will know that before long, YouTube will start distancing itself from what you’ve asked it to play and what it thinks you like. In my case, no matter where I start, YouTube’s algorithmic carcinization will eventually bring me to Radiohead’s “In the Basement” video—which, to be clear, is great, but also something I’ve watched a billion times.
MTV Rewind videos, in contrast, are drawn randomly, with no algorithmic input. This obviously has the potential to be frustrating—no, I don’t want to watch Sublime’s video, ever—but it also makes for an honest recreation of sitting in front of the TV in 1989. Using the site also neatly avoids YouTube’s array of ads, which is a nice bonus.
The developer of the site, who goes by the name Flexasaurus Rex, posted a series of updates to it Farcasterexplaining that they started building this place last weekend to recreate what they call a “cultural center that changed music, fashion, and youth culture.” After 48 hours, they were done: “I’m exhausted, I’m tired, and I honestly feel like shit, but thousands are using it. [the site].”
The next day, probably after drinking coffee again, the engineer was back online, he announced MTV Rewind to be “punk rock as fuck … a middle finger to algorithmic manipulation, ad-driven content, hyperactivity, data mining and corporate broadcast control.”
There is some irony in this. While, in its heyday, MTV was a cultural institution, it was also ridiculed by critics for representing the confluence of cultural corporations, and shortly after its launch, David Bowie. famously criticized its lack of black artists. (The most viewed YouTube clip of that interview, by the way, is on… the MTV News channel.) The whole thing reminds us of Harvey Dent’s. to be aware whether you die a hero or live long enough to become a villain; in the case of MTV, sticking around even longer seems to have brought it full circle to the status quo of absurd heroism.
As of publication, MTV Rewind pulls from a database of 33,478 videos, which it divides into 10 channels. This includes videos sorted by decade, as well as those from MTV Unplugged, Headbangers’ Ball, and Yo! MTV Raps. (The latter is less than its name makes it sound, kids.) Considering the actual experience of watching MTV meant seeing a rotation of about 30 videos throughout the day, MTV Rewind has its advantages.
