1982, Age 10. "Words," by Missing Persons, from their eponymous debut EP.
If you talk to people my age, you might believe that upward of 90% of Gen X-ers were watching on August 1, 1981, when MTV went live. Everyone remembers seeing "Video Killed the Radio Star," by The Buggles in those first moments. All of us knew how important this new medium was.
Except that we didn't really see it. I guess it comes from some inherent desire to be a witness to history. But according to I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Video Music Revolution, the fledgling channel was only carried by a few cable providers in northern New Jersey. We got MTV sometime in 1982.
Nevertheless, for those of us who remember those early days, Music Television was a significant cultural event. Those commercials were everywhere with Sting and Pete Townsend and whoever shouting "I want my MTV!" Even their trademark top-of-the-hour commercial featured moon-landing footage and replaced the American flag with one that flashed the MTV logo, as if insisting on instant iconic status. Everyone you went to school with watched it. Well, unless their parents thought rock and roll was satanic. With VH-1 and a dozen specialized cable off-shoots, digital music channels, iTunes, YouTube, Pandora, Sirius/XM, Turntable.fm, Grooveshark, and the rest, it's hard to remember what it was like when you couldn't hear any music you wanted any time you wanted.
I do remember the first video I saw on MTV. It was "Words," by Missing Persons. Missing Persons were keyboardist Chuck Wild, with former Frank Zappa bandmates Patrick O'Hearn on bass, Warren Cuccurullo on guitar, Terry Bozio on drums, and Terry's wife Dale on vocals. The song was from their very first album, a self-titled four-song EP that came out that year.
So, there I was, ten years old, on the verge of puberty, a couple of years into the new decade, at my parents' southern West Virginia home and we turn it to the new channel. It was a revelation.
The men are clad all in tight-fitting black sleeveless tees and black pegged jeans, their hair teased and spiky, wearing eyeliner and blush. In retrospect, they could have been understudies for Tim Curry in Rocky Horror Picture Show. The bass and guitar are playing those sleek, black Steinbergers that had just come out. The keyboardist is surrounded by a bank of mysterious components and instruments that must have cost several thousand dollars back then.
Then there is Dale.
Dale, a former Playboy bunny, is wearing clear stripper heels, a black plastic bra that reveals more than it covers, and some sort of flat plastic piece held together with chains for a bikini. Her hair is mostly platinum blonde, with a pink and blue streak.
The bass plays clean, pulsating eighth notes on the roots of chords, while the drums provide a straight rock back beat. The Oberheim and Jupiter 8 synthesizers join the pulsing, and add a kind of sci-fi descant. And the guitar is more "electronic" than "electric." Dale's singing is kind of a hiccupy alto that seems a cross between a female Elvis Presley and Betty Boop.
The words of the song, all about how Dale feels alone and unnoticed by others, are clever, too:
You look at me as if you're in a daze,
It's like the feeling at the end of a page when you realize
You don't know what you just read.
Ironically, she also sings that the constant intense media (we had over twenty channels!) is causing us to ignore each other:
Media overload bombarding you with action,
It's near impossible to cause a distraction,
Someone answer me, before I pull the plug.
It seemed clear to me that Ms. Bozio was unlikely to be ignored when she walked into a room, no matter how many hours of The Movie Channel her onlookers may have watched that week.
Watching the video again now for the first time in years, it strikes me that Lady Gaga must have seen this in her youth.
It was all too much for me. Like the fabled first hit of crack cocaine, I was addicted within three minutes. It was modern, it was sex, it was rock and roll, and I could watch it on television 24 hours a day. I must have seen thousands of music videos that first year.
I remember my older brother Dusty setting our top-loading VCR to "extended play" so that he could record six hours of videos per tape. His library included 70s FM rockers that made arena videos with long guitar solos, British new wave bands with colored hair and Roland synthesizers, and a pre-Private Dancer Tina Turner.
Ten years later, while I was in college, MTV premiered the first major "reality" TV series - The Real World. Within a couple of years, the channel rarely played videos at all. That's ok: we were on the verge of a new revolution in listening habits, as more of us used computers as music devices.
Those first few years though - they changed the way I heard, and saw, music. Here are just a few selections from the 80s video jukebox that loom large in my memory.
"1999," by Prince. It was Prince, not Michael Jackson, as it is widely believed, who was the first black artist to appear on MTV, and this was the first video. This was also the first song I heard from the Minneapolis wonder, and I was enthralled: doubled keyboards, electronic drums, apocalyptic lyrics, Japanese headbands, medical scrubs, purple lame trench coats, fire poles . . . and what's going on with keyboardist Lisa Coleman and back-up singer Jill Jones?
"Bette Davis Eyes," by Kim Carnes. I had no idea what "Greta Garbo stand-up thighs" were, but I was really fascinated by the punk slap-fest that was happening over the drum machine.
"Everyday I Write the Book," by Elvis Costello. Still decades away from his godfather status among the geekerati, most of us just thought Elvis Costello was Britain's dorkiest punk. Hints of reggae and a really smart lyric. Plus, the video featured Lady Diana before her apotheosis.
"Tempted," by Squeeze. British gents in ties and how about those classy ladies dancing in their knit sweaters and pleated skirts? Everyone my age loved this song, which is the only reason any of us watched Reality Bites.
"Safety Dance," by Men Without Hats. The 80s were surely the high-water mark for midgets employed in the entertainment industry.
"Once in a Lifetime," by Talking Heads. Who knows why a song about male mid-life crisis should have appealed to junior high students in the first half of the 1980s, but there you have it.
"Do You Wanna Hold Me?" by Bow Wow Wow. If I couldn't have Dale Bozio, British-Burmese singer Annabella Lwin could let me run my hands through her mohawk. Gently mocking of American culture while reveling in it sonically, these former Adam Ant bandmates sound like 60s surf music to me.
"Goody Two-Shoes," by Adam Ant. Speaking of which, this little romp is one of the most fun dance tunes of the era, with silly lyrics provided by Jack Sparrow's spiritual predecessor.
"Stray Cat Strut," by The Stray Cats. The Fonz was still on TV, so it's no surprise this one took off.
"Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?" by Culture Club. Close your eyes and it's easy to imagine these guys in Stax-era matching suits. Well, unless you've seen Boy George before. This video almost made my dad kick a hole the television.
