Lateral: I want(ed) my MTV, a story in six parts (3)
The 1980s in the United States truly began on August 1, 1981, when MTV went on the air for a few suburban and rural areas of the country. Reagan casts aside the cultural density of the 1970s and lays the foundation for a new period marked by consumerism, an emphasis on the individual, and the simplification of messages to an almost elementary level. Only a few dozen people believe that a TV that broadcasts video 24 hours a day can be successful. All of them celebrate a few hours after the launch in a bar in New York.
MTV changes the rules of music, imposing a corporate approach that replaces almost every form of counterculture with style and image and becomes the sun around which popular culture revolves. It’s more about looking good on the screen than sounding good. The aesthetics of the network — accelerated editing, celebration of youth, impermanence, beauty — influence not only TV, radio, advertising and cinema, but also art, fashion, adolescent sexuality and even politics. To achieve this goal, MTV risks bankruptcy several times and is saved with a dollar given to Mick Jagger.
Many would have preferred it to fail: those who have always accused MTV of driving the commercialization and simplification of rock and pop music, standardizing aesthetic formulas and reducing spontaneity.
Now that the channels dedicated to music on MTV in Europe have been closed, it is the right time to talk about the glory years of video clips, in the world and in Italy. Before Napster, YouTube, social media and streaming platforms overwhelmed the way we consumed music, kids did one thing separately but at the same time: they watched MTV (and DeeJay Television and Videomusic). This is the six-part story of what happened, with one playlist to accompany the story with music. I want(ed) my MTV.
Third Part
It’s a Thriller
At the beginning of 1983, Michael Jackson is entering a phase of mega-stardom that will project him beyond the boundaries of music, transforming him into a global cultural phenomenon. At least until the end of the decade, Jackson will be the brightest, most powerful and most influential star on the music scene, and no one else will really come close. His international fame will go beyond the dimension of music and pop culture itself: it will no longer just be about listening to his songs, but about observing and participating in the metamorphoses of an icon destined to define the fashions, behaviors and desires of an entire generation. Every appearance, every video, every gesture will become a media event, and Jackson will move between music, television and the collective imagination as very few artists in history have been able to do. Yet when “Billie Jean” – the second single from “Thriller” – hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in early March 1983, the video still hadn’t made it to MTV. Not once.
The single comes out in January and, when Michael Jackson’s record company initially offers “Billie Jean” to MTV, the network refuses: they claim it’s not “rock”. CBS then threatened to withdraw all its videos from the network and only at that point did MTV agree to broadcast it, first in medium rotation, then in heavy rotation. Jackson personally finances the video, while director Steve Barron transports the viewer to a nocturnal urban setting, suspended between black and white and color, where the sidewalks light up with every step of the singer. It’s something never seen before in terms of movement, style and instinct: “Billie Jean” proves that a single can become an event when accompanied by a high-production video, directed by someone capable of following – and amplifying – Jackson’s stage energy. The success redefines the music video as an artistic medium and as a new visual language, proving that a black artist can conquer MTV’s white audience. The video breaks the racial barriers of the network and changes the way of making video clips forever: pop culture can also be political, and visibility a small act of rebellion.
It is once again Michael Jackson who gives the last, definitive push to the affirmation of MTV as the new bastion of pop culture. Autumn of 1983: the album “Thriller” is already breaking all records in the music industry, six singles have already been released, but Christmas is approaching and it is the perfect time to create what will become the most famous video in the history of MTV, giving – if it were ever needed – a further boost to sales. John Landis directs, Rick Baker does the monster makeup and the budget is around $500,000, ten times that of “Billie Jean”. Landis and Jackson rewrite the rules: the video lasts 14 minutes, closer to a short film than a simple music clip. There is a defined plot, with narrative opening, climax, twists and cinematic closure. The use of sophisticated special effects for the time – zombie make-up, transformations, complex choreographic movements – makes it similar to a mini horror film rather than a traditional music video.
CBS initially refuses to cover the expense, but a solution is found: Showtime purchases a temporary exclusive for half the amount and MTV finances the other 50%, making it appear that the funds are allocated to the 45 minutes of the making-of. It will be the first and last time MTV pays for a video. The premiere is sumptuous, with celebrities, press, red carpet and Hollywood atmosphere. “Thriller” becomes the most influential and imitated video of all time. The fusion between pop music and cinematic narration opens the way to video clips as an art form: no longer just a promotional tool, but an autonomous creative media. “Thriller” demonstrates that a video can be art and cinema, not just promotion: it definitively opens the network to black artists, imposes new standards of creativity and pushes pop culture into a completely new era, where music, dance and image become one. Jackson consolidates his image as King of Pop, demonstrating that music videos can have an autonomous cultural and artistic value, capable of entering the global collective imagination. From that moment, and for a long time, anyone who wants to sell records will no longer be able to do without accompanying a single with a video clip, even if until that day they hadn’t had the slightest intention of doing so.
Touched for the very first time
If Michael Jackson is the first video artist, Madonna arrives soon after and quickly demonstrates her ability to transform the video clip into an instrument of provocation and exhibitionism. After a few low-budget clips – “Lucky Star” was shot for $14,000 – it finds its aesthetic thanks to director Mary Lambert. With “Borderline”, he invents a whole new video language: black and white mixed with color, Hispanic American street kids, urban energy. “Like a Virgin” is affected by the “Thriller” effect and by the openings that record companies begin to grant on budgets: Venice, gondolas, Carnival, a royal lion and wild parties at Cipriani, with a budget that shoots up to 150–175,000 dollars for less than four minutes, proportionally higher than what Jackson spent the previous year.
On September 14, 1984, at Radio City Music Hall in New York City, the first edition of something that is still difficult to define took place. It’s not exactly a music awards show, it’s not a concert, it’s not a TV show in the traditional sense. It is the first edition of the MTV Video Music Awards, invented by the still young MTV to celebrate a language that has only existed for a few years but which has already changed the way we watch music: the video clip. Its audience is young, much younger than that of the Grammys. The idea is simple and radical at the same time: to reward music videos as if they were cinema, with categories dedicated to direction, editing, choreography and photography. The result is a ceremony that has something improvised and revolutionary at the same time. It is immediately clear that anything can happen on stage and Madonna, who until a few months earlier was little more than a promise in the clubs of downtown Manhattan, does not betray expectations.
Madonna insists on singing a new song, which will be released only a month later: “Like a Virgin”. When she emerges from a giant wedding cake she is dressed as a bride: heels, corset, veil, lace gloves, pearls and a belt destined to become famous with the words “Boy Toy”. During the choreography she throws herself to the ground – she later said due to a problem with a shoe – and begins to roll around on the stage, playing with her veil and wedding dress in a simulated embrace, while the camera focuses on her legs and underwear. It just seems like too much for 1984 American television, even on cable. Many behind-the-scenes TV executives think the singer’s career ended that night. Even his manager thinks so. Exactly the opposite happens: in a few minutes, Madonna builds one of the most provocative images of American television of the 1980s. His appearance is like an Oscar given to pop culture as a whole, a definitive model against which any artist would be measured. American culture must finally take it seriously, despite the initial criticism. And she knew it: MTV and Madonna will grow together, reinventing the very idea of a pop artist.
Part three – continues tomorrow
The first part was published here.
The second part was published here.
