Wednesday, November 30, 2011
YOU'VE GOT MIDGETS VIOLATING A TRANNY. I THOUGHT IT WAS HYSTERICAL, BUT MTV DIDN'T: I am greatly enjoying my read through the new oral history of MTV by Craig Marks and Rob Tannenbaum, which both tells the business story (and how the "I Want My MTV" campaign was crucial in getting cable operators to pick up the network) as well as its discussion of the videos themselves, whether it's the homoerotic content in Billy Joel's "Allentown" video, or the generally fucked-up nature of Van Halen's "Pretty Woman," the section on which you can read here.
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I just finished that -- a thoroughly great read. I thought of you guys when they talked about Lionel Richie's "Hello" video.
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorite parts was the anecdote from Thomas Dolby. He recruited several Ivy League professors, one of whom was his father, to be in "She Blinded Me With Science". One of the professors complained that people kept following him around and yelling, "SCIENCE!" at him.
Wow, I started reading the excerpts on Google and couldn't stop. Fantastic stuff.
ReplyDeleteI was actually just reading the "Allentown"/"Pretty Woman" section last night myself. Thus far, my view is that the book is full of great stories, but partially because of the oral history format, kind of lacks a throughline or a thesis, beyond "MTV changed a lot of stuff!" Also, at least thus far, there isn't a single dominant character in the way that Olbermann dominated "Those Guys Have All The Fun" for much of it.
ReplyDelete(And a minor suggestion is that the "cast of characters" might be more helpful divided into two parts--one part of "who were these people" at the front, and one part of "where are they now?" at the end.)
Oooh! One holiday present down for my boyfriend, and I'll devour it after he's done.
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