I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution
Written by Rob Tannenbaum and Craig Marks
Narrated by Luke Daniels
4/5
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About this audiobook
Named One of the Best Books of 2011 by NPR - Spin - USA Today - CNBC - Pitchfork - The Onion - The Atlantic - The Huffington Post - VEVO - The Boston Globe - The San Francisco Chronicle
For fans of VJ: The Unplugged Adventures of MTV's First Wave
Remember the first time you saw Michael Jackson dance with zombies in "Thriller"? Diamond Dave karate kick with Van Halen in "Jump"? Tawny Kitaen turning cartwheels on a Jaguar to Whitesnake's "Here I Go Again"? The Beastie Boys spray beer in "(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party)"? Axl Rose step off the bus in "Welcome to the Jungle"?
Remember When All You Wanted Was Your MTV?
It was a pretty radical idea-a channel for teenagers, showing nothing but music videos. It was such a radical idea that almost no one thought it would actually succeed, much less become a force in the worlds of music, television, film, fashion, sports, and even politics. But it did work. MTV became more than anyone had ever imagined.
I Want My MTV tells the story of the first decade of MTV, the golden era when MTV's programming was all videos, all the time, and kids watched religiously to see their favorite bands, learn about new music, and have something to talk about at parties. From its start in 1981 with a small cache of videos by mostly unknown British new wave acts to the launch of the reality-television craze with The Real World in 1992, MTV grew into a tastemaker, a career maker, and a mammoth business.
Featuring interviews with nearly four hundred artists, directors, VJs, and television and music executives, I Want My MTV is a testament to the channel that changed popular culture forever.
Rob Tannenbaum
Craig Marks was the top editor for two influential music magazines, SPIN and Blender. He is the editor in chief of Popdust. Rob Tannenbaum has been the music editor at Blender, a columnist at GQ, and has written for The New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, Details, New York Magazine, Playboy, Spin, and The Washington Post.
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Reviews for I Want My MTV
91 ratings6 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5MTV, one of my favorite things about the 80's. The hair, the shoulder pads, the music videos....reading this book brought me right back to those times. Duran Duran, Cindy Lauper, Culture Club, Pat Benatar; these bands became famous because of MTV and the images played over and over in those videos.
This is an oral history told through interviews with some of the major characters associated with MTV. It was interesting to learn how the whole thing got started and how MTV and the music industry ended up hurting themselves in the long run. MTV's monopoly on the industry didn't encourage healthy competition and only bands with the bucks to make good videos got air time.
Definitely worth a read! - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is impeccably researched and constructed but I discovered that I was far less interested in the subject than it takes to be enthralled for 572 pages. It wasnt the writers, it was this reader. If you are interested in the history of music video direction, there's a lot here i enjoyed the trip back to the 80s and random dry quotes from Jon landau and Paul McGuinness but it took me forever to get through it. I did discover that my hatred of Downtown Julie Brown is entirely justified, however.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Really a fun guide through the history of MTV. I remember, watching the VMAs and endless summer videos. Book goes through in a detail, from several sources, video, award shows and directors. Worth the listen.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5One of my favorite audiobooks on SCRIBD!!! Well written, narrated, and an amazing story with tons of cool music business insights.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Very entertaining and interesting oral history style book.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5If you want to read a bunch of random quotes from musicians and TV personalities, you will have a ball with this book. If you want a comprehensive history on the founding of MTV you’re going to have to look elsewhere. Taking interviews and piecing them together doesn’t work when the people interviewed are not connected. There are good books about Saturday Night Live and ESPN that use the same format, but those have a coherent flow. With this you just get a bunch of random quotes that are vaguely related.
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