During my usual ritual of veg time on the couch over winter break, I stumbled across a new cable channel. No, it wasn't the useless Speed Channel with its never-ending motorcycle and auto races , nor was it an educational Discovery Channel pin-off. It was much, much better. What was this shining beacon of pure awesomeness? The Tube, a channel that shows nothing but music videos.
I know this seems like an absolutely revolutionary concept, especially in a time of YouTubes and MySpaces and the ebays (sorry for the obligatory Old Media stab at relevance). You may say to yourself "I can understand there being a Golf Channel, because at three in the morning I am always looking for tips on my short game, but music videos? This is madness!" Or perhaps you vaguely recall a similar channel operating years ago that disappeared, leaving you with a sudden urge to Pimp someone's Ride.
Yes, my children, there was once a channel that attempted this very idea, and it had an elegantly simple name: Music Television. This channel had its growing pains, foisting upon the world such abominations like the hair-metal/butt-rock of Poison and Winger, but also gave a boost to bands like Nirvana and the Smashing Pumpkins. Though it was pretty clear from the outset that they were the Establishment, they still occasionally managed to be on the cutting edge. I remember when I first started watching MTV (their preferred moniker) and how I got into bands like Sublime and Rage Against the Machine. When they put Radiohead's "Paranoid Android" in heavy rotation for a while, the slightly disturbing cartoon video persuaded me and a handful of other seventh graders to pick up a copy of OK Computer when it came out (significantly increasing my coolness quotient in retrospect; at the time, though, not so much).
Those days are long gone however, as the channel spirals into the cultural abyss that culture warriors warned us about many years ago. Now MTV is all dating shows and watered-down approximations of the "Real World" (which now is a parody of a parody of itself). I do not believe you will ever see an entire music video played on that channel. Things got so bad, the network decided to create a second channel (called MTV2, naturally) that would only play videos! Of course, I was a huge fan of MTV2 at first, and discovered a number of new bands through it. They would even play videos unedited. Alas, this was too good an arrangement to last, and the channel has slowly devolved into a vast wasteland of "Jackass" and "Wildboyz" reruns. I would look elsewhere, but they other music channels face similar problems -- VH1 is now a place where celebrities go to die, and Fuse is way too emo and Canadian to be taken seriously.
Why do I concern myself so much with what is essentially a three minute-plus commercial advertisement? It's because there is the chance I can see real art, or at the very least something pretty freakin' sweet. Who can forget the Beastie Boys hamming it up as Starsky and Hutch ripoffs in "Sabotage," or the White Stripes performing in Lego-form for "Fell In Love With A Girl?" I'll never forget the complete terror I felt when I first saw Aphex Twin's "Come to Daddy", or how weirded out I was by the beating-heart drum from Nine Inch Nails's "Closer". There can also be moments of great beauty, like in Kenna's "hell bent", where simply watching molded clay can make you feel the full spectrum of emotions. I always suggest that people watch the video for Johnny Cash's cover of "Hurt" to understand the power of music video -- the song seemed almost like a novelty, but when matched with the images of a frail Cash alone in decaying surroundings, reflecting upon his life, the work is truly powerful. If you do not get goosebumps as the song and video builds to its climactic end, then you are simply not human.
So I welcome the arrival of The Tube, and it couldn't come soon enough. In just the short time I've been able to watch it, I've learned that Neil Young apparently was really into Star Wars when it first came out (the video for "Cinnamon Girl" from the Rust Never Sleeps tour has Jawas in it -- that's right, Jawas), that Peter Gabriel was insane, and that although Beck proclaimed himself a "Loser", I'll never believe him -- not when he's got moves like that.
