Good-Bye MTV

January 1, 2026

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ajtonyperkins

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MTV was first launched in 1981

The Beginning 1981 – The First Countdown!

A part of me–a large part of me–is still a young man in the 1980s, going to college, going to the mall–getting an Orange Julius and shopping at Chess King, and coming home to MTV. I would chill out with MTV for a while to decompress from the stress of school, much like I did as a little kid watching The Brady Bunch and Gilligan’s Island when I got off the school bus. And then after studying and practicing my music, I would relax with some more MTV before bed.

Glory Days! – My College Years

MTV became a large part of the culture that I belonged to. The other music students and I in college would often talk about and sing a few bars of the latest release on MTV before class started or afterwards in the vending machine snack area and smoking lounge of the joint music and art building. I particularly remember Steve Perry’s “Oh Sherry,” and several of Boy George’s latest hits. We might have sung a few bars, but our singing didn’t turn into an episode of the TV show Fame, where a musical number spontaneously exploded every lunchtime in the school cafeteria.

Other memorable hits that are popping in my head this moment for the first time in decades are “Shout, Shout” by Fear for Tears, “Jump” by Van Halen and “We are the Champions” by Queen. Then there is “Livin’ on a Prayer” by Bon Jovi. That last one I still sing to myself to this day, almost as a prayer.

Over the years, I quit watching MTV. I didn’t change; MTV changed away from solid music videos to reality shows with unwed teenage mothers. My video jukebox of hit music was gone. I started finding music videos on YouTube and creating my own playlists.

MTV was my introduction to Rock music. Prior to its inception, all I could do was listen to Casey Kasem’s American Top 40, once a week on the radio in my small hometown, and buy LPs from Columbia House.

Through MTV, I discovered new music, and as a musician, I enjoyed watching rock stars perform their works. I learned to appreciate and love Rock music, something I didn’t care for all that well as a child, with my mother’s obsession with the Beatles. When I was in grade school, a Beatles movie was playing on the TV at the same time as a Charlie Brown special. Mother made us watch those four moppet-haired, annoying performers from England while her torso gyrated in ecstasy as she watched. The next day at school, I was the only one who didn’t watch Charlie Brown, and I felt cheated and an outcast. I may have subconsciously gained a dislike for everything Rock and Roll from that incident.

MTV and Me, Today

You know, I don’t feel old. I was there in college when MTV started, and I’m now retired. MTV’s era spanned my adult life. I don’t use Apple Music or Spotify, those competitors who killed MTV. They aren’t totally guilty. MTV committed suicide when it dropped videos, its bread and butter, and replaced them with obnoxious reality shows.

I’m in my 60s now, but I still don’t feel old. I can’t go to the mall and drink an Orange Julius, or buy a shirt and bolo tie at Chess King anymore, but even so, I still think I’m living those glory days back when I could do all of those things and more. As of midnight of December 31, 2025, I can no longer watch the sad corpse, a shadow of what was left of the once mighty MTV.

The Day Music Died

January 1, 2026, was “the day music died” for other young people, like me, who were there at MTV’s birth in 1981.

“The day music died,” I just want to hear a song and watch a video of one of my favorites. I’ll give you the YouTube video. Although viewing on my laptop screen, I’ll pretend it’s a tube TV in my college apartment, and I’m watching MTV.

Thank you, MTV

It’s been 44 years since I found MTV as a young man in college, and although the math says I am old, because I was there in the beginning, I still feel young, thanks to watching MTV.