permeated the network was heavily influenced by
their versions of New Wave music. Also known as
Brit-Pop, or Synth-Pop, these bands typically fea-
tured a “pop” sound, complemented by heavy key-
boards or synthesizers, and band members them-
selves were typically fond of fashion. As a result,
American audience members concerned to identify
with the latest fashions emulated the styles sported
by British, Irish, and Australian musicians in their
videos.
MTV became instrumental in the rapid spread
of certain clothing trends by virtue of its ability to
expose millions of fans to those trends simulta-
neously through its videos. Because music videos
were essentially marketing tools, clothing and hair
styles became branding devices, and fans chose to
adopt particular fashions alongside their choice of
particularmusic styles and artists. Such associations
between music and fashion had always existed within
popular culture, but the mass broadcast of music vid-
eos in conjunction with an ever-growing list of musical
subgenres—each with its own accompanying “look”—
dramatically increased the conjunction between
music, clothing, and identity in American culture
and rendered that intersection significantly more
important to North American youth.
While New Wave music definitely reigned at MTV,
another contemporary music genre carved a place
for itself on the network—heavy metal. Typically, the
heavy metal videos that were shown in heavy rotation
on MTV featured a strand of metal that had grown
away from that genre’s roots. Heavy metal had been
pioneered by such bands as Black Sabbath, Led Zep-
pelin, and Deep Purple, who played a dark, brooding,
sometimes occult-based version of hard rock. The
heavy metal that MTV seemed to champion, though,
was the subgenre known (sometimes derisively) as
glam metal. Much like their New Wave counterparts,
glam metal artists aimed to be visually appealing.
They were known for their long hair, and sometimes
wore makeup. Leather jackets and boots and other
accessories became standard attire for both band
members and their fans. The music itself featured
heavy guitar riffs, but in the context of a more pop-
influenced sensibility than other types of heavy metal.
It remained more likely to contain sexually offensive
lyrics than was New Wave music, however.
MTV’s decision to market itself to youth made its
broadcast of sexually suggestive videos and other
questionable content controversial among some
parents. The network sought to allay criticism when
possible. Sometimes, one version of a video would be
played during the day, and another, racier version
would air later at night. The network sometimes
opted not to show a video at all, if it was deemed too
provocative.
The New Look of Music While New Wave and glam
metal found great success on MTV, there was plenty
of room in the network’s incessant rotation for other
forms of metal. No-frills bands such as Ozzy Os-
bourne (formerly of Black Sabbath), Judas Priest,
and Iron Maiden began to enter the rotation with a
heavy sound, gloomy theatrics, and a more frighten-
ing look and sound than that of glam metal bands.
As the 1980’s progressed, MTV became the venue to
which bands would turn to get noticed. Videos be-
came one of the primary public relations mecha-
nisms of the music industry. Mainstream artists such
as Madonna, the Cars, Michael Jackson, and Bon
Jovi were all featured in heavy rotation in the days
shortly after the inception of MTV.
In 1983, MTV broke its own boundaries with the
airing of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” This video of
the title track from Jackson’s multi-platinum album,
was a fourteen-minute horror movie that featured
extensive makeup and costuming to turn dancers
and singers into ghouls and zombies. It became one
of the network’s most famous videos. Still, MTV was
often criticized for rotating few artists of color, aside
from Jackson, a situation that the network would at-
tempt to rectify later in the decade.
Charity and MTV In addition to work by solo artists
and specific groups, MTV was instrumental in broad-
casting special events produced by larger groups
within the music industry. These happenings were
charity events, in which a large group of performers
would sing and record a song written by the musi-
cians spearheading the effort, and proceeds from
the sale of the recording would go to a specific cause,
typically feeding starving children in Africa. The
most notable of these events were Band Aid (1984),
Live Aid (1985), and USA for Africa (1985). Band
Aid was the result of combined efforts by British and
Irish bands to help starving people in Ethiopia. It
was spearheaded by Bob Geldof, of the band the
Boomtown Rats. Live Aid was a series of fund-raising
concerts, held throughout the United Kingdom and
the East Coast of the United States, that featured art-
ists from the United States and the United Kingdom.The Eighties in America MTV 675