EMPTV Generation

It's Eighties Week on VH1 Classic. Which, if you're like me, you wonder what else a station that plays music videos that are considered "classics" would play. My own video experience began six months prior to the launch of MTV, or "music television." There was a public television station in Broomfield, Colorado that had a three hour block of promotional clips for record companies to promote their new artists on Friday and Saturday nights. "FMTV" had a pretty heavy rotation of New Wave groups, since that was what was being pushed at the time, and also because they were the only videos available. I became very familiar with Laurie Anderson's "O Superman," and Talking Heads "Once In A Lifetime," as well as clips by Snakefinger and Commander Cody. As this programming was primarily being used as filler at the end of a broadcasting day, it came as some surprise when a big corporation started bugging this little podunk station about licensing their name. FM-TV was only one letter away from MTV, and a wad of cash enabled the little station in Broomfield to buy some new videos and take a pledge drive off that year. From then on, FM-TV was called "Teletunes." That's about the time I stopped watching.
Two years later, when I moved into my second apartment, I plugged in my fancy new cable-ready television to find out that I was getting cable "for free." That meant I could watch MTV whenever I wanted. "Veejays" brought music video into my living room twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Once I figured out how to hook my TV up to my stereo, there were very few parties that didn't have a bunch of Cyndi Lauper and Van Halen, introduced by Martha Quinn or Alan Hunter. I didn't care much for Mark Goodman or Nina Blackwood. They were just a little too slick for me, and J.J. Jackson skewed a little old for me at the time. But I watched the seemingly endless stream of music videos that poured out of my set. Night and day. As Billy Idol asserted, "Too much is never enough."
And somewhere in there, in the haze of the late eighties, I stopped watching. Not because they stopped showing music videos. That happened soon enough, but because my attention span grew. These little three minute films were no longer as captivating as the once were. I had aged out of the target demographic. Then, twenty-five years or so later, I found myself watching eighties videos, A to Z, on Saturday morning in bed with my wife. They were on the letter D when I tuned in, and I watched from "Do You Believe In Love" by Huey Lewis all the way to "Don't Leave Me This Way" by the Commundards. In between there was some Phil Collins, some Kix, Culture Club and Peter Gabriel. And after forty-five minutes, I had to get out of bed and get on with my day. It may be Eighties Week on VH1 Classic, but out here, time marches on.