Year 1996
Indian satellite tv space populated by a handful of channels. It was bliss to be freed from the boring clutches of doordarshan. Then, out of nowhere, a channel burst on the scene much like an adolescent guy's first discovery of his own indigenous rocket launching capabilities. MTV India was a boon for the Indian youth and the Indian kids. And a bane for the Indian parent. You didnt have to rely on the radio or your cassette player anymore for your load of daily music. And you could hear it anytime you switched it on. And it was not Indian music alone. There was the occasional Michael Jackson and the rock numbers thrown in for good measure. It was also the channel where I waited for the repeat play of the 'awesomely-indescribable-pleasure-inducing' videos like 'Tanha Tanha' and 'hai Rama yeh kya hua'. Non stop hits meant literally that. Along came channel V and it was fun all around. You could throw away your remote after switching into one of these channels. It was when MTV still meant music television. And it was when we all had our devil horns up for \m/tv.
Year 2006
MTV's got a snazzier new logo. I switched it on in the morning on january 25. I waited. I waited. Days passed. weeks passed. Its february 25. Still I see no signs of music. I rechecked the channel number. I manually tuned it all again. Stil the same. All I get to see is a group of guys and gals sitting on beds and talking non stop nonsense. Some sissies with 'gabbar like' voice where hiding behind bedsheets. There was talk of voting someone out, pulling someone's pant down, pulling someone's 'some clothing accessory' up, beating the hell out of somebody else, twisting someone's arm, poking someone's eyes and what not. There's 'roadies' written on top. But there's no road and there are no bikes. All I get to see is the boring indoors and some utterly boring souls. And there is some bald lunatic screeching his throat out at them as if someone stole his wife on their first night just before the first touch and put a beep machine in his mouth. I also saw the spineless contestants tolerating the bald guy's lewd comments on their girlfriends in the name of stress interviews. I still kept on waiting for that one song played once in a month. One more year down. Now more of reality strikes. 'Splitsvilla' made me split my ass to spray my senses out. 'Where's the music, u morons??', I screamed at those skimpily clad non sense damsels running around 2 absolute losers. I wondered whether they have parents and are they real people. Hopes receded. The next song was heard in MTV after one more year.
Year 2009
MTV suddenly decides to play music. They decide to eat their share of the 'rising Indian rock' pie. And they start yet another reality show, this time 'rock music' is the casualty. Barring a few talented souls, it takes the cake for one of the worst music programmes in history. And there's the 'I know it all-I am cool-you suck-I rock' Nikhil Chinnappa using his DJing knowledge to judge rock music, not that there's anything worthy to be judged out there. And, thus we have the last thing we wanted, commercialisation of India rock music, which was luckily away from the prying eyes of the bollywood bandwagon till now. There were horrible rock reworkings of already pathetic anu malik and Himesh songs in MTV's 'rock on'. Pity on the other 2 learned well respected musicians who accepted the job of being judges in this. Thus was driven the last nail on MTV India's coffin. And yesterday comes the landmark announcement from MTV India- 'We are rubbing off 'music television' from our logo'. Yeah! Do it, now only you are left to do that. We did that some years back. And thats exactly when our proud devil horns changed into that single raised finger of contempt, of pity. I raise it up again to crass commercialisation, to the unreal reality shows, for the bosses at MTV and above all to the music less MTV. Thanks to all for killing the music in MTV.
Unrelated PS(Maybe fully related)- Lalit Modi's shameless idea to get more twitter followers-'Follow me and get Champions trophy final tickets' ! A raised finger to him too! Have some shame, man. Even an LKG kid would think twice before doing such self promotion...
your crusader Praveen
Indian satellite tv space populated by a handful of channels. It was bliss to be freed from the boring clutches of doordarshan. Then, out of nowhere, a channel burst on the scene much like an adolescent guy's first discovery of his own indigenous rocket launching capabilities. MTV India was a boon for the Indian youth and the Indian kids. And a bane for the Indian parent. You didnt have to rely on the radio or your cassette player anymore for your load of daily music. And you could hear it anytime you switched it on. And it was not Indian music alone. There was the occasional Michael Jackson and the rock numbers thrown in for good measure. It was also the channel where I waited for the repeat play of the 'awesomely-indescribable-pleasure-inducing' videos like 'Tanha Tanha' and 'hai Rama yeh kya hua'. Non stop hits meant literally that. Along came channel V and it was fun all around. You could throw away your remote after switching into one of these channels. It was when MTV still meant music television. And it was when we all had our devil horns up for \m/tv.
Year 2006
MTV's got a snazzier new logo. I switched it on in the morning on january 25. I waited. I waited. Days passed. weeks passed. Its february 25. Still I see no signs of music. I rechecked the channel number. I manually tuned it all again. Stil the same. All I get to see is a group of guys and gals sitting on beds and talking non stop nonsense. Some sissies with 'gabbar like' voice where hiding behind bedsheets. There was talk of voting someone out, pulling someone's pant down, pulling someone's 'some clothing accessory' up, beating the hell out of somebody else, twisting someone's arm, poking someone's eyes and what not. There's 'roadies' written on top. But there's no road and there are no bikes. All I get to see is the boring indoors and some utterly boring souls. And there is some bald lunatic screeching his throat out at them as if someone stole his wife on their first night just before the first touch and put a beep machine in his mouth. I also saw the spineless contestants tolerating the bald guy's lewd comments on their girlfriends in the name of stress interviews. I still kept on waiting for that one song played once in a month. One more year down. Now more of reality strikes. 'Splitsvilla' made me split my ass to spray my senses out. 'Where's the music, u morons??', I screamed at those skimpily clad non sense damsels running around 2 absolute losers. I wondered whether they have parents and are they real people. Hopes receded. The next song was heard in MTV after one more year.
Year 2009
MTV suddenly decides to play music. They decide to eat their share of the 'rising Indian rock' pie. And they start yet another reality show, this time 'rock music' is the casualty. Barring a few talented souls, it takes the cake for one of the worst music programmes in history. And there's the 'I know it all-I am cool-you suck-I rock' Nikhil Chinnappa using his DJing knowledge to judge rock music, not that there's anything worthy to be judged out there. And, thus we have the last thing we wanted, commercialisation of India rock music, which was luckily away from the prying eyes of the bollywood bandwagon till now. There were horrible rock reworkings of already pathetic anu malik and Himesh songs in MTV's 'rock on'. Pity on the other 2 learned well respected musicians who accepted the job of being judges in this. Thus was driven the last nail on MTV India's coffin. And yesterday comes the landmark announcement from MTV India- 'We are rubbing off 'music television' from our logo'. Yeah! Do it, now only you are left to do that. We did that some years back. And thats exactly when our proud devil horns changed into that single raised finger of contempt, of pity. I raise it up again to crass commercialisation, to the unreal reality shows, for the bosses at MTV and above all to the music less MTV. Thanks to all for killing the music in MTV.
Unrelated PS(Maybe fully related)- Lalit Modi's shameless idea to get more twitter followers-'Follow me and get Champions trophy final tickets' ! A raised finger to him too! Have some shame, man. Even an LKG kid would think twice before doing such self promotion...
your crusader Praveen
11 comments:
ya ya.. these days lkg kids are also so fast.. but dinno they know who lalit modi is. :P
Honestly I was bewildered at the virus which infected MTV ever since they commenced these live 'acting' progammes. The channel was always our favourite during college days as it was the only one channel which grasped the pulse of the age.
Sad, is there no way out of this mess?
And about Lalit Modi, thanks for informing about his Twitter account. I was thinking of sending him a nice brickbat, perhaps this is the chance. Loser..
I loved the MTV international version, which is the original one!
And about Lalit Modi, the least said the better, for I wouldn't wanna dignify him with my comment!
Haha!
hmmm... so someone else has the same views about MTV, good. Once upon a time, I knew what happened in the world of music everyday. Shows such as 'most wanted', 'MTV select' etc were a boon. Today, I have no idea who are the contemporary sinders, how good are they. Where is the cool album that everyone used to talk about. And I wonder what kind of people watch SplitsVilla
I crave the MTVs of the 1991, with VJ Nonie and the gang. It was cool, they played such nice world music.
I am blogrolling you, hope that is ok....
I completely agree with you. I personally loved the MTV of the 90s no doubt.
But the new avtar of MTV is well received by the younger lot. With the advent of youtube and host of torrent-ing options I dont think today's teens need MTV to cater to their music needs.
Moreover people love that shit on roadies. Its got atleast 50% of the college going crowd hooked onto it. Some of my office people watch it and what more? discuss it during breakfast in office.
I think MTV will not die. It has reshaped itself as always to cater to a niche but growing crowd of yuppie college goers. It was a channel which reinvented TV viewing for teens and it will still do so, i am afraid.
Well written blog though.
I remember watching so many of those great but you dont get to see daily kind of songs in MTV. Really miss them and the albums. Though i did watch Roadies last season :D. Mayb coz of the huge dump of assignments given to us at Mysore or coz of Ranvijay :D (And i do hate Splitsvilla as much as Rakhis swayamvar.. saw the promo of the upcoming Splitsvilla..5 guys 5 girls and 5 couples!!!)
About the follow me n get something thing...Zakk Wyldes doing it...Hes giving away a guitar!!!So follow him!!! :P
lol :-)
Cant Agree More.
Mtv Needs Good old Shows like
mostwanted.Where is the Music Mtv??
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