INTO THE VIDEO VOID

INTO THE VIDEO VOID

Richard Riegel

I can’t believe it.

I can’t believe how much lower the state of MTV’s programming has fallen since I did my last video column just three months ago. I had always feared that MTV would follow FM rock radio’s overnight decline from underground sensation to hidebound establishment, but like an acne chain run amok, MTV has squeezed out wholly new globs of conservative pus in recent weeks.

For instance, I was briefly (foolishly) cheered when MTV premiered their new VH-1 channel a while back. Targeted at 30ish statistics like your reporter, VH-1 would theoretically give the softer forms of "rock,” soul, and country videos a full-time forum, so that regular MTV could get on with heavier rotation of the metal videos the kids were said to be lapping up.

At first, it seemed to be working that way. While I routinely defy my age group’s supposed demographic by despising all types of soft pop, I actually enjoyed watching VH-1 the first few weeks, just to catch up on all the new (to me) videos MTV had kept in the can too long. And I was intrigued by the VH-1 veejays, especially Scott Shannon and Don Imus, who maybe spun softer pop, but were much snottier in their between-vids patter than the mellowed-out yespersons on regular MTV. Since MTV never tries anything without first running it through the marketresearch computer, I assumed that the combo of brash ’jays (like ’60s radio jocks!) and mushy pop had been printed out as the pertect key to unlock us older youngsters’ discretionary income. And I could always punch back to MTV and its Ratt to escape VH-1’s Lionel Richie, any time I wanted.

Well, I regret to inform you that my honeymoon workshop with VH-1 is long gone by now. Maybe the problem is that I tend to watch my videos during evening prime time (workin’ man, y’know), and it does happen to be the heart of the February ratings blitz as I write this, but I can’t tell the difference between MTV and VH-1 any longer. I punch away from Duran Duran or Phil Collins on VH-1, and a few minutes later the same thing (not just the same performer, but the identical video) pops up on MTV.

At least the more parochial programming on the Nashville Network’s Country Music Videos and especially on BET’s Video Soul gives me some refuge from the twin-MTV blandouts, but what’s really scary to me is how MTV’s tightass programming choices tend to dominate the whole pop industry, radio and records included, of course.

I know you’ve read it everywhere, including these pages, just how HOT heavy metal rock is this year, but if you tune into MTV right about now, you’ll never know that. In consulting my notes here, I find two metal videos, Deff Leppard’s “Me And My Wine” and Motley Crue’s “Too Young To Fall In Love,” which I’ve managed to catch on MTV only one time each, despite daily viewing. And these are not struggling new wavers who made a home vid of their goofy friends, these are established Metal Monsters, absolutely as big as the stuff gets! Do they show ’em more often after midnight, when I’m in snooze heaven?

Judging by prime time viewing, I’d guess that MTV prefers the more watered-down varieties of metal, lightweight enough that they can compete directly with Three's Company or whatever horseshit’s on the regular channels. For example, John Parr’s “Naughty Naughty” is big on MTV this week, but he’s just another blond underachiever with a swollen self-image. I’ve seen better pecs on a chest of drawers, and the fantasy sequence about women hanging all over Parr and his Bentley is as farfetched as the Scorpions needing to cage off their female fans. Parr’s just a fifth-hand Robert Plant clone, nothing from nothing = MTV.

Speaking of semi-literate semimetal, MTV has been real insistent in shoving the Firm’s “Radioactive” on us the past few nights. Obviously this is a “performance” video, as between the two of them, Jimmy Page and Paul Rodgers have a working vocabulary almost as large as the average talking dog’s. Let’s face it, these hooters couldn’t conceptualize their way out of a wet paper bag. And even their performance is about as exciting as watching Phil Collins’s beard moult.

Or maybe as boring as the Cars’ “Why Can’t I Have You,” which MTV is featuring as a “Sneak Preview” repeated ad nauseum this week. Let me say simply that I’m TIRED TIRED TIRED of Ric Ocasek’s constant video expression of his difficulties in relating to those icy elegant blonde women he’s coveted ever since his Adam’s apple popped out at age 13. I don’t care how blue-eyed-lonely yer megabucks are making you, Ric, you’ve taken yourself too seriously for far too long now. How ’bout featuring Greg Hawkes in the next Cars video for a change —he looks like someone who could play with a chemistry set or his dong with equal alacrity (& thus come off properly zany in the vid).

Much wiser than the Cars when it comes to automobiles and their uses are the Everly Brothers whose “On The Wings Of A Nightingale” video features Don and Phil rescuing a turquoise ’57 Chevy convertible from a junkyard, and then rehabilitating it into golden metalflake perfection. And here’s the videoland kicker: when the Everlys have their Chevy completed, they ride in it and enjoy it themselves, rather than using it to pick up the inevitable leggy blondes. Coming on in the context of Sammy Hagar and other such moronic motorists, the Everly Brothers’ refreshing video shines as jewel-like as a Zen parable.

Also worthwhile right now is the Pointer Sisters' ‘‘Neutron Dance," the latest in the line of great dancersizers they’ve given us. Forget about the intercut clips of Eddie Murphy acting the fool in Beverly Hills Cop; the Pointer Sisters' shoulder-padded, neon thump aggressive dancing up & down the aisles is the real audiovisual story here.

On the other hand, a story I wouldn’t consider telling my kid is Toto’s "Stranger In Town,” a talky b&w video that seems to be these Hollywood instrumentendorsers’ last desperate stab at proving that they're not as stupid as they so obviously & so richly are. This is the ol* Christ myth “updated,” with mood music appropriate for a Duncan Hines cakemix commercial (at least!). Oh Jeff and Steve, I think it’s just so hea-vee when that drifter stands in the barn door and stretches his arms out just like a cross!

I’d punch off Toto in favor of Bruce Cockburn s “If I Had A Rocket Launcher” any evening of the week. He's an old folkie who's taken up protest music of a sort to complain (in a Quakerly. blackberets-on-the-back-burner earnest style) about U.S. intervention in Central America. I'm surprised that MTV’s yuppie-yuppie computer dares to program this relative agitprop right in the family hour, but maybe the "Rocket” in the title fooled the computer into thinking Cockburn’s the new sci-fi Thomas Dolby.

In parting, I’d like to return to my question as to what happened to all the heavy metal (that used to be) on MTV. If you care about metal—and I’m starting to care more for it now that MTV’s receni programming has made me realize that the same airheads who killed punk have their sights set on rubbing out metal next—you should demand it back now.

And while we’re at it, I’d appreciate a postcard c/o this mag from anyone who’s actually seen Motorhead’s “Killed By Death” video on MTV. When I interviewed the band two months ago, they gleefully furnished me the scenario of that video (in the finale, Lemmy rises from the grave astride a big hog Harley), and promised me it was already on MTV. But I haven’t seen it yet, not once! I demand it NOW. I want my MTV (to at least have "something” to do with the real kids’ popular taste)!