Growing Up with Pop Music and MTV

There is a black-and-white photo from1985 where I'm sitting on my grandma's back porch steps. I'm wearing endless bangle and black jelly bracelets, multiple strands of pearls, and far too much makeup. My hair is ratted high, with a black ribbon headband tied in a floppy bow to hold back my messy curls. All I needed was a pair of lace cut-off gloves, and my Madonna look would have been complete. Even at the age of five, MTV had seeped into my life.

I was born one year and seven months before the rocket launched and The Buggles, "Video Killed the Radio Star" first aired on August 1st, 1981. MTV and I grew up together-we were childhood buddies. Our first meeting occurred in 1985, when I saw Madonna's "Material Girl" video. My older brother introduced me to the world of music videos and I was hooked. As MTV and I grew older, we continued to have similar interests. It wasn't until I first saw the Spice Girls, "Wannabe" video that I began to realize we had grown apart.

I cannot discredit all the wonderful moments we shared together, however. For better or worse, MTV was my touchstone for music, the way I viewed the world, and influenced just about everything pop culture-wise in America to this day. From the videos themselves to shows like The Real World, MTV created the rules by which I lived by.

Chris Connelly, former MTV personality, described how life before MTV was for artists: "Music on TV was in a ghetto. You were so grateful when Elvis Costello turned up on Tom Snyder's show or when the Clash would play Saturday Night Live. So many bands hadn't broken through in any major way. The new wave bands from the Cars or Cheap Trick, to Elvis or the Clash. Their opportunities to make any kind of an impression on television were so few and far between." MTV changed all of this.

What has MTV meant for you?