David Bowie GATHERS Mark Goodman on MTV's lack of diversity

Awkward.

As a testament to how far we have Not come. Dataloungers spend all day everyday complaining about black people, in a nation that is 70+ percent non Hispanic. Nothing is ever white enough and nothing that isn’t white is ever good enough.

I had the hots for Mark Goodman back in the day.

Goodman still looks good. I wonder if he now cringes at his ignorant response to Bowie.

To be fair, MTV had a very limited playset outside of top 40. They played very few 'new wave' videos - and saved that for 120 minutes late night Sundays. It was primarily pop and pop rock.

They later added MTV Raps and some more diverse shows.

College rock, dance, 'black' music - none of that was top 40 and it didn't get played. It's kind of hilarious what songs from the 80's are remembered by MTV, because they act like they were groundbreaking and playing all of these upcoming, alternative bands. No, they weren't.

Mark and that cute face with those DSLs was really hot back in the day.

[quote]To be fair...

There's really no "to be fair" in this case. While it may be true that MTV didn't play much outside the Top 40, they made a marked decision not to play any black artists specifically for the reasons Mark let slip out in that interview. They didn't want Lil' Johnny and Debbie from West Bumfuck, Idaho seeing artists like Prince and Michael Jackson and running to tell mommy and daddy about the scary black men they saw on TV. There's no reason that pop hits like Rock With You and Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough didn't make the rotation from MTV's inception other than the obvious.

Has he never addressed the Bowie thing at all?

he is overcompensating

R6 - both of those MJ songs were released 3 years before MTV launched. They also weren't play Ozzy Osbourne or any hard rock either because they were too scary also.

MTV was just a dumping ground for music companies to promote their pet artists of Top 40.

It was painfully basic sometimes. Also the early 80's was still living in a big pushback from any disco/funk/dance music from the late 70's.

It took them a long fucking time to come around and yes it wasn't very inclusive or representative of the various genres of music in the 80's.

[quote] [R6] - both of those MJ songs were released 3 years before MTV launched. They also weren't play Ozzy Osbourne or any hard rock either because they were too scary also. MTV was just a dumping ground for music companies to promote their pet artists of Top 40. It was painfully basic sometimes. Also the early 80's was still living in a big pushback from any disco/funk/dance music from the late 70's. It took them a long fucking time to come around and yes it wasn't very inclusive or representative of the various genres of music in the 80's.

The network was segregated because they believed putting black people on tv would hurt their bottom line. Keeping in mind that black artists played a pivotal role in the creation of the rock genre. Artists who were inspired by black artists could get their music played but black people could not.

I stopped watching MTV after the New Wave era because too many of the videos they played were rap/urban/hiphop, which I don't like. Even House of Pop on MTV Classic has a lot of the same, which is NOT pop. Thank goodness for YouTube.

Agreed, R10.

I watched MTV non-stop from the beginning in mid 1981 until mid 1984. It used to play a whole lot of Brit Pop, New Wave, punk, ska, and LA punk, along with the Top 40 hits, all of which I loved. Then it opened up into other pop like heavy metal and rap in 1985, which made me lose interest as a suburban white queer boy.

But during that time, Prince and Michael Jackson dominated the channel during 1983, and Tina Turner was the queen of 1984. If Bowie's beef was lack of 'black artists', he's wrong I think. But these I mention were pop artists, first and foremost.

It is correct to say that black R&B and soul were definitely not featured at all for the first few years, and hardly ever in its future. But then again, neither were country, folk, Broadway, opera, classical, and a host of other genres.

While there may be some merit to the accusation that MTV avoided showing some prominent soul and R&B singers of the time, out of some irrational fear of their audience turning off to it (although I'm not signing on to that at the moment), it is not at all true that 'black artists' were ignored, based on my reasons above, and Bowie should have known better. He cashed checks off the back of black artists like Luther Vandross and company for years, and didn't do anything specific to boost their careers either. That Young American needs to have another seat, and I say that as a huge Bowie fan.

I also recall 1982 - 1983 being a constant replay of:

-Joan Armatrading, Lionel Richie, Shannon, Billy Ocean, Rockwell, Kool & the Gang, The Time, Cameo, Ray Parker Jr., Shalamar, Donna Summer, Eddy Grant, Marvin Gaye

They all had hits during that two year period, and MTV played their videos a lot.

The complaint Bowie is making - he should really be looking to the Top 40 for an answer, it's how he got so much airplay and stardom. If you had a hit, the label would push your video, and MTV would play it. It wasn't rocket science, and it wasn't attempting to exclude artists based on skin color, I think.

In my mind, MTV diversified the musical landscape and introduced Americans to lots of global acts and alternative fashions/lifestyles. I'm a Bowie fan, but he is wrong here.

R4 Weird. I hear his soothing voice quite frequently on Sirius but never looked him up to see what he looks like now.

For a while, I could swear MTV played this video once every hour. It was always on.

Yet another reason to like David Bowie.

[quote]The network was segregated because they believed putting black people on tv would hurt their bottom line.

There were black artists performing all over TV in the 60s, 70s and 80s.

Stop trying so hard to rewrite history.

He GATHERS him? That sounds stupid.

Cool clip, though

Michael Jackson broke the color line that’s acknowledged by MTV. Before MJ they wouldn’t play any black artist even with a top 40 hit. It was a monolith of punk variations described in R13s post. Ironically ska which is a bastardized version of reggae was acceptable.. IIRC if you wanted to see black artists you could either watch a program after the Tonight Show Fridays on NBC or Sunday afternoons on ABC. It was segregation at its finest.

After MJ moonwalked on the 25th anniversary of Motown, before a mostly white audience, MJ went from being played on AM black stations to FM in my area.

Not true, R21, I listed a ton of black artists in R14, all of whom were played before during and after Jackson's meteoric rise from Thriller and its singles...

Also recall seeing Prince's 1999 constantly played in the Fall of 1982 and through the next full year. The Thriller singles didn't take off until Spring of 1983.

If we want to discuss breaking a color line, let's talk about 1999, even look at my link below if you don't believe me.

As I mentioned, other black artists were routinely featured prior to Jackson (Herbie Hancock, Eddy Grant, Joan Armatrading, and more).

Stop trying to make "gathers" happen, OP!

[quote] Yet another reason to like David Bowie.

I liked him, but after this, I loved him!

Michael Jackson’s label had to threaten to pull ALL their artists if MTV did play MJ, which they’d steadfastly refused to do. Bowie was absolutely right.

Obviously, the above should read ‘didn’t!’

I don’t know what he’s talking about. I started watching in 1983 and some of the biggest videos of that time were Rockit by Herbie Hancock and All Night Long by Lionel Richie. Obviously the videos from Michael Jackson’s Thriller (title song, Billie Jean and Beat It) were played nonstop as well. One of the biggest albums of 1984 was Private Dancer by Tina Turner, featuring singles like What’s Love Got to Do With and You Better be Good to Me. Before the Purple Rain album came out, Little Red Corvette and 1999 were played a lot. Then came Purple Rain in 1984 and videos for When Doves Cry, Let’s Go Crazy, I Would Die 4 U, Baby I’m a Star…I also remember seeing Sheila E’s Glamorous Life and Love Bizarre played a lot….Another big hit video from either 1983 or 1984 was Part Time Lover by Stevie Wonder. Easy Lover by Phil Collins and Philip Bailey…

Also Musical Youth, Donna Summer and Eddie Grant in 83-84.

This was when being "woke" actually meant something. Bowie is totally right. There's a reason he's my favorite rock star of all time.

I nearly forgot Whitney Houston’s album (her first, I think?) that had the hit videos I Wanna Dance With Somebody, The Greatest Love of All, How Will I Know and Saving All My Love for You…this was 85 or 86.

[quote] But during that time, Prince and Michael Jackson dominated the channel during 1983, and Tina Turner was the queen of 1984. If Bowie's beef was lack of 'black artists', he's wrong I think.

Rewatch the clip. Goodman explicitly states that MTV couldn't play Prince because he would terrify white kids from the Midwest. Bowie was totally right, though the interview may have taken place pre-1983.

[quote] He GATHERS him?

Yes. Gramps.

Bowie is right. It’s why BET was created, so there could be an outlet for black artists’ videos. The caucazoids in here just don’t want to admit it.

OP, 'gather' is a verb meaning collect, assemble, congregate mean to come or bring together into a group, mass, or unit.

It's a transitive verb with a plural object.

Are you a newcomer to the English language?

They did not play black artists prior to MJ, and they only did him because his label forced them to. After that, it changed.

David Bowie came ready. He was part tough journalist, part lawyer. I loved the camera zoom in on his face!

R34 is typing from 1983

R37 is typing from 2073

[quote] [R34] is typing from 1983

Really.

A lesson R34/grandpa — to “gather” someone is a colloquialism for handling someone. The urban dictionary describes it as follows:

“When a person tries to come for you or question you and your authority, you retaliate with pure indiscriminate justice. This often times makes the victim embarrassed, ashamed or belitted.”

Goodman didn’t necessarily come for Bowie, but he did prattle off a lot of ignorance, which Bowie handled and/or countered subtly and succinctly.

It is widely known that MTV would not play black artists before Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” hit. On one hand, MJ’s record company demanded that MtV play him. But it’s also true that MtV risked becoming totally irrelevant because MJ and Prince had huge crossover appeal. Ironically, it was mainstream rock which wouldbecome marginalized and now is all but extinct.

Some of you 'music history experts' need to read some of the posts in the thread, and the articles linked.

MTV did indeed play black artists prior to Jackson, as has been stated above - a list of regularly played pre-MJ black artists has appeared in several posts, including Prince's 1999, which predated any of MJ's Thriller singles. Each and every artist that was played, including MJ, did help the issue, but MJ was not the floodgate to overall equality on the airwaves, and Bowie was wrong to make it sound worse than it was.

The bottom line here is, MTV played what they had licenses to play from the labels, and based it as heavily as they could on radio airplay, public interest and Top 40 chart positions. A large amount of black artists had major and minor hits prior to Thriller, and MTV played them in heavy rotation alongside the New Wave and other genres.

[quote] Ironically, it was mainstream rock which wouldbecome marginalized and now is all but extinct.

Yes, there was so much variety in 80s music. So many genres and countries were represented. As black artists became more represented, music became more bland ironically.

[quote] Yes. Gramps.

Here we go again. 40-year-old Datalounger Of Color calls another, maybe slightly older (?) Datalounger “Gramps” for not immediately recognizing yet another inane bit of ghetto slang.

“Gramps” is the ultimate put-down. You know you might as well be dead if you don’t bow down and acknowledge that the New Way is better, no matter how obscure or retarded it may seem to People Of Taste.

I read all the MTV VJ's books and Mark is a grudge collecting asshole with a lot of bitterness. If I recall correctly he was pissed at Bowie (and probably still pissed) and felt ambushed.

Bowie also accused MTV of only playing black artists very late at night or early in the morning. As if he had a playlist in front of him and could glean that information.

Bowie is a legend, but his grand standing for 'black artists' in this clip, as a general concept, is very boneheaded. There are a ton of different artists who are black, and those who were very popular on the radio and Top 40 were heavily played throughout the day and night on MTV. There is no 'black' genre. Bowie is projecting his own guilt for exploiting soul music in the 70s.

Bowie also claimed to have watched some black videos on some other channel, which he couldn't recall the name of, and why doesn't MTV use those videos too...

If you're such an advocate, why don't you remember the name of the channel or network? Name some artists and their hits from that channel, and then you might have a real point.

[quote] Here we go again. 40-year-old Datalounger Of Color

Your blatant racism and presumptuous, shitty attitude renders whatever drivel you had to say after this flagrantly ignorant sentence almost as pointless as your ho-hum life surely must be.

There had to be some truth to what Mark said, otherwise he wouldn’t have risked getting himself and the channel that paid him in trouble, and he would have countered Bowie’s comments with the same “facts” presented upthread by the various DL musical “scholars.” Suffice it to say, he’s lucky that he didn’t conduct that Bowie interview today, otherwise he would have most assuredly been cancelled.

[quote]After MJ moonwalked on the 25th anniversary of Motown, before a mostly white audience, MJ went from being played on AM black stations to FM in my area.

Are you joking?

Michael Jackson was a star with a string of hits dating back to1970. He was a familiar face on TV. He fucking starred in "The Wiz". All years before MTV.

It's crazy the way some of you just make up shit.

Seriously, R49.

I'm not impressed with our sisters here. The concept of airplay of black music, along with the great influence of soul upon rock and roll, the machinations of a new company looking to capitalize on and define 80s Pop, along with the egos of David Bowie and Mark Goodman, all present a number of nuances to any argument here.

MJ was a pop star, and he was never looked at as a soul, blues, or R&B performer, unless you want to talk about his time in the Jackson 5 as a child. By the time Rock the Wall and Thriller came out, he was no longer a 'black artist' of any kind. He was a very talented musician with extremely broad appeal. His mega-rise to pop stardom had no effect on black music, soul or otherwise, and it did not open any doors for black artists to be featured on MTV. MJ is an outlier here.

We should really be talking about Prince, because that is what Mark Goodman even brought up himself. They indeed played Prince all the time, when this interview was taken, and Mark even said as much. I also think Mark was speaking the truth that certain households were very offended by Prince's (sexual) antics on stage. While I agree that these households needed to get over it, Mark was indeed speaking the truth, regardless of how unpleasantly Bowie received it. But Prince was more of a trailblazer for 'black artists' than MJ was, simply because Prince 'acted more black' than MJ did, 1999 predated Thriller by several months, and Prince's music spawned dozens of other black artists' popularity who followed him, many from his scene in Minneapolis.

I was there watching that interview when it came out, and I was there watching MTV from the beginning. There were many black artists featured in the early years, and it's a huge insult to these artists to suggest otherwise. As I've said before, Bowie's exploitation of black singers in his prior years, his exploitation of aboriginal culture in the Let's Dance video, which was released just before that interview, and the vast success Bowie enjoyed by whitewashing black music for much of his career, makes Bowie a hypocrite in this interview.

*Off the Wall

I will Oh Dear myself

Bowie was a nasty pedo, raped boys and girls...

We are the goon squad, and we're coming to town.

Did anyone look at Prince and just see black though? Even if you did it’s not the same kind of black that many white people found scary back then. He was small and light skinned with “white” features. He didn’t look like Ving Rhames for God Sake.

I wish we would also look at THAT angle of racism.

MTV played VERY FEW black artists prior to MJ, but VERY FEW is the key. They didn’t even play his sister Janet until late 80s.

And they usually played them late at night when no one was watching or early morning. Never prime time.

[quote]MJ was a pop star, and he was never looked at as a soul, blues, or R&B performer, unless you want to talk about his time in the Jackson 5 as a child. By the time Rock the Wall and Thriller came out, he was no longer a 'black artist' of any kind.

Who cares?

MJ's career is what it was.

And why did MTV have any obligation to anyone?

The Lawrence Welk Show had its audience, Soul Train had its audience, American Bandstand had its audience. MTV had theirs.

Is "gather" some kind of new SJW gobbledygook term?

I’m pretty sure Soul Train had a very diverse audience, surprisingly

[quote] MJ was a pop star, and he was never looked at as a soul, blues, or R&B performer, unless you want to talk about his time in the Jackson 5 as a child. By the time Rock the Wall and Thriller came out, he was no longer a 'black artist' of any kind.

Historically, black music has always had broad appeal. We were just coming off a decade where the dominant form of music was disco. Prince's music wasn't as popular because it wasn't as good. Period. There is zero musical diversity today and it has nothing to do with skin color.

Mark Goodman addressed this in a documentary about the early days of MTV. He said it was one of his most regrettable moments.

Also, even the VJs have said that MTV would only play black artists at like 3am. Not 7pm when people were watching.

R61, link please.

When MTV first came out it wanted their public image to be that they were hip and cutting edge. A combination of progressive sounding Top-40 and New Wave was their bread and butter. They realized they had had to branch out to different music genres including heavy metal, R&B, rap, soul, so long as it seemed cool, but they had to incorporate it gradually so as to not turn-off their established audience. Michael Jackson's Thriller success allowed them to do just that.

[quote] The complaint Bowie is making - he should really be looking to the Top 40 for an answer, it's how he got so much airplay and stardom. If you had a hit, the label would push your video, and MTV would play it.

Exactly. If early MTV was predominantly white music, it's because Top 40 radio at that time was predominantly white. Bowie should have directed his complaints at Top 40 radio and the music labels, not at MTV. MTV played black artists if they were in the Top 40, like Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie, Tina Turner, Stevie Wonder, Sheila E., Billy Ocean, etc. All of those artists got a shit ton of MTV airplay. It's true that MTV never played many soul or blues artists, but that's because MTV was geared toward a young audience, and U.S. teens in the 1980s weren't into blues and soul.

[quote] They didn’t even play his sister Janet until late 80s.

Janet's first Top 40 hit was "What Have You Done for Me Lately." MTV played that video, and all the others from the "Control" album, in heavy rotation. MTV helped make Janet the success she was.

When was this a thing? We got cable in 1982 and it was a huge deal when Thriller premiered on MTV and for awhile, they showed it every hour on the hour and it was 15 minutes long! I also remember watching Prince videos, the Pointer Sisters, Lionel Ritchie, Sade, many other black artists. MTV debuted in August 1981, so this ban on black artists must have been very short-lived.

Billie Jean premiered on 3/10/83 , so a year and a half of "whites only". As noted, it only played after Arista threatened to pull all their artists off the channel. The Thriller video premiered in December 1983.

Billie Jean didn’t play on MTV nonstop though

R39 The David Bowie/Mark Goodman interview was in 1983

The Urban Dictionary funky definition was written in 2017 by that noted etymological authority named '_PuPu'.

As many of you have chimed in with, I as well was watching MTV from the very beginning & can vouch that the channel was indeed playing black artists from Day 1. Long before her big comeback Tina Turner's "Ball Of Confusion" was in rotstion. I learned about Prince & Garland Jeffreys through MTV. In fact, Jeffreys was getting exposure on the channel while he was virtually being ignored by every other outlet for music at the time, even being interviewed more than once on MTV. Also, as someone else has already pointed out, MTV had a format, like every other radio or television show/channel, and they were entitled to doing so. MTV was never about white vs. black artists. It was about rock music. Although, reggae like Bob Marley, Eddy Grant, Jimmy Cliff & Musical Youth all received regular play. In retrospect, as musical tastes changed I'd say that MTV adjusted their programming very swiftly. It wasn't too long after more R&B and urban based music took over radio that the channel began to air the correlating videos. Same is true for hip-hop & rap. Anyone who challenges this is simply supplying dialog for their own self-serving narrative.

I have no patience for history revisionists who were not even there & who rely on undependable hearsay to further an agenda. Bowie getting in Mark Goodman's face about MTV's programming choices is kinda like an angry shopper getting in a cashier's face about a store's pricing. Go to the top if you got a problem, bud. And if Bowie truly believed in his cause he had pull enough to deny MTV access to his material--concerts, videos & interviews, or at the very minimum make it known that that was his wish. So I guess he wasn't thaaaaat interested in more black representation on the channel. So while it's been a popular story to tell otherwise, for being an outlet that initially focused on a rock format MTV featured plenty of black talent in its formative years.

Mark said what he said. He wouldn't have said it if it wasn't true.

[quote] And why did MTV have any obligation to anyone?

They didn't, but that doesn't mean Bowie couldn't ask about its policy regarding black artists.

[quote] MTV debuted in August 1981, so this ban on black artists must have been very short-lived.

There was no official BAN as I'm sure you know. MTV just didn't play many black artists unless they were super mainstream. Maybe that was also more-or-less true of white artists, which Goodman was free to say if he pleased (and if it were the case). He could have said "Top 40's our thing," but obviously that wasn't really the image MTV wanted to project. It just didn't want to go TOO far to be edgy.

MTV played mostly adult alternative and some subgenres of rock at first. They didn’t even do full on pop music until around 1983 or 1984.

MJ and Madonna are who really made it a POP music phenomenon with a few others like Cyndi Lauper etc. and then the late 80s we had Paula Abdul, Janet, NKOTB etc.

[quote] Mark said what he said. He wouldn't have said it if it wasn't true.

Yeah, it's a little kooky how some posters here keep arguing that MTV never had the slightest hesitation about airing black artists, when Goodman himself admits that they did. It's also bizarre that some people are finding it so offensive that Bowie would dare to open a conversation on this topic.

Ooh, R74 really "gathered" some peeps!

Ha. I'd assumed "gathers" was a typo when I saw it in the thread title, but apparently not.

Agree, R74. But, that’s the world we live in.

The question I have is why are black artists so underrepresented in rock. Wasn't Jimmi Hendrix a rock pioneer? Wasn't Prince a rock god? What the hell happened?

Rock is for oldies.

Rock is for Gramps, R32.

David Bowie died of old age.

Another thing that gets under my skin is when posters assume that Michael Jackson isn't important because he didn't sing soul or blues (which he did on occasion), which Goodman rightly points out was considered old fashioned even in 1983. What's more discriminatory if you ask me is trying to pigeonhole black artists or say they shouldn't do pop. Do people have selective amnesia or something? From Motown to Disco, black artists have always been in the pop charts. It's also strange to me when people go after MTV in 1983, which if you ask me was the beginning of a golden period.

R78 I saw a video recently that spoke about how rock was actually born through black people but made popular through white people.

Then people ask why The Supremes had Diana as the lead vocalist. It’s self explanatory to me. Her voice was thinner, like many white pop singers and translated to mainstream pop stations well. She is why they were big and broke barriers. Flo or Mary singing lead would have kept them in a black bubble. Diana brought them to mainstream white America.

R74 you are right and I bet the people arguing that MTV was diverse from day one are our usual Right wing trolls trying to stir up race trouble. MTV started out limiting black artists period. They were trying not to offend the mid-western (proto-Deplorable) population. Remember this is coming not long after the “I Hate Disco” era where racist whites equated disco with blacks, hispanics and gays. The racists made it clear that they wanted hard rock by whites for whites. But the truth is that by that time in the youth market minorities had powerful economic and creative clout. New wave, hip-hop and modern pop swept away the dinosaurs of the 1970s. MTV HAD to shift or die.

R84 Disco died out because it reached its saturation point and people were drawn to punk and new wave. It had nothing to do with it being black, which it mostly was, but because it got played out. David Bowie even released a song called Fashion which mocked the genre. Black artists found success in other genres because they learned to adapt just like white artists. They also helped bring R&B into the modern era which culminated into its own golden era in the 90s. Hispanics also moved on from disco and freestyle music became hugely popular in the 80s. Gays were also well represented in new wave and even hard rock artists were experimenting with gender expression during the decade. The revisionist history is so disgusting and smacks of a political agenda.

[quote] you are right and I bet the people arguing that MTV was diverse from day one are our usual Right wing trolls

Is that why every time there is a thread celebrating 80s culture, there always has to be some far left loon coming over to ruin the party? The 80s was all about free and creative expression.

[quote] Is that why every time there is a thread celebrating 80s culture, there always has to be some far left loon

You just outed yourself, Trumpstain.

[quote]The question I have is why are black artists so underrepresented in rock. Wasn't Jimmi Hendrix a rock pioneer? Wasn't Prince a rock god? What the hell happened?

It's like a vampire slayer- into each generation a black rock act is born.

It's as if only one or two black rock acts can exist in each era. Pre-dating Hendrix is Chuck Berry, maybe even Fats Domino. Prince had the 80s covered (some even throw in Fishbone despite it beign ska). Some consider Tina Turner a rock act. 90s had Living Colour. 2000s Lenny Kravitz and TV on the Radio.

[quote]A lesson [R34]/grandpa — to “gather” someone is a colloquialism for handling someone. The urban dictionary describes it as follows:

Only among the retarded.

Note to self: if someone uses the word "gather" like this, don't hire them.

[quote]They were trying not to offend the mid-western (proto-Deplorable) population. Remember this is coming not long after the “I Hate Disco” era where racist whites equated disco with blacks, hispanics and gays.

This is just so ridiculous..

As R85 noted, Disco came to its end because it was played out. Trends in music come and go.

Perhaps the most important factor was the advent was AIDS. The climate had changed. The sexy hedonistic 70s were over and with it, its soundtrack. Racism had absolutely nothing to do with it.

And all of this business about a ban on blacks to safeguard white sensibilities is the rewriting of history. What on earth are you talking about?

James Brown, Ike and Tina, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Jackie Wilson, Little Stevie Wonder, Motown etc and etc....all massively popular. All with top 10 hits.

Watch the clip below and LEARN something. This is a TV show called "Shindig". (1964-66). It wasn't some obscure cable show. This was ABC and it aired at 8PM. And this is just a sample.

Great explanation r83. Thinner voices do tend to appeal to American whites for some reason, whereas Europeans tend to like the more powerful, heavy soulful voices that black Americans have and love.

R90 Americans don't like " powerful, heavy soulful voices"? Then please explain the huge success of Aretha Franklin, James Brown, Ray Charles, Tina Turner, Janis Joplin etc.

[quote]whereas Europeans tend to like the more powerful, heavy soulful voices

Hilarious. Have you ever even heard European pop music?

I'm not sure how David Bowie can be so high and mighty here, just a few years earlier he was out of his mind of cocaine and making fascist pronouncements while playing his Thin White Duke persona. He and other early MTV staples like the Rolling Stones and Madonna achieved fame largely because they stole/borrowed from black and hispanic musicians. How much input did the early VJs actually have in deciding which videos would be played?

[quote] Only among the retarded.

To which you are their elderly Queen.

Whatever you say, Princess Corky.

[quote] I'm not sure how David Bowie can be so high and mighty here,

He lied, claiming to be gay. He culturally appropriated, taking ethnic women as display pieces. He was unhealthy, dying at a comparatively young age.

R66 says "Billie Jean premiered on 3/10/83 , so a year and a half of "whites only"."

As has been mentioned upthread, it was not whites only at all. That first year and a half saw Prince's 1999 (premiered September 1982), coming off the heels of many other black artists featured in heavy rotation during the first year and a half: Tina Turner, Eddy Grant, Musical Youth, Joan Armatrading.

While it's true that the white was a vast majority, so was Top 40 in general at the time.

R9, Ozzy was actually in heavy rotation too. His live versions of Iron Man and Paranoid were in heavy rotation in 1982. Iron Maiden, Triumph, and many other hard rock acts were also featured in the very early broadcasts.

Those SHIT metal/hair bands got way too much exposure on MTV in the late 80s. God, it was awful. They gave that genre far too much attention than it deserved.

R84, if MTV was trying to not offend midwestern sensibilities, then why the hell were they showing songs like this? This one was playing nonstop throughout 1982.

There were a ton of very gay or gay acting Brit pop acts during this era you proclaim as coming after the Disco Sucks era, and they were on full display in early MTV. New Wave was seen as cutting edge, as has been posted above, so MTV felt hip in showing these kinds of videos, despite how in your face they were with gay sensibility.

I remember Donna Summer's "She Works Hard For the Money" getting a lot of airplay on MTV. That was at the same time as MJ and Thriller.