- MTV's effect was immediate in areas where the new music video channel was carried. Within two months, record stores in areas where MTV was available were selling music that local radio stations were not playing, such as Men at Work, Bow Wow Wow and the Human League. MTV sparked the Second British Invasion, with British acts, who had been accustomed to using music videos for half a decade, featuring heavily on the channel.
I still remember that day. Sat there with the television tuned to static, waiting. Didn't know when it was supposed to start, but we sat there and watched static until it did. At first there was no theme, or attempt to mix at all. Just Howard Jones followed by Black Sabbath followed by Midnight Oil followed by Dexy's Midnight Runners, etc. You never knew what was coming next. Then the metal videos began to dwindle, and everything became Pasty Whiny English Dudes - Crowded House, Howard Jones, Tears For Fears, Big Country, Culture Club - so someone decided to start... Metal Shop. All metal videos for 1 hour. It was amazing. Then came AMP. And Liquid Television. And hey! There was even MTV News with gasp! actual news! (Kurt Loder) Not just celebrity gossip! Man... MTV was cool, at one point.
The internet was fun when it was smaller. Punk and country seem so much more heartfelt and authentic the less produced and polished the music is. Somewhere along the line, things often go from being so rough they're good to so polished they're bad. MTV, besides music, was pretty influential for animators, from what I understand, like a socially palatable form of avant garde. Now that I think about it, I see similarities in the archs of MTV and The Internet.